Thread by @AlexandraErin

Yeah, the thing is: we all know time is fake, if we didn't before 2020. And it's possible for you to feel like, "Okay, I know time is fake but there's no way to get something this wrong because the timeline for the vaccine availability doesn't work."

That's a point of reference.

https://twitter.com/ithayla/status/1482840875176988674

A point of reference, in this context, is something that is fixed in your memory for whatever reason, that allows you to date things as being pretty-definitely before or pretty-definitely after.

We all have them. We all have different ones.

i had to look up when I got vaccinated; I was able to do that because while I am *terrible* at remembering timeframes, I am *really good* at two things: remembering what jokes I made about something on Twitter, and searching on Twitter.

So I can type in a search for "from:alexandraerin johnson tears" and find this tweet, which (with the added context I have that I tweeted this after getting my vaccine) tells me that I got vaccinated the first week of April, 2021.

https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1379806671879409668

Knowing that I got vaccinated in early April of last year, I can then stop and think: oh, yeah, the vaccine rollout was only really getting started that spring, after Biden's administration, and I definitely vaccinated in April because I had my one covid-era vacation late in May.

But before I looked it up, if not for the Katelyn Burns pile-on happening right now having so many people confidently stating that everybody knows most of us were vaccinated under Biden, I would have guessed May, 2020.

"That's literally impossible."

Looking at calendars, yeah?

But my brain is not a calendar. My brain doesn't have a calendar app in it. My brain does not store things as they happen in chronological order with date stamps on them. It fakes most of that based on vibes.

And so does yours.

Vibe check tells me: it has not been 2022 long enough for "2021" to feel like last year. And Biden has also not been in office for a full year, so I'm not getting any dissonance triggering a "Wait, what?" response from feeling like 2020 = last year, in terms of who was president.

And when I think, "Is there any particular month that I associate my first shot with?"... my brain has an answer for me. A very loud, clear, ringing answer: MAY. The month associated in my memory with my first shot is MAY. It is definitely MAY. I am as sure of this as anything.

I am as certain of that as anything, but the conclusion that I drew from it prior to looking up my tweet was certainly wrong. I associate "May" with my shot because getting my shot *before May* is the most significant thing about the timing. It was April, but didn't have to be.

I have never, to my immediate recollection, thought the words "I got vaccinated under Trump" but I have certainly thought of it as something that happened during a month when Trump would have been in office.

"But didn't you know when you had your vacation?"

Yes: the past.

My vacation and my vaccination both happened in the past. There's a good chance I'll be able to remember when they happened more specifically in the future, because doing this thread might establish them as reference points.

Or it might not. Brains are weird.

I'm not here to tell anyone what to make of a tweet I haven't seen.

But I beg Twitter, again, to learn the difference between "lying" and "being sincerely and certainly wrong".

(And no, this isn't the Costanza Defense.)

Someone asked: "Don't you have a vaccination card?"

Sure.

Doesn't really come to bear on the question of "Do you remember when you were vaccinated?", though, does it?

But in case it's not clear, the point of this thread isn't "The dates of anyone's vaccination are a mystery lost to the mists of time."

It's "Yeah, a person can 100% fuck up recalling the most basic details of when something happened, even something important."

We don't recall things. We reconstruct them. If your vaccination is mentally associated with "Joe Biden's first year" then you'll have an easy time remembering it happened in Joe Biden's first year. And maybe that will leave you feeling like it's impossible to get that wrong.

And maybe if you have the opinion that I'm not giving the Biden administration enough credit for all the *good* Google suggestions they give out or whatever... perhaps you'll conclude that it says something about me that I don't strongly associate "yay, vaccine!" with Joe Biden.

And if that's what you want to think of me... I literally can't stop you.

But that's your problem, not mine, and if you want to make it mine, I'll block you.

Also, "but she's a political reporter, she should know this even if you don't"... she wasn't political reporting, she was tweeting. As a human being in, I imagine, some measure of pain and despair.

But who gets to be that, on here? So gets to do that?

https://twitter.com/ithayla/status/1482838491293954048?t=rRx6w37v5TSkfPbaHw1NDA&s=19

*"who gets to do, that," I meant.

Prepping dinner while I'm tweeting this.

I didn't see the tweet. I stopped following Katelyn a bit ago because I couldn't take the transphobia hurled at her daily.

If I had seen it? I know exactly which dril tweet I would have replied with.

It's the "you do not, under any circumstances, got to hand it to" one.

It's hypothetical so there's no way to be certain, but I doubt her timeline would have struck me as wrong on its face.

But I do believe that you do not, under any circumstances, got to hand it to the King in Orange.

I also believe that people, even people who work with facts for a living, deserve space and grace to tweet their feelings about the current administration.

Tweeting a feeling might not always be wise. I frequently regret it, especially when I'm the one who does it.

But again, it comes down to: who is given the space and grace to do it? And who has their motives and word choices scrutinized for the worst possible interpretation?

Anyway. It's almost time for me to serve dinner here, so I'm going to wrap this thread up here. I have said my piece. And I'm going to do my best to let it stand on its own, regardless of what anyone might read into it. That's not my problem.