m_d_h | Entries tagged with after the vaccine

Traffic was fine, B was good company, we got there in time to make a donut run first, and then still had to wait in the car for 15 minutes because they wouldn't let us in until 15 minutes before the appointment. B's appointment was after mine so he had to wait in the car another 15 minutes, but it was over pretty quickly. Had to show ID, pass the forehead temperature screen, and give the name of our primary care physician, that was it.

I got the famous little CDC vaccination card --> first Pfizer dose: 4/1/21.

Unless I caught COVID from somebody while I was inside the CVS, I should be fine. When I go back for my second dose in three weeks I won't have to worry about that.

So far my arm doesn't even hurt.

Had a light lunch, will relax for a bit, and then log into my work laptop to see what's up. B is going back home this afternoon but will return to the house for the weekend. T has lots of weekend cooking planned; the fridge is full of ingredients. I may stick around for the entire weekend to avoid the intoxication temptation of being at the condo by myself. We'll see. I could run tomorrow and Sunday, do yoga on Saturday. Monday is a Maids Day so I'll be back to the condo on Monday morning -- I do like keeping an eye on the condo for K while he's stuck on the West Coast.

If you're having any problems finding a shot, but can drive to York, PA --> sign up with the CVS there.

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While I was driving us back, B asked whether I felt different having received my first shot. I said, "Maybe when we get back home, right now I'm busy driving. But I did feel a huge mental shift once the appointment had been made."

I think most of the mental shift came from having the appointment, although I was a little worried about whether the guillotine would come down on me for coming into PA from MD, but it was fine. So now I'm a little worried about being around all those other people at CVS -- not the staff, who were probably all vaccinated already, but the customers. But there was masking and social distancing, so ... probably OK.

It will be weird to not be so fucking worried about catching COVID from random people while shopping or hiking or walking on the sidewalk downtown. But that feeling is still a couple weeks away.

Two of the places outside of MoCo I pre-registered with yesterday sent me appointment invites this morning. But I've already made plans with B to go to York, and these others aren't exactly close by either. If somehow the York CVS in PA doesn't work out I'll have other options within MD. One way or another I'm getting my first shot soon.

But damn, it sucks to be MoCo. You must leave the county to find a shot! It's a big Fuck You from our Republican Governor to the largest and most affluent Democratic jurisdiction in the state.

What a profound mental effect of having those appointments in hand. But later I did feel some guilt -- because if I lived in PA I wouldn't be eligible yet. Why are they allowing people who aren't eligible yet, or who live in other states, to make appointments at that particular CVS in York, PA? I can only presume because nobody else is showing up in that area of rural PA. It is Trump country, voted 2/3 for Trump and represented by Republicans in Congress. I've read that rural folks and Republicans are less likely to want the vaccine. So if you want a shot, go look in rural Republican areas. Seriously.

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I did write before about how I'd look for appointments in the rural areas, that I'd look everywhere in MD, that I was willing to register at every single location and drive for hours for a shot, and now ... yep, I found a rural appointment mere hours after I became eligible. But across the state line.

It's fucked up. I'm taking a dose that would otherwise go untaken, while in many other places people can't find a dose.

I complained to Public Health Friend and he said this was all Trump's doing, that people went to Trump last year and said, "OK, we need your authorization to mobilize the national FEMA vaccination plan," and Trump refused. They had a national vaccination plan, and Trump refused to pull the trigger. [Strangely, this is not unique to Trump, it happens quite often that politicians ignore the pre-existing disaster plans that have been carefully rehearsed by the career civil servants. That's human ego in action.]

And the Biden team isn't going to rock the boat by trying to redesign a fucked up system in midstream, they're just trying to push more supply into that fucked up system ASAP. So there are pockets of oversupply, and pockets of undersupply, and millions of people who aren't even looking yet because they've been told they're not eligible, and millions of people who are jumping the line. And millions of people who don't give a fuck because they don't believe in either COVID or the vaccine.

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My two brothers had COVID last year and they were both pretty sick, but they survived, but I also know people who died. I just don't want to roll the dice. I'm a bit older than my brothers are, I have asthma. Why take that risk? The last thing I wanted was to die from COVID while Trump was President. It's why T and I wore masks and socially distanced within our own house when he was sick -- probably from a cold virus, but he never got tested. And I didn't catch it from him.

