Come on, hit me with your best shot

By Hannah Hayes

Published Jan. 29, 2008

Today is the fifth day of my life without Heath Ledger in it, and I’m still reeling.

Don’t misunderstand: celebrities typically make me nauseated. I’d prefer the Wayans brothers donate their next film budget to orphanages in Sudan and Ashlee Simpson to stop making top 40 hits loosely veiled with schizophrenia.

But the reason why the day Heath Ledger died is so significant to me is because it was the first moment in a long time I felt truly surprised; the kind of surprised or shocked where your stomach churns and you honestly can’t wrap your head around the event in question. What I think would be equivalent to being hit by a public transit vehicle or Robert Goulet’s making me eggs Benedict tomorrow morning.

I know this must sound all shades of pathetic to compare my reaction to Heath Ledger’s death with such magnanimous events, but I feel as though very few things blindside me anymore.

I can remember the last time I felt truly inadequate, which was roughly an hour ago when I saw an Animal Planet commercial featuring a man who rescues chimpanzees from horrible living conditions, ball cutters in hand.

I know the last time I was sincerely happy; when Barack Obama won the South Carolina primary, thus sticking it to Hill-dawg again. And this morning as I almost dropped my toothbrush on the floor to be covered in nondescript fuzz and hair, I was fairly terrified.

But shock and awe are feelings that just don’t seem to visit my perception much.

I can only think of two times before Ledger’s death that could qualify as “whoa”: Carl Bernstein’s ex-wife shooing my towel clad body out of a smoke filled dorm and when Anna Nicole Smith died.

Maybe it’s genetic. My mother could probably tell you the plot twist to M. Night Shyamalan’s new movie pre-production.

But I think that my reaction to Smith’s death is the reason why for weeks on end even all Wolf Blizter could talk about was her death.

We didn’t see it coming, and as Americans with our Doppler radar, our security analysts and our blackberries, we’re programmed to expect the unexpected. So much so that the terms “suicide bomber” and “casualty” don’t faze us.

I’m not sure if globalization is to blame, but I feel we’re over-connected. The products of progress lead us to be less aware of the lengths it takes for the gears of society to turn, so instead of standing in wonder of the variety of food in my fridge or saying thank you to my garbage man, I concern myself with a handsome actor’s passing.

I want to go back to the days where kids went ape-crap if they found a piece of citrus in their Christmas stocking; when the special effects in the 1933 King Kong blew people’s minds.

I never want to expect a soldier’s death to be announced on the news that night again.

I guess all it takes is some hindsight and appreciation of the present despite that the world is a little less hot now to not be so jaded.

Maybe then when I read of nanotechnologists inscribing the Torah on to the head of a pin or eat a banana from Brazil, I can sincerely freak out.