It was June. I went for a run around my city. This was a Saturday and it had been a very hard week in the exact middle of a very hard year for all of us. Riots had broken out across the United States after George Floyd was killed. People were upset everywhere. We were all heartsick.
It's time for one of my favorite annual walks down memory lane. Below I've corralled a ranked 10 posts from this very ridiculous website. These are the pieces you most viewed from 2020. Please enjoy.
And to truly kick it off, here's a picture of me hiking with Skylar and a dozen of his sweaters:
Coming in at number 10, I wrote about Skylar's absolutely outrageous unrealistic expectations that I should be able to find things inside of stores.
Matt has decided to move away from us, which is absolutely a hate crime and an act of terror. He sprung the news on us a few months ago.
"I'm buying a house in Las Vegas because I hate you and refuse to consider your happiness as I make my big life decisions."
Ok, he didn't say that last part out loud but that's what I heard nevertheless.
Obviously we are not pleased with Matt leaving us, but we are even more not pleased with his outrageously unfair decision to take Mr. Ollie Pants with him. Ollie has tried to remain neutral in the matter because he doesn't like to see humans at war, but I'm certain he's devastated about the whole thing.
The move is happening at the end of the month and since Matt already sold his house in Salt Lake City, he has taken up residence in our basement temporarily. Or so he thinks because he doesn't know we've purchased chains and an incredible amount of dungeon equipment that should keep him in place for many years to come.
He showed up over the weekend with a bed he decided he doesn't want to take with him on his move of betrayal. We spent the better part of the evening folding a queen sized mattress in half and shoving it down the narrow set of stairs in my house that was built for malnourished 19th century pioneers. Now he's spending the week cleaning stuff and fixing shit in an effort to fool us into not being mad at him. And we hate that this is working.
First off, I wrote a piece about what it feels like to close the chapter on 2020. It was incredibly cathartic to write this, in a way I hadn't really anticipated when I sat down and started typing. I would love to have you check it out. Special thanks as always to Josh Fowlke for the absolutely incredible artwork.
Second, the Traveling Snuggie has made it back home, sort of unexpectedly. Brooke (featured below) had it and she emailed me to let me know she would be in Utah for the month of December and so she offered to bring it to me if I wanted to see it. I had anticipated having it continue its journey, but I admit that I was selfish and couldn't resist getting ahold of it after its long journey.
When I started Strangerhood of the Traveling Snuggie a few years ago, I honestly didn't think people would actually be very interested in participating. I thought at most a couple of you near Salt Lake City would sign up and we'd do this for a few weeks and have a small shared laugh over it.
What ended up happening was hundreds of people emailed me and wanted to participate. People from all over the country (and world). Everyone was so enthusiastic and delightful about it. The Snuggie ended up hitting 50 or so of your homes all over the United States (I was too scared to send it abroad, but maybe we need to have an international version?).
You all took it and added little trinkets and gadgets along the way. You created a travel book to write notes to one another and you sent information and keepsakes along with it to represent your town.
I was just about to leave work for the day when my husband called me.
“Class has been canceled. They’re sending everyone home,” he said.
Skylar was deep into his second year of medical school when the university announced that due to reports of coronavirus reaching certain parts of the United States, campus would be closing.
Minutes later I scrolled through Twitter to find an endless stream of virtual fearmongering from the online masses about impending shutdowns of nearly every supply chain. “The state liquor stores are going to be closing soon and we don’t know when they’ll open again, so everyone plan accordingly,” one friend announced on Facebook alongside a picture of a line of people that wrapped up and down the wine aisles.
A couple years ago my friend Anna got Duncan a little stuffed animal hedgehog. She called it "Hedgy" and this quickly became Duncan's very favorite toy. My little man was obsessed with Hedgy. He would carry him everywhere he went. One time Sky and I were out of town and Anna was watching him; she sent us a picture of Duncan and Hedgy sitting on the front porch looking off into the distance together.
When that first Hedgy started looking worse for the wear, not at all helped by the fact that some of Duncan's friends got ahold of him and ripped his guts out, Anna got Duncan a replacement Hedgy. We tried to get rid of the first Hedgy carcass, but Duncan flipped out when we attempted to take it away from him. He would go stand in front of the garbage can, somehow aware that that's where we had thrown it, and cry. He loved the new Hedgy, but he loved the old raggedy one, too.
Just a few days ago Skylar and I decorated gingerbread cookies. With sweat at my brow, I mixed and rolled the dough and then I carefully baked them with love. We covered them with colorful frosting and other decorations. It was so damn cozy and lovely.
"What a wonderful husband I am," I thought to myself about this magical experience I created for Skylar. "And now he'll have these delicious treats to munch on for several days."
I even put them on a Christmas plate my mother gave me.
Look. You know me. You've been reading this site since you were mumble mumble years old. Since back before the war. Since the days of Blockbuster and Myspace. You used to read this site gulping a Surge and listening to Alanis Morissettes's's's new album.
We go way back, you and me and you and so forth. We go back so far we need a chiropractor to fix it. That joke probably doesn't make sense, but we are so bonded together that you didn't even question it and in fact found yourself suddenly ready to fight anyone who planned to come at me in the comments. And we're so tight that you don't even care about that fact that I censor that crap and don't allow negative comments here because I'm blogger's deep state.
So, since we are so bonded together, you are 100% ready to side with me in my absolute rage at my husband, who, as you know, swore on his eternal soul to worship and serve me, and he swore it IN FRONT OF THE PEOPLE WHO USED TO CHANGE OUR DIAPERS at the most expensive party we've ever thrown and which "we can totally do all of that within budget" but which we absolutely did not do within budget.
My husband. Skylar whatshisname. That man. That mannn. Yesterday. He was at the grocery store, and he called me and said "what do you need? I'll grab what you need while I'm here, if you'll tell me."
I thought, wrongly, what a thoughtful husband I have and deserve. I shall communicate the most basic of all messages at him and surely there will be no problem and he'll do exactly the right thing.
A couple years ago I found this film about dating and marriage produced by BYU in 1956 and I talked about it on Strangerville when I did the four-part series on old Mormon films. Well, I finally built up the stamina to recap it, with screenshots so you can see how exceptionally hot one of the protagonist's suitors was.
You can read this real doozy of recap here. Also, shoutout to Josh Fowlke, our artist at The Beehive, who once again created the perfect piece of art for this recap.
In other news, my husband, the man who vowed before God to love and worship and support and never criticize and always agree and suffer in silence for me, attacked me out of nowhere the other night.
There's an ongoing debate in my home about whether or not I'm a bad "finder." Skylar includes "good finder" at the very top of his list of positive qualities he believes he possesses. This topic comes up every single day.
Skylar: Will you please hand me the cumin?
Eli: I don't see it.
Skylar: Did you move stuff around?
Eli: I don't have to because it's not here and that would be a waste of time.
At some point during my periodic search for obscure, horrifying old Mormon films, I discovered a real doozy. This was about two years ago and I’ve been willing myself to summon the endurance to recap it ever since. How Near To The Angels comes at us from 1956, and it comes at us hard.
We begin our story with two schoolmarms dressing a young lady in a white wedding dress.