But it was more than just me -- it was the risk that millions of people would die if we didn't take precautions as a nation, as a species. If we all got sick at the same time and overwhelmed the hospitals, the percentage of us who would die would skyrocket. To me, it was about avoiding millions of deaths in the US. And, we did avoid millions of deaths. We're at 551,000 right now in the US.

Some countries took extra precautions, keeping their death toll way down. While others didn't. And still other governments tried to take precautions but their citizens didn't care. Or, their citizens cared at first, but then got sick of the restrictions and protested or rioted.

In the US, even where our state or local governments took precautions, there was practically zero enforcement. I heard about other countries where people were put into strict quarantine with police checking on them. Strict lockdowns where you needed permits to leave your neighborhood. There was nothing like that in the US. No police checking on you. Practically zero enforcement. Nobody bothered to stop me last spring when I started heading to the condo during lockdown. And then the White House itself started holding superspreader events without masks or social distancing -- it's possible the President had COVID while he was debating his opponent on national television! His family sitting in the audience unmasked.

It makes no sense to me.

And now the US has the largest death toll in the world from COVID. Yet Republicans aren't ashamed of this at all, instead they claim our death toll has been exaggerated in the US while minimized elsewhere.

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It still isn't over.

But if my luck holds, it will be over for me, personally, soon. Only because a friend of a friend found a place where we could skip ahead of our neighbors.

Mixed emotions.

And COVID won't go away, we'll probably need booster shots every so often, and the people who don't get these shots -- either because they're uninsured or uninformed or purposely defiant -- will still get sick and some of them will die.

If we'd all been like New Zealand, we could've wiped this out, like we wiped out SARS. We still could wipe this out, but we still haven't set up the Test, Trace, and Isolate regime that would be necessary. Half the country is going back to normal regardless, the other half is going back to normal after they get their shots, and COVID will continue to spread. We will not reach herd immunity in the US, because as a country we aren't trying, because not enough of us care. And I don't know how to fix that.

B scheduled his first dose for the same time, same place as me, following our HOT TIP from our DC friends, so he's going with me on Thursday morning; it will be nice to have company for the long drive back and forth. He picked a different time for his second dose, because he has family up there in PA and will combine a trip to see them + husband with his second dose.

The data are inconclusive on the effects of intoxication after a vaccination, but I'm gonna take this weekend off from intoxication just to be safe (and I might have side effects anyway). We have also been skipping the bottles of wine with dinner during the week lately, which has helped T to lose weight (maybe me also, I don't weigh myself). Maybe it would be good to let go of intoxication until after my first 14 days have passed ... focus on my running instead now that the weather is improving (oh, that problem on my right foot went away when I changed into different shoes, sometimes that's all I need to do).

I wish the supply and demand for these vaccines were more uniform around the country, not everybody can take a day off to drive to another state. Not everybody gets HOT TIPs from friends.

Well, at least I didn't fib to get my appointment; I waited until I was eligible in my home state, and then found a place that said I qualify. But I probably could've jumped the line earlier had I known about the available appointments in rural PA. I'd assumed that you could only qualify based on where you lived or worked.

I'll have to decide on April 15th whether one shot was good enough for me to start getting teeth cleaned and haircuts and hookups, or whether to wait three more weeks until my second shot has taken effect.

80% protected on April 15th vs 90% protected on May 6th. Perhaps I should stop counting my antibodies before they hatch.

T heard from two of our friends who live in DC that they were driving up to PA to get their shots, because PA has no residency requirement. York, PA -- via CVS.

Whereas earlier this morning, the CVS site threw me out as ineligible (still) in Maryland, when I went to the Pennsylvania CVS site it was smooth sailing, and there were DOZENS of consecutive appointments available at the CVS in York, PA. I couldn't believe my eyes. Click, yes, accept, consent, BOOM.

So I'm scheduled for Thursday morning at 10:15am, and again three weeks later -- Pfizer shots.

I spent all that time waiting to become eligible in MD and instead I'm getting my shots in PA because of a HOT TIP.

It's a 90 minute drive one-way, but definitely worth it to me. I'll bring gatorade and snacks and give myself plenty of extra time to get there in the morning.

Maryland sucks, Governor Hogan!

Although most people in the US are still not allowed to sign up for a COVID vaccine shot yet, we're already flooded with think pieces trying to explain why some folks don't want to get the vaccine.

A lot of these think pieces are trying to explain why one particular subculture is supposedly more resistant to uptake than the rest of us. I've seen think pieces saying that LGBTs are more resistant, that Blacks are more resistant, that Hispanics are more resistant, that White Evangelicals are more resistant, that young people are more resistant, that old people are more resistant. I'm not sure there's anybody left who isn't more resistant!

Bottom line is that perhaps a third of adults don't want the vaccine, for a large variety of reasons, no matter their racial, sexual, religious, etc., identities. But nowadays we're so stuck on viewing people through their subculture identities that we can't see the forest for the trees. A third of adults don't want the vaccine!

And I'm going to ask -- so what?

One proffered reason for caring is that to achieve "herd immunity" so we can all go back to normal, we need some high percentage of the population to be immune to the virus. Nobody knows the exact high percentage, because no country has achieved herd immunity from COVID yet. This assumes herd immunity is possible for COVID! It might not be. If immunity wears off quickly after a few months, if the virus keeps mutating to escape our immunity, if the virus continues to spread & mutate in poor countries unabated -- COVID could be like influenza, with no such thing as herd immunity. Not every disease can be wiped out via vaccination.

There's also the idea that for purposes of equity and non-discrimination we should reach out to various subcultures to make sure they are protected by the vaccine; we're supposed to help them overcome their resistance to the shots so we can save their lives for them (against their will). Not by forcing them to get the shots, but by changing their minds against their will. Via Public Education Campaigns, Outreach, Role Models, etc. OK ... but these campaigns don't actually change many minds. People can sniff when the government is trying to convince them to do something they don't want to do.

Also, businesses want to offer safe spaces for customers to spend money, so they'll want to ensure their staff and customers have been vaccinated. I'm sure there are plenty of stores and resorts that can't wait to advertise that their staffs are fully vaccinated. So businesses will want to force people to get their shots, and they'll lobby governments to back them up on this.

But we don't require adults to get any sort of shots in the US! Medical care for adults is voluntary, if you can afford it at all. And these shots have only been around for months, or weeks, and were approved on an emergency basis. There is no such thing as a fully-approved COVID vaccine in the US, and won't be, for years. People are right to be skeptical of new technologies that haven't been used in humans before.

I've been studying these vaccines so I can make an informed decision of my own, but that doesn't mean everybody should have to get a shot.

And most people do not really want to wait until we reach "herd immunity" before we return to normal. A lot of us want to return to normal as soon as we get our own shots. A lot of us want to return to normal NOW, shots be damned. There will be a solid supermajority of people wanting to return to normal as soon as all of the adults who want their shots have received their shots, which Biden said would happen by the end of May.

So, I counsel tolerance and patience with regard to the people who don't want their shots. Let them make up their own minds. Let them see whether the shots work on us guinea pigs. Let them sign up at their own pace. Let's not turn getting shots or not into another goddess damned culture war, we have enough of those in the US already.

No idea yet when this will happen, but here's my To Do List for After the Vaccine:

Dental checkup
Professional haircut
Annual physical
Renew driver's license
Travel to Portland, OR to visit K and MAB
Gather with family
Snuggle date w/ Steve
Download hookup apps, schedule play dates, ask fellas for permission to cum (48 days so far!)

More broadly, after everybody who wants the vaccine has received it in the US: board game parties, our annual Christmas Eve orphans party, indoor dining, concerts & theater. Hopefully the monthly spanking parties will resume?

It's been great never having a respiratory illness during Quarantine. After I resume socializing I'll probably resume having a few colds each year, and about half of them will kick off multi-day asthma attacks like before. Nobody misses the multi-day asthma attacks!

And I'll definitely continue getting my annual flu shots, as well as any COVID booster shots that come along. I'm 100% pro-vaccination. I want all the shots!

[Thinking about asking fellas for permission to cum made me horny.]

The longest period the US Senate has been divided 50/50 was less than five months. Although US Senate elections are generally held every two years, there's continued churn in between elections. Senators occasionally die, sometimes they abruptly resign for whatever reason. They may decide to run for a different office instead, or take a Cabinet position, or even switch parties. Then each state has its own rules for replacing its Senators, and in some cases that replacement could be from the other party.

Sitting here on the Left in the US, I hope the next Senate churn moves in our direction instead of back to the Republicans. We could move the center-of-gravity swing Senator from WV to MT, a very slight improvement ;-)

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Part of my retirement planning is my personal 30-year Green Communism path, also paying off all my non-mortgage debt, and eventually moving out of this house. But another part is doing what I've been telling everybody on the Left to do -- moving to a state where my vote isn't completely wasted. I think I've written in here before that I want to move to the swingiest state that has already legalized marijuana, because I might want to smoke occasionally in retirement and I'd like to do so legally. The only place I've ever bought marijuana legally in my entire life was Amsterdam, on a trip with K. Although marijuana is legal in DC, it isn't legal to buy it in DC. I haven't bought it illegally in DC either, not recently anyway. I think the last time I bought pot in the US was back around when 9/11 happened.

Michigan was the state, last time I checked. And then I picked out which city I want to live in, and then I even picked out which building I want to live in, heh. But this will probably change between now and 2027.

Of course, I might end up in a new or different relationship by then, which would require negotiations about possibly moving somewhere. Maybe I'm stuck in the DC area for life. Maybe my future partner wants to move to Portland like everybody else, heh.

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B's husband is back in town for the weekend (don't ask me why, I don't know), so I won't get the house to myself. T encouraged me to go to the condo this weekend. He said he'd take Dax to the vet on Saturday, so I might head downtown midday tomorrow, although I'd still have to work when I got there, I have an afternoon meeting. But I could get an earlier start on my fun if I drive there midday.

I thought about waiting until Saturday and going for one night, but we're probably getting significant snow on Sunday ... do I want to be driving back to the house in a snowstorm?

If I can get my weight lifting done tomorrow morning, and can drive downtown before my afternoon meeting, I'll probably head to the condo tomorrow. Then the snow forecast will help me to decide whether I stay one night or two. Also, checking in with T about how he's doing. We are still each other's primary social support during Quarantine and my life is easier when my presence helps him to avoid an emotional crash, just as my life is easier when his presence helps me in the same way.

I suspect that after we get our shots, we'll be spending a lot of time socializing with other people. And by this time next year, I should know whether I will want to stay in this house until I retire, or whether I will want to move out during summer 2022. And then would I live in the condo until I retire, or buy my own separate place? It will be weird when my life starts moving again, after this extremely introverted pause, after my beloved K moved away. Despite all the complaints I've had about T during this Quarantine, I'm still genuinely surprised we've gotten along as well as we have. He's probably had fewer complete breakdowns about how horrible I am during the past 10 months than during any other 10-month period since we've met. As horrible as I am, we're still both here.

Plenty of people will face this, either explicitly or implicitly, as not everybody in a Quarantine bubble will get vaccinated at the same time. In my own case, T, B, and I all have different employers and/or health insurers. I'm the oldest and have asthma, T has his own health issues. B is younger. T and I live in Maryland, B in DC -- and DC is ahead of MD in per capita doses.

Who will get his vaccine first? And then, let's assume it is me. What if two weeks after my dose(s) I'm ready to do things like get on airplanes and go on dates outside of our bubble?

I discussed it with T. Are you concerned that although I'd have vaccine immunity that I might unintentionally bring back COVID to you from spending time with other people?

He didn't think that was a concern. He said it is unlikely I would become infectious after the vaccine takes effect. OK, then, I'm not waiting on both of us, I'm just waiting on myself!

But no idea how long that wait will be. Maryland is behind on giving out shots, so ... I just checked, around here they're still focusing on the people 75 and older.

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I discussed my self-haircut plan with T -- the #3 all around. He strongly suggests having his barber friend come over to cut my hair while we all wear masks, but I still think that's too risky right now. A guy who is cutting lots of people's hair, even while wearing masks, is exposing himself to a lot of people in close proximity for 20 minutes at a time. So, soon I'll do the #3 all over. I expect I'll hate it, but then as my hair grows back out I'll try to let it grow higher on top while going tighter on the sides.

I often think these kinds of close haircuts are sexy on other guys. But I've had the same haircut forever, looking different will be shocking to me.

But it cannot be worse than the crazy mop of hair I've got now. It's flopping and curling all over the place, and when I get up in the morning, or after I exercise, I look like a mad professor until I take a shower. It's been at least four months since K last cut it for me. Wow, nearly four months since K moved away. Doesn't seem that long, somehow. But my life since has been a lot of same thing same thing same thing.

On OkCupid, those who indicate that they have already received the vaccine are being liked at double the rate of users who say that they are not interested in getting the vaccine, according to a spokesman for the app, Michael Kaye.

“Basically, getting the vaccine is the hottest thing you could be doing on a dating app right now,” Mr. Kaye said, adding, “What a world we’re living in. …”