ADIOS, GOODBYE, GTFO 2020 thread

I’m not a real big fan of dissing 2020 and welcoming its departure.

2021 could be worse.

 

I'm a picture taker.

Here's the first photo I took in 2020 at 10:24 in the morning, January 1, Penn Station, first in line waiting to hop aboard the train back to Rensselaer and watching what appears to be a homeless black dude, with his shopping cart, gleaning the front page of the NYT.

Who said newspapers are dead?

 

I remember posting in the 2019 thread that I was not looking forward to the 20s decade, as both my parents are in their late 70s and I had other family members who were elderly and I figured that the coming decade would be filled with funerals.

One year down, and already I’ve been to one funeral. I had an uncle die of probable COVID in mid-April. He lived alone in his apartment and was 80 years old, was having breathing problems and his doctor thought it might have been related to a pneumonia that he had a year earlier.We got along pretty well, but weren’t particularly close as he could get offended by minor things very easily and would go months or a couple of years without much contact with us. The funeral was fairly rushed at the cemetery with just the rabbi, myself, my Mom, my aunt, two cousins and one of their daughters. It was depressing as hell, as there were families lined up at the cemetery left and right for funerals.

My Dad has quintuple bypass surgery (planned as quadruple), and then complications arose a couple of weeks later, he went to the ER, we think they fucked something up while treating him, they had to do the paddles to revive him (which we didn’t find out until we looked at the medical records online), then they did emergency surgery. We ended up watching the Super Bowl together in the cardiac ICU. He’s been doing well now, knock on wood.

My mom was doing well, but her arm started to swell in August, and, while that’s fine now, she has ascitites. They’ve done a bunch of tests, biopsies, and operated to remove a couple of lymph nodes for testing. They keep thinking she has cancer, but all the tests keep coming back negative. They’re still testing to see what’s causing the ascities.

On the bright side, they had their 50th wedding anniversary, which we celebrated by ordering lobster dinners from a restaurant, with a cake and we ate outside in the yard.

Work wise, I enjoy working from home, and I hope I’ll be able to continue once this shit ends. I have a few layoff/furlough concerns, but hopefully things work out. My wife started working at home as an independent contractor in the human services field and is raking in the dough for the first time in her life, with work she loves doing.

But yeah, all in all, 2020 sucked big time.

Happy holidays all.

 

I doubt it, but I do remember everyone saying 2019 was the worst year ever because some celebrities died.

 

This year can go away now.

First Neil Peart dies, then my journalism career as I was one of a few sent packing because a reclusive billionaire family didn't have enough $100 bills to toss in its fireplace for funsies. Then family fallout because lack of perspective and selfishness, and I move because there are no jobs where I'm from.

Then pandemic, I come down with some symptoms - was it or wasn't it? ... matters little as I've been fine since - and hundreds of applications where I now am and a few where I'm from go begging. Then Mom gets diagnosed with a spot on a mammogram - Keep Pounding, Mom.

I had long ago envisioned where I am now as a wonderful place to spend the holidays. With all due respect to my roommate, a good guy and a great friend, staying in with no other safe or realistic option is not what I had in mind. Many of you on a certain thread know exactly who botched that one.

All I know is that I don't know what's next or where or anything else for that matter. I don't wish to sound put-upon or especially ungrateful ... I do have my health and no one is chasing me for a bill, but that's of small consolation.

Yeah ... this year can f_ck right off.

 

Just getting very bored with not being able to do anything. I didn't go shopping. I bought one thing at Trader Joe's, a traditional Chocolate Orange for my wife's stocking. She has always gotten one since she was a kid. Somehow, there were a ton of presents under the tree, all acquired by my wife and daughter through their various online shopping possibilities.
Drinking too much? What do you think. Been told to lose weight (anybody ever had a doctor tell you that?), so, avoid sugar and carbs. What do I do -- margaritas and sour dough bread that my wife learned to make. It's the best I've ever had and I've been to San Francisco. An occasional Manhattan. Good thing I almost stopped drinking beer. Otherwise, I could be in trouble.

