I thought I knew what to say about this year, but I really don't. I'm just glad it's almost over.

But! Dana, that's a wonderful revelation to have had. Congrats!

The card exchange has been fun. Thanks to all who sent me cards this season; I have enjoyed them very much. They hang on a string along my mantel and they make me smile every time I see them.

2020 treated me very mildly, compared to most people. When it came time to isolate, I was well prepared to be able to work from home, and well prepared with groceries and other supplies needed to stay home. The various shortages in the stores never bothered me. I had shelter. Water stayed on. Power stayed on. Internet stayed on.

Most of my attention has been taken up with monitoring the progress of my cancer, adjusting to changes in medical routines, and dealing with side effects. Loss of muscle, lack of strength, lack of stamina, and an increase in overall fatigue have all become very noticeable, especially since September, but I'm coping.

In November I qualified to enroll in a clinical trial, and one of the consequences of that was another round of chemotherapy -- a different poison this time, cabazitaxel instead of docetaxel. The routine is the same as last time, six intravenous infusions, each three weeks apart.

No scalded tongue this time, but some flavors have definitely shifted. Pears and apples are bland, but not completely tasteless. Ginger ale is now somehow both sour *and* bitter, but it still seems to help against the nausea, so I keep sipping.

I started growing a Van Dyke at the end of May, and haven't trimmed it at all. The moustache doesn't grow long enough to twist or curl, which is disappointing. The goatee is now long enough to tug meditatively, but not yet long enough to braid. I wonder whether the chemo will make it fall out. I haven't lost any hair this time -- yet.

If all continues to go smoothly, I should be done with IV chemo in the first week of March, leaving just a regular routine of daily oral medications. Early signs are that the chemo is working as desired, knocking back existing tumors and preventing new ones.

I am not at all religious, but I try to be mindful of my responsibilities, my privileges, and my blessings.

I have a lot of blessings I can count. Buffistas.org is among them. Thank you for being here.

Now, begone 2020! Here's to a better 2021!

Early signs are that the chemo is working as desired, knocking back existing tumors and preventing new ones.

That's excellent!

The card exchange has been fun. Thanks to all who sent me cards this season; I have enjoyed them very much.

I still intend to send mine out! I just couldn't get my shit together to send them before Christmas. So 5 people have a Teppy card to look forward to, I promise.

Early signs are that the chemo is working as desired, knocking back existing tumors and preventing new ones.

Wonderful news!

Thank you for being here, too, dcp!

Always glad to see your text dcp!

2020 has been a lot, but my immediate family is one of the lucky ones. Dylan was already 100% WFH, my office quickly pivoted to remote work in March, and Alex's introversion and comfort with technology has stood him in better stead for remote learning than a lot of kids. Our health and financial position have remained sound so far.

The worst of 2020 by far for me personally was losing my oldest brother to suicide. Distance and the large age gap between me and my brothers make them more like uncles to me than siblings, but it's still a hole in my world.

In much happier family news, Dylan and I have been supporting Alex in his transition. It isn't always easy adjusting your ideas about your child's identity, but there was never any question but that we would listen and trust his own self-knowledge and give him our full love and support. It was a joyous moment to stand beside him in the courthouse when the judge made his name change official and congratulated him, and to surprise him with a fancy cake iced in the colors of the trans pride cake and labeled "It's a boy!" (Dealing with the cascading paperwork of updating all his records is...less joyous, but we're plugging away at it.)

I devoted a lot of time, energy, and money to the election this year. Back before we went into isolation, I knocked on doors for Elizabeth Warren. Starting in 2017 but mostly in 2019-20, I wrote and mailed over 3000 Postcards to Voters and ~1500 Vote Forward Letters.

I joined a discernment group at my church this year, despite a certain trepidation that everyone would try to convince me I had a vocation for ordained ministry. It ended up being a great experience that helped me move past my feelings of being a failure who hasn't accomplished enough. By the end of the process I came to a place of accepting myself as a perfectly good, really quite accomplished and successful version of ME rather than a failed version of someone else. And while no one tried to convince me to seek ordination, I am a lay worship leader at my church now, which I very much enjoy, especially the preaching part. 

My quarantine hobby is birding. I got a bird feeder for Christmas, and it's starting to attract new birds beyond the locally ubiquitous chickadees, finches, and crows. Yesterday I identified a Bewick's wren and a red-breasted nuthatch, both first-time sightings for me. Crows are still my favorites, though.

Back in 2015 I took a break from writing because I was feeling burned out and frustrated. I was planning to get back to it during NaNoWriMo in 2016, but then the election happened and I couldn't imagine writing the fun, optimistic contemporary romance between a Bama alum PhD student living in Seattle and an Auburn alum star NFL quarterback when the contemporary world seemed so bleak. (I have so much respect for everyone who DID write similar books during the past four years, though!) Anyway, I kept trying and failing to write anything, and I had just about given up thinking I'd ever complete a work of fiction again. This came up in my discernment group as we were discussing various interests and opportunities I had, and one of the group members asked, "How would you feel if someone told you that you could never writer another word of fiction?" I replied that I would fight that person and refuse to listen to them, so emphatically that I and everyone in the room saw that as my ACTUAL vocation.

So I tiptoed back into writing. This Sunday I submitted a 3000-word urban fantasy short story to an anthology submission call I found on the SFWA website. And while I know very well that the editors received at least hundreds, maybe thousands of submissions for a mere handful of available slots, making my odds of acceptance really low, it felt SO DAMN GOOD to once again be a working writer actively seeking publication. When I hit send on that email, it was like driving a stake through the heart of writer's block, the past four years, and especially 2020. They're over, or will be soon, but I'm still standing.

(Oh, and tomorrow is my 50th birthday, so that's a thing too.)

2020 has been a lot.

Owning a small business with employees where my primary business is themed entertainment and theatre during a pandemic where it's deadly for people to gather in groups has been one of the hardest things I've ever dealt with.

The good news is we have made it to the end of 2020 and so far I'm still standing. I was able to find a way to keep every single one of my employees. I'm still paying healthcare for all of my employees. With the next round of PPP coming I think we will have a runway to still be here when things start to come back, and the optimist in me is pretty convinced once people can gather again the floodgates are going to start to open on work.

Overall, I'm just exhausted. This continues to feel like a marathon that doesn't have an ending, but I just need to get up each day and just keep putting one foot in front of the other. I want to sleep. I want to rest. I want to have a few days where the background chatter in my head isn't the constant wall of worry for my staff and for me.

2020 did have some bright spots, the biggest of which is the connection that is growing with my genetic family. So many of you have been here for all of the journey on this. I connected with my birth mother last year, and this year was supposed to be when we would meet in person. Alas that didn't happen, but I have now met (through zoom) my two half sisters and their families, and they have welcomed me with completely open arms. I have 5 new nieces now. We all text and message regularly and are all so looking forward to meeting in person. For me this has all been a wonderful gift.

In the process of pivoting for my business we moved out of the office in Pasadena, which was the last connection to a city that Kristin and I loved and where we lived for so many years. I now have a small warehouse in Valencia, and we have all moved to primarily working from home, and that will continue after the pandemic. As part of that we converted 400 square feet of our massive garage into a home office that is amazing, so that's been incredible.

Finally we ended 2020 with the news that all of the waste water cast iron plumbing in our house has rotted away, and we will have a plumbing company here for most of the next month jack hammering and cutting concrete since we have a slab foundation and all of that plumbing needs to be replaced. You can imagine the cost of that. So yeah, one last kick in the teeth on the way out.

Sigh.

2020 has felt like being a raft builder on a hill next to a flooded river. I’m an elearning developer at a university, and usually my department helps instructors who want to try something new or expand their ideas about their disciplines to students outside of our school. So there are moments of stress or extra work, but generally it’s pretty chill and fun. This year we helped hundreds of instructors who suddenly learned they’d have to move their classes online. Many of them had never used our online course system before. Our support tickets as of early September were 300% higher than for all of the previous year, and we were responding to them 12 hours/day, seven days a week at peak times. The higher ups gave us fulsome thanks and a 10% pay cut. I know I’m lucky to still have a job, and one I can do from home to boot. But it has been a bit stressful at times. Spring’s looking less intense, even though we’ll still be mostly online, as almost everyone has a handle on the basics now.

Outside of work, I’ve lost an uncle to the pandemic, but my niece seems to be bouncing back. I had my first Christmas away from family ever, but I got to wake up Christmas morning in my own bed for the first time in over a decade. I have concerns about my friend’s health, but I’m able to visit occasionally at lunch, which feels like a gift.

The whole year has brought home how much I love my work and want to be physically closer to family. It’ll be interesting to see how to meld those two impulses.

Also, I’ve developed a strange obsession with teardrop trailer mods.