Undique

When I was in college, I took two semesters of Latin. I have no idea why... I seem to recall something about the romanticism of it. It birthed so many other languages, so I guess I thought I would gain some greater insight into the structure of words themselves if if figured out where so many of them came from.

It sucked. Like Pacino in that one Godfather movie, "I thought I was out, but they pulled me back in." (I needed two language credits in the same language, so I had to see it through to the end.) 

My professor was a dear. One of those lumbering, awkward Mensa guys who had awful teeth, smoked two packs of Marlboro Reds a day, was a no-show to class often more than his students, and prided himself on his verbosity. There were times when he would pound his fist on the desk and shout at us, with a sort of gutteral lisp, "Okay, I'll say it one more time. The antecedent of the reflexive pronominal is indicative of number and gender, but the case is determined by the syntactic necessity of the clause! Jesus Christ, you motherfuckers, how many times do I need to tell you that?!" I still have absolutely no idea what the means, but I can hear him say it in my mind, it makes me laugh a little, so I've long-since committed it to memory. He was a pretentious douchebag.

Still, he bent over backwards to make sure the lesser among us at least got a passing grade. We were supposed to have four or five tests per semester; he gave us a test every week, instead, so we could do our darnedest to level out our curve a little. I think I walked away from each semester with a C, which I was thoroughly happy about. For me, simply passing Latin was good enough. I suuuucked at it.

And so did a few others. So, we formed a study group. We'd meet at the library once or twice a week, and try to cobble our thoughts into something useful — the takeaways from that week of teachings. Screw syntax, usage, all that jazz... we were just trying to get the vocabulary down. We did the flash card thing: Latin on the front, english on the back.

I remember only two things from two semesters of Latin. The phrase, "Quintus festinat ad ludum" ("Quintus, who did walk to school," though that might still be wrong), and the word, "undique." (Pronounced oon-DEE-kay.)

While we were flash-carding, we tried to come up with clever little pneumonics for each word. The memory-hack for this word came from the dude with the bright-red hair. "Undique. it means, 'from all sides.' So... women like 'undique'... from all sides." Since I've always had the sense of humor of a 13-year-old, I chuckled.

Today, whenever someone mentions something coming at you "from all sides," I still remember that word. It kicks through my brain like a reflexive knee jerk. Undique. Heh. Heh heh. In hindsight, I should have taken Spanish... a language that people, you know, have spoken in the last 1,500 years... But, at least, I got a fun dick joke out of it. 

Speaking of which. I'm not gonna say much. You've all been reading the news. You all have your own points of view and your own life experiences and your own circumstances that determine how you're approaching/dealing with this whole Coronavirus nonsense. And whether your scared, frustrated, inconvenienced, or any number of the above... well, yo también. This virus is some weird stuff, yo. And it feels like it's coming at us undique.

That being said, I'm not gonna go on for too long about Coronavirus, and it's likely not going to be the topic of many future posts. That's not why you fellas are here. But, I will share my experiences so far, just so you have an idea. 

In the last couple of weeks, the number of cases here in Spain have gone from only a few hundred to, at today's count, just a little over 13,000. The country instituted a (very civilized) lockdown, with travel in-and-out being very difficult, and not terribly advised. In the local large town, everything has been shut down. I read an article in the New York Times about how, when France shuttered its bars and restaurants, it "struck to the soul" of the French lifestyle. Same here — Spanish bars are the lifeblood this country, and knowing that they're all closed is... eerie. 

I have some friends in Madrid, and they're saying that it's "like August." That's when it gets really, really hot in Madrid, so the tourists stop coming, and all the madrileños head to the mountains, or to the beaches, where there's some relief from the heat. "But, moreso," they say.

The only things that are open, nationwide, are supermarkets, pharmacies, healthcare centers, and that small handful of essential government services (the post office, for instance, but even there, hours are limited to only a few a day). So far, so good — food supples seem to be keeping up with demand. Yours truly is not in any fear of running out of brandy, which is pretty damned essential. And, I have enough tobacco to last me for a few weeks, at least. 

I'm sure, wherever you live, that you've seen elements of this: the news and social media broadcasting videos of people getting into fistfights over toilet paper, and we think things are falling apart; but then, in your day to day interactions, this sense of calm. It's a tense calm, no doubt about that. Not like people are trying their best to repress their most animal of instincts; instead, it's that we're all stressed, we know we're all stressed, but we're all stressed about the same thing, and for once, after so many years of so much of our stress being the result of other people, our stress is coming from... something fucking else. There's an odd sort of solidarity to that. It's humanizing and, in spite of how terrible this whole situation is, somehow oddly refreshing. 

