Sunday night.

I could bore all y’all with yet another recitation of my zombie game adventures (finally acquired a bicycle!) or the fascinating details of my oil change appointment (they broke a mirror on a dude’s truck), but screw it all, because here is the news I’ve been expecting over a year now: I got my vaccine appointment, y’all!!!

Ohio went above and beyond with launching their online booking portal: it was supposed to go live on March 29th, but it actually happened a bit earlier than that. If not for my new BFFs on the Vaccine Hunters site, I never would’ve known. I’m in an interesting position in that I can’t really take a weekday off at work at this point. Ohio’s major vaccination sites are booking only one day in advance on the very reasonable assumption that people will want their shots ASAP and not, say, six days later.

It took some serious searching (well over an hour) and getting way too intimate with Ohio’s geography than I’d ever thought I’d get, but I I finally booked my vaccine appointment for next weekend! It’s in a tiny town called Wellston, and it’s a 500-mile, 8-hour drive from Toronto, so I’ll have to leave pretty goddamn early for my afternoon appointment. (I’m thinking 4am will be a safe choice. Why take chances?) …and then drive back. And then do it again three weeks later. But it’ll be so worth it, though. So very, very worth it. At this point, I’d walk all the way to Mexico through sleet and hail and desert just to get this all over with.

Here, in Toronto, they’re still trying to convince folks over 80 to get their vaccine shots, while slowly, ever so slowly opening up the appointments for mildly younger (but still over the hill) age groups. It will probably be at least two more months before young people can sign up for their shots here, and there is currently no guarantee that the second shot will come a few weeks later. (Despite the growing opposition, they’re still aiming for a gap of four months between the shots.) Yesterday, East Toronto opened up a sign-up form: if you promised you could get there within 30 minutes, they’d let you know if there were any leftover Pfizer vaccines at the end of the day. Over 60,000 people signed up in less than a day before they took down the form… There’ll be some very impatient drivers zooming through the streets of Toronto every evening from here on out, eh.

I still can’t believe I got my vaccine appointment. Less than a week from now, I’ll have a vaccine coursing through my system, starting the arduous process of building up the immunity against this damn virus. There might be some holdup at the border coming back to Canada, but between my still-valid work permit and my congratulatory permanent residence letter, it should be fine. I’m really – and quite rapidly – running out of fucks to give when it comes to bureaucracy. What are they gonna do, siphon the vaccine back out of me? Heh.

I’m not even able to process all the implications of becoming fully immune (or as close as it gets) just a few more weeks from now; of being able to enjoy life once again. I guess this blog series won’t reach 500 days after all.

Good night, y’all. I hope your vaccine appointment is just around the corner as well.