It was late April/May time that Google got in touch. They wanted someone to help document Fugu on MDN. Fugu is Google's name for native functionality for the web (by and large). How could I refuse! What an ideal contract! They were going to pay me to write newly specced Web APIs for MDN docs. So obviously I pushed back and said only if I could do part time. I was still suffering hugely from covid. Luckily they agreed and thank you very much Kayce and Paul (very very much). I know some clients who would have instantly refused with only full time as acceptable.

June I started 20 hours a week with Google, writing Web API documentation for MDN. I was working with Joe Medley, who I knew from around about. If you don't know him, he's the one at Google helping to support MDN for them (there's a few peeps dotted around that do this). It was a great contract and I wish I was still doing it, but we'll get to that later. Joe was a pleasure to work with. I had written for MDN before - back in 2018 I did a few updates to Web Audio and in 