Someone mentioned that this could be generation-defining in a 9/11 kind of way. That we'll look back in 20 years, and realize that this was a defining moment in our culture, and was responsible for a shift in our worldview. Usually, such a status is reserved for things like wars, where there are definable enemies, or whole ethnic groups whose "fault it is." Not so, this time. 

Can a natural disaster be era-defining? No, I don't think so. Not for everybody. I've been through a few hurricanes, and lost everything during one of them, save for the one suitcase of stuff I put into the back of the car when we evacuated. It was era-defining for me, but not for people in California. Many of them felt awful, I'm sure, but their lives were unaffected. If there was a massive earthquake in San Francisco later this month, I would feel terrible for the people whose lives were turned upside town, and for the pain of it. But my life (not to seem callous) would continue on somewhat unchanged. 

How about the death of someone famous? My mom was 12 when Kennedy was assassinated. She remembers everyone in her classroom being brought out into the hallway, and told to face the lockers (not sure of the reason for this). And then, teachers walked down the hall to make the announcement that the president had been killed in Dallas. This was an era-defining moment for her. But to a 12-year-old in the UK? Light a candle, thoughts and prayers, but life basically returns to normal. 

But a virus. Something that lacks intelligence or intent, that carries with it all sorts of eerie uncertainties: incubation period, between 2 and 14 days; symptoms, mild fever and a tickley throat or complete respiratory failure; vector point, human-freakin'-contact; cure... stay inside and catch up on Netflix? Seems kinda... bleak. 

But! We're humans. And we are a hearty, adaptable lot, with our big brains and opposable thumbs. And we've gotten through nasty stuff before. 

You know what one of my favorite eras of cinema is? Trashy, huge-budget action flicks of the late '90s. I'm talking Independence Day, Armageddon, Deep Impact, Volcano, The Rock, True Lies (though man, that one aged poorly), Face/Off, Mission: Impossible, Broken Arrow, GoldenEye (Temple, slaps-only, one-hit-kills, no OddJob), Con Air, Starship Troopers — those. Films like this hit that sweet spot between special effects, money to burn, star power, and that quintessential American braggadocio. 9/11 hadn't happened yet. We didn't feel so scared that normalcy would be taken away from us. 

Yeah... Those of you who lived during that time period, you know what I'm talking about. That period of time between when we had this crazy capacity to do insane, grand things, just for the sake of doing them. When there was no enemy that was so great that we couldn't overcome it. There were nukes to disarm, and alien invasions to prevent from invading us, threats from outer space itself... But we're humans, dammit.

But, that was back then. And this is now. We don't need to drill into the Asteroid, or disarm the nuke, or get rid of the VX Nerve Gas on Alcatraz, or swap faces with Francis Coppola's nephew, or get rid of extra-tresstral bugs. We just do what we can, to be the action heroes we need, right now.

Wash your hands. More than you feel you need to. Try to not rub your nose or rub your eye. If you're locked down, like me, go for a walk every now and then, and maintain the standard 6 feet. Don't be a dummy, like me, and assume that it's ok to stand too close to anyone because you're afraid you're going to offend someone (lest you feel worried for the next few days). Yell at your parents to stay inside, just like they used to ground you. 

This can be a time that breaks us, or it can be a time that brings us together. Even if we're practicing social distancing. 

In my case, I'm cooking a lot. Practicing good sterilization methods, just so everyone feels comfy, and just in case. I've got some reeeeallly old neighbors, and I've put together a good, nutritious gumbo for them a couple of times. It only costs me a couple of bucks to cobble together something for my very-own-at-risk-old-folk. That's how I'm disarming the nuke. 

Be well, all of you. For you lovely folk who have made it this far (and for the rest of you), thanks for the patience. It's been an adjustment period over here with your dear old Heather. I'll make it up to you in the next 11 days before Patreon charges you again. Lots to come. Hopefully, undique.

Oh, and this picture. A preview. We should all have a quarantine hobby. Mine has been making hot sauce. Stumbled into a batch of habaneros. I have the very best recipe. That'll be next.