Thanks, Maria! Also, we miss you. {{{}}}

You've got plenty in the bank here. Maybe you should draw on that. I think you need a little more intake than output right now.

This, so very much this. You're a huge presence and a huge joy, even when you can only cobble together a post every six months or so. All the comfort and listening and punctuation you need is yours, anytime at all. We'll even put the guac away until you leave again, just to ease your mind.

Aw, Maria! How wonderful to hear from you. Big hugs to you. I hope this year brings you clarity and peace.

Maria! What they all said. Always welcome. We don't see you enough.

Maria, you are always welcome. Hugs and hopes we can see more of you in the year to come.

[ETA: Please hold...will finish writing my original post separately. My iPhone decided it didn't want to play nice, so I had to go get my trusty computer.]

Posting less is never the solution, Maria. Post what you can when you can.

So 2009. I'm glad we have the thread title we do, because 2009 gave me a lot of fish, figuratively speaking. 2008 had been the year from hell, and I limped into 2009 praying it would be a better year. It's not that it was a perfect year--it had its moments of stress and sadness--but it was a year of resettling and reaffirming the choices I'd made.

After a tough 2008-2009 school year, this fall semester has reminded me why I teach. I love my students, and working as the New Faculty Coordinator also allowed me to mentor new teachers, one of my passions. I'm only teaching three classes this year to provide time for my work with the new faculty, and that has been perfect. Just enough time in the classroom to fire me up about teaching and remind me that I have the best job in the world without being so overwhelmed with grading that I lose my life outside of school. Because of the pay cut I took when moving from the first LA school I worked at 2005-2006 to this one, I only finally got back to the salary I made when I first moved out here last year...and now the recession means I'll probably not see another increase until 2010-2011 unless something drastic changes. It's a little demoralizing making close to the same salary for five years straight when I've learned and grown so much, I'll admit, but I understand the realities of the economy and have faith that that will change at some point. I'm still very grateful to work somewhere that makes me happy and loves me as much as I love it. I wouldn't trade that for anything.

In and out of work, I have been deeply grateful for my friendships this year, including those with my family. My LA friend base really solidified, and I finally have a core group of best girlfriends here that bring a lot of joy into my life. It takes a long time for a new city to be home, and finding that urban family can be difficult, especially when so many people have to or choose to move away. 2009 was when I realized that I have a group again, a clan, an urban family. I cherish them. Of course I also cherish my online family, who has been witness to so many of my ups and downs in the past six years. You people are often my sanity, and I'm so grateful to have you in my life.

We started renting the back house at the end of 2008, and Drew really turned it into a working office/studio/base of operations for Diablo Sound in 2009. One of our greatest blessings has been his company's success. In a time of recession and layoffs, his company grew tremendously, and he was able to hire three full time workers for a six month contract. Over the course of the past six months, he employed 20+ other folks at least here and there, so we can feel good about the company's success, but also its success in providing more work when work was scarce. I am so proud of him. He has been a professional sound designer and self-employed for 10-15 years, and most of those years were very, very sparse. He lived on Mac&Cheese and ramen noodles and shacked up with two or more roommates for most of them. In the past five years, his business has gone from spotty to solid, and it all stems from how hard he works. He strives to be ethical, fair, and generous as a businessperson and a boss, and that makes me want to be with him even more.

Speaking of, the highlight of this year for me personally was the unique, heartwarming proposal I got last May (see tagline). Sharing that moment (or, I should say, those moments) with all of you was wonderful. Drew and I have been through a lot together since we started dating in 2005, and everything that has happened has convinced me that he is the love of my life. We leave tomorrow to fly to Hawaii (meep!) to get married on Tuesday the 5th, and I can't wait to call him my husband.

So thanks for all the fish, 2009. You saved a very difficult decade for me. And 2010? I'm expecting great things!

Maria! It's wonderful to see you here.

Congratulations to Kate and her fiancee!

So, 2009. It was the year of crazy rollercoaster rides for me. 2009 had some astonishingly bad points. Really, really bad. Health scares for us, family, and friends, getting laid off, and both Pete and I went a bit insane in very not good ways, bad. But we're both working on not dwelling on the bad things and moving forward. In fact, things have been better than they have in a very long time, and I am very, very grateful for that. (And a huge, heartfelt Thank You to those of you who were there and helped us through things. My chosen family are the best people I know.)

HOWEVER, 2009 had some amazing, fantastic high points. Book! Travel! Seeing friends! Meeting new people! Multiple trips to Disneyland! Concerts! Better communication with my loved ones! Did I mention the book?! (And, er, getting a photo with my rock star crush object at SDCC!) Achieving a level of gothy fame that I didn't think was possible for me! Here, let me add more exclamation points, because I can!!!

My fervent, fervent hope is that 2010 takes its pattern from the good parts of 2009, and that the coming year is kinder to ALL of us.

So, I was reflecting on the past 10 years.

I'm kind of amazed at how my life has changed in the past 10 years. I spent New Year's Eve 1999 with the Freak-Ass Church, at a big drunken party whose highlight was when, at midnight, the power cut out. And we all freaked out: the Y2K warnings were real!!! Then the power came back on and we realized that L. wasn't in the room; he had gone outside to flip the breakers and fuck with us.

On New Year's Day 2000, L. and I went to dinner with friends of his who we were trying to evangelize. (No, really. And I am SO not proud of pushing God on people, of making friends with people with the ulterior motive of trying to bring them into the Freak-Ass Church. That's not how it should be.)

L. was the guy who I on-again-off-again dated, and I was crazy about him. Though never totally comfortable with him, but I assumed I was just the kind of person who would never be totally comfortable with someone. Our breakups were ugly, but we always ended up friends again, because we were so enmeshed.

I was in the Freak-Ass Church until Mother's Day 2002 (there was no specific thing about Mother's Day that pushed me out; I just remember it being the last Sunday service I attended). They had just sucked the life out of me, and I couldn't take it any more. No church -- no group of any kind -- should leave a person feeling miserable and drained and less-than. So, although it was one of the hardest things I ever did, I left. And everyone who I had believed were my friends just...stopped talking to me. I believe the phrase they used was "If you choose to leave, you choose to give up the benefits of our friendship." (What would Jesus do? Apparently act like a Junior-High cliquey bitch, is what.)

And then I spent a fair amount of time (years, I mean) alone, very much on purpose. Most of the rest of 2002, 2003, and 2004 I kept to myself. I was really burned out on goddamn people, I was deeply hurt that my friends from the Freak-Ass Church, who I had spent so much time with, just cut me out of their lives. So I didn't want much to do with *anybody* for quite a while.

It was also some time in 1999 or 2000 that I found the Buffistas, still on Table Talk at the time. July 2001 was the first time I met any Buffistas in person, on a trip to California. TEN YEARS I've been a part of this online community, you guys. TEN YEARS. That's amazing. And for my self-imposed period of Fuck All Y'all Bastards (2002-2004, inclusive), I got a lot of friendship and support from the Buffistas. Without you guys, I would have been totally isolated.

I had back surgery in 2003, and took up fencing in 2004, 9 months after surgery.

And in February 2005, a little less than 3 years after leaving the Freak-Ass Church, I got up my courage and went to a meeting of the local BDSM group. By myself. The rest, as they say, is history. I met some good friends -- I'm still meeting good friends -- and I met Tim, had a crush on him, and realized that it would Never Happen because he was in a not-relationship with A. And then I became real, good friends with him when it all went horribly wrong with A.

And then...I kissed him. That was February 2006.

December 2007 I moved in with him, and we're living funnily ever after.

2008 and 2009 have had their ups and downs -- a parade of illnesses and maladies that kept befalling me, great vacations, job woes, silly domestic bliss -- but they passed by under the all-encompassing banner of Oh My God, I Had No Idea I Could Love Someone This Much And Be So Totally Comfortable With Them. (And the smaller banner of Seriously, TWO Closets? This House Has Only TWO Closets?)

I think about the way I felt about L., back in 1999, how crazy I was about him, yet how I still felt uncomfortable with him to a degree (as I have with every man I've been with -- except for Tim), and how I feel about Tim is so different. He's the only person in my life -- family included -- who makes my soul feel calm and at peace. I didn't realize how jangly and restless my psyche was until I met him and (continued...)

( continues...) everything got calm.

So. 1999-2009. If you told me on New Year's Day 2000 that, on New Year's Day 2010, I'd be sitting on the couch in the house I share with my boyfriend to whom I'm not married yet have amazing kinky sex with and make Mobius strips with in our spare time, I would never -- and I mean NEVER -- have believed you.

Man, it's good.