2020 in review!
1. What did you do in 2020 that you’d never done before?
Graduated grad school.
Made over $20 an hour.
Lived in Sacramento.
Survived (?) a global pandemic as an essential worker working for places that LITERALLY do not care if you live or die as long as you used your last breath to get your shift covered. (My current main job is not like that, my current side job is very much like this and it’s a bit of a morale killer tbqh)
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
i don’t make new year’s resolutions!
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Stephy & Lily!
4. Did anyone close to you die?
not as of this moment.
5. What countries did you visit?
None. Probably wouldn’t have anyway.
6. What would you like to have in 2021 that you lacked in 2020?
(not in order of importance:) local friends, a day-to-day life that feels less bad, a vaccine/herd immunity, police defunded and funding transferred to more community-based/less punitive solutions to the problems that plague us, everyone released from prison besides d*n*ld tr*mp and j*e arap** and the approx 1% of prisoners that really do need to be removed from society forever
7. What dates from 2020 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The day we found out the house we were living in was being sold which brought up a lot of bad shit. Going to Portland; going to Florence, OR. Many days from early pandemic when it still seemed completely wild that all of this was happening. The day I found out I passed grad school, got 2 jobs in sacramento and got housing all at once! A really beautiful date with someone (my first in many years of theoretically-non-monogamous-but-too-tired-and-indifferent-to-pursue-anyone life) in which we did not make out because of the virus but held hands under the river water shyly and then our brutal falling out only a few weeks later. A client saying I was the only therapist he’d ever connected to (and referring to me as “that punk rocker at Op*n D**r,” lol). Moving to Sacramento and feeling awake and alive again for the first time in years. Taking a really stupid walk on a dried out creek bank after a brutal day at work and feeling alive again because it was risky and stupid. Some really, really harsh shit at work. Some really, really harsh shit in my personal life. Going for walks on my breaks from the unforgiving mental hospital I worked in and seeing peacocks and wild turkeys and trees and plants, reminding me of the regenerative power of the earth and how it will probably be better off when we’re all gone. Laughing hysterically with mental hospital co-workers who were the only in-person friends I saw consistently this year. Reconnecting with old friends (one of whom I had lost touch with for 20 years!) who randomly got in touch from pandemic boredom or whatever. Remembering who my real friends are. Running for the light rail in the hazardous air. Remembering what a privilege it is to breathe.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I made two quilts by hand. I wrote a 50,000 word novel in a month. I worked multiple jobs in a pandemic and, at press time, have not gotten said disease.
I also graduated grad school but I did that in the most half-assed way possible, so while it’s a bigger accomplishment in the eyes of the world, it feels like less of one.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Losing my only local friend. Being forced to quit a job I had worked very hard to attain.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I was ill for the entire month of February. Haven’t been sick since then since I’ve stayed home when not at work (mostly) and worn a mask at pretty much every moment I’m not at home. I had two very scary COVID-19 scares but was spared both times.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
I bought a lot of t-shirts. I enjoy all of them. Maybe you’ll all get to see them someday.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My sweetheart, my friends, some of my co-workers.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Hoo boy. I plead the fifth.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Rent, student loans, donations, impulsive t-shirt buys, books (that I haven’t actually read, which is unusual for me 😦 )
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Lol! Not much? When I got the email saying that in-person classes were cancelled for the rest of the year, I clapped. My grad school experience was a toxic one and to be freed from that toxicity two months early was so amazing. I got excited about moving to Sac. I got excited when decarceration—something that I have worked towards and wanted desperately for nearly 20 years now, which seemed like the most unrealistic thing that was never going to happen in my lifetime—was talked about as a viable option, when some demands were taken seriously.
16. What song will always remind you of 2020?
I haven’t listened to a single song that came out this year. I just don’t care. I haven’t heard “WAP” and don’t want to. I spent a lot of the year at home listening to music that would have changed my life 15 years ago but I had absolutely no money then and you needed money to listen to music then and now you don’t so it got to me now that I’m too old for it to make a real difference, but I still enjoyed it in a detatched way.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Mixed bag.
b) thinner or fatter? fatter!
c) richer or poorer? richer
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
writing. Confronting people.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
watching t.v., staring at the internet. I know it’s a common thing to do these days; I still don’t like it.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
i already spent it. I had the worst xmas eve ever. I spent the actual day at work at the mental health urgent care clinic. Nobody came in, really. I spent the evening watching a movie I watched many times as a child and it was wild how evocative it was.
21. Did you fall in love in 2020?
i already was in love. I had a powerful crush, it didn’t go well.
22. How many one-night stands?
zero.
23. What was your favorite TV program?
“aggretsuko” (SUBTITLES ONLY! THE ENGLISH DUB SUCKS!), “tuca & bertie,” “married at first sight” (charlotte season ONLY), “love is blind,” “america’s next top model” “drag race” and “tiger king.”
24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Yes. Definitely.
25. What was the best book you read?
“Lost Connections” & “Chasing The Scream” by Johann Hari. “Sister Outsider” Audre Lorde. “When They Call You A Terrorist” Patrice Cullors & Asha Bandele. “Shine of the Ever” by Foster. “Building a Life Worth Living” by Marsha Linehan.
26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
i mostly “discovered” music that is over 15 years old. I enjoyed it greatly.
27. What did you want and get?
A job, a life outside of humboldt.
28. What did you want and not get?
A long bike trip, a graduation, a full & sustainable life.
30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 38. we’d been in pandemic-world for about a month. Adam and I got our first food outside of the house (takeout from the lighthouse cafe in trinidad!) in a month and ate it in the cemetery. I had two zoom birthday parties because people weren’t exhausted by zoom yet. They were both a lil’ awkward and nerve wracking but still fun!
31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Lol. It would have been cool if America was run by an actual adult. It would be cool if America wasn’t a genocidal death machine. It would be cool if healthcare were equitable, if the police served and protected anyone besides wealthy white people, if there was any kind of a safety net.
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2020?
I have never worn sweatpants more. I have never worn a bra less.
33. What kept you sane?
TV (sadly), making things, going for walks, old friends reaching out just as I was feeling the most alone.
35. What political issue stirred you the most?
All of the same ones I have cared about for my entire adult life.
36. Who did you miss?
Dead friends. Everyone on the east coast. I’m coming home soon, I promise.
37. Who was the best new person you met?
My coworkers at HOH!
ocean capewell 