99.9km for 33

Malika is administering second doses of the COVID vaccine to first responders all day today, inverting but not shaking the syringe and vial of vaccine with salt water ten times to mix and dilute them evenly before inserting the needle “like a dart” and gently pressing the plunger. It’s my birthday, and while it’s hard to set out new goals or habits so soon after the new year, it feels like the beginning of a new chapter. The people who need it the absolute most are getting the vaccine, a new presidency and tie-breaking vice president in the senate starting on Wednesday.

I was hit by a car yesterday. I’m fine; it was a smart car and the hardman who drove it into me from behind, trying to squeeze by, flipped expertly from hitting me to the second chapter in the abuser’s handbook, blaming me for the damage to his passenger side quarter panel. I don’t know, man, maybe if your car is so delicate you shouldn’t drive it into things as dense as my midsection in the tenth month of the pandemic. The driver’s impatience, his quickness to rage, is part of a different flavor that’s on the road these days. So many of us not quite actualizing ourselves in the ways we want to — moving our bodies or making art or sharing space with loved ones — and instead leaping to criticism of perfect strangers, imperfect mask-wearers, hurling cars at vulnerable road users.

My hope is that the new chapter that’s starting this month, vaccine distribution and more competent governance, eases the strain on our community and gives us all a bit more space to move through the world with grace.