With apologies to Gabriel García Márquez.

Life in the past week has definitely take a turn. We’ve gone from, “this might be bad” to losing about 30% of the market value of the stock market, and basically the country is shutting down.

I’d like to quote R.E.M. and say “It’s end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine” but the truth is more complex. Physically, I feel fine. I don’t think I have the Coronavirus, but of course I can’t say for sure.  I’m not really worried about myself. I’ve been working from home for years and so already had reduced the vector of working in crowded offices. But, of course my wife has been working in an office (though tomorrow her job will become “work from home”) and my son just came home from college for a break of now unknown length and my daughter’s school started a mandatory closure with some sort of undefined “remote teaching”. It’s still unclear what teachers will do what, but I hope by the end of the week they’ll be able to have a more robust teaching rubric in place.

I’ve been thinking a lot about toilet paper lately. We picked up some more rolls, just in case, but we’re far from hoarding (unlike the story of one family of four I read about on Facebook that apparently was caught trying to bypass the rules at a supermarket and buying 16 packs of 24 rolls of toilet paper: yes, they were trying to buy a total of 384 rolls of toilet paper in one day!)

But I’d by lying if I didn’t say there was a certain about of dread on my mind. Things are going to get worse before they get better.  I’ve been monitoring a site out of Johns Hopkins that seems to have accurate and fairly up to date data on the spread of the Coronavirus. The numbers aren’t great.  If the spread continues according to some models, we could be looking at a death toll in the US of 500,000-1 million or more.  These are staggering numbers. Now, to be clear, with social distancing and other measures, I have reason to hope the numbers will be 1/10th of those numbers, but even that’s a good sized number.

And of course there’s the aforementioned drop in the value of the stock market, and I honestly think it will only get worse.  If the worse case death tolls come in, we’re looking at a fundamental shake-up of our economy. Couple that with some of the possible mid-term effects as people face bankruptcy due to income loss and longer term changes that may result as a result of social changes. For example I’ve seen one headline suggesting that cinemas may simply not make a comeback after people stop going and just watch them at home. This is all scary and worrisome. And it’s bigger than toilet paper.

But more importantly, I’ve been thinking about families. I’ve written about this before and I’ve mentioned #SQLFamily. With Social Distancing being the current buzzwords, it’s put a damper on getting together with people. I know it’s so tempting to call up some friends and say, “hey, let’s get together and play games” but that sort of negates the point of social distancing.

My families, virtual and my biological one give me hope and cause to celebrate. On the RPI based chat program I use, Lily, it’s been great to see how one whole discussion is pretty much focused on a fact-based exchange of ideas. Even those of us on separate ends of the political spectrum are basically exchanging facts and mostly keeping emotions in check. This has been a useful place to learn a lot.

And on Twitter and elsewhere, it’s been remarkable to see #SQLFamily come together. Last Friday, and coming again this Friday, one of our members hosted a Zoom Chat where #SQLFamily members could just hang out and chat. Yeah, we talked about TP, and power outages in Johannesburg, and other topics, but it was mostly fun small talk. It was a reminder, that there are real people behind the Twitter handles and tweets. I’ve seen my #SQLFamily members send tweets about the success of their own family members and of their own hopes and fears.

Having gone to a technical college, and usually surrounded by folks who are self-identified geeks, sometimes it can be tempting to think we’re all just emotionless people driven by facts and data, human version of Star Trek’s Mr. Spock or Data, but the reality is, the families I’ve surrounded myself with are an amazing, resilient, group of people. And I think that’s probably true of most of us. It’s tempting to think “my group is special” and in some ways every group is, but at the end of the day, I think what unites us is greater than what separates us. Yes, fortunately I think my virtual families tend to make decisions a bit more based on facts than some groups, but we still share the same humanity deep down.

So, is there a tinge of dread on the horizon of my mind, yes. But I also see the sun rays of hope peaking above the clouds and know that the next weeks, months and possibly year or more will be rough. Some of us may lose loved ones. And I hate to type that, but it’s true. But, life will go on and we’ll find a new normal and we will do so by maintaining our relationships, physical and virtual.

My advice, during these times, reach out, expand your virtual relationships. Find hope and happiness where you can and share your fear, sadness, and sorrow when you need to.

Do small acts of kindness.

And I make the following offer:

If you’re down and need to talk or even just a cheer-up hit me up on twitter @stridergdm or if you know me on Facebook, private message me. If you want to join me on Lily, let me know, I’ll set you up with an account and a client. It’s mostly RPI folks, but not exclusively. If you really need it, we can even to a Zoom chat to talk about anything, from the role of the little known Saturn IV stage to talking about the Hudson River Chain at West Point during the Revolutionary War to recipes for air fryers, I’m there.

I’m going to close with a bit of randomness, because, well I think we need it.

A random cow sighting at a local Walmart.