Wishing you all better times ahead.

 

I remember sitting in the break room at Safeway, going through Twitter and seeing the NBA had shut down, followed in the timeline that Tom Hanks and his bride had contracted covid. I knew right then the world was about to change. Boy, did it ever! Add in my uncle passing away (and we'll have his memorial service one of these days, dammit) and mom's health being shaky at times (she's doing fine now and in fact is preparing Christmas dinner as I type).

But a couple of good things did happen: Picked up an older, but reliable and with very low mileage on it, used car, freeing me from being a slave to public transit. Also paid off some old tax debts incurred in the aftermath of a disastrous relationship and can plot a financial future. And I hit 60!

But overall, fuck 2020. Fuck it hard. No lube.

 

After making some positive strides professionally in 2019, Ms. BYM2 and I really thought 2020 was our year. We had two trips planned, I had a work trip to Las Vegas planned that she was coming on and we were going to take my mom away for her 70th birthday. I'd be contacted early in the year about my interest in working on an autobiography which would involve an advance and another story I'd started working on in 2019 in order to pitch to magazines had come along nicely as I'd already interviewed about 10 key people. It felt like I was finally on the verge of at least using some that full potential every damn teacher said I never reached and was probably right. We took a quick three-day trip the Bahamas and we kept talking about how this year was going to be so much fun.

Then the pandemic shut down my world while hers intensified as an employee for the PA Department of Health. She started working seven-day weeks while I wondered how much longer I would work at all. Any talks of a book were on hold and anyone on this site who has tried pitching a freelance story to a magazine or website already knows how closed that door has become. A couple of the publications have shut down completely. A publication I had been freelancing for since 2017 let me know in August that I wouldn't be needed this year, which was an easy four-figure check gone. Needless to say the trips were canceled and, a month before the pandemic really took hold, her van died and she had to scramble to get another one before work intensified.

Then her mom, who has been living with her while in and out of the hospital for three years, just went to bed one night and didn't wake up. Ms. BYM2 been so busy with work I don't believe she's had time to process it. Her mom's yorkie, who was ancient with kidney disease, slowly started sliding with each passing week that her mom didn't magically come after a few weeks in the hospital like she always had. The dog liked us, but you could tell she viewed us as the substitute teachers. She stopped eating and would just wander into corners for no reason in the middle of the night. After she started with seizures and a damn near complete inability to walk we made that painful decision in mid-August to drive her to the vet one last time.

This Thanksgiving, my mom's car lost its transmission and started blowing blue smoke on the Pennsylvania Turnpike on her way home. Thankfully my aunt and uncle were right behind and nothing happened, but it was an egregious reminder how vulnerable she is as a now older woman traveling alone. Oh, and my car got traded after it refused to stop doing ignorant shit, including having a ball bearing (I believe)go bad (it's second in four years and 50,000 miles) the week the week before Thanksgiving.

The thing I've been battling like a drug addiction is laziness. It's so easy to not even try because you're accustomed to either hearing "no" or nothing at all. And we're all working from the couch in pajamas with The Price is Right on to boot. I dusted off the freelance idea and started interviewing people again to start gaining more information but also to motivate me to keep pitching the idea places.

All of this bitching aside, it could have been a helluva lot worse. I still have my full-time gig and the magazine I've been freelancing for the last five years has kept steady work coming my way. Mom's healthy and has new wheels and, this morning, Ms. BYM2 got the engagement ring she's been hinting for for a while. So, I guess it was still a step, but not anywhere near the step I'd planned on. But then again, that's everyone's story.

 

Any of those mag editors you work for complain that you bury the lede?
Congratulations!!!

 

Keep fighting, brother. 2021 will be a better year for you. Maybe Wlat returns to Pitt and all is right with the world.

 

Shit. I hadn’t thought of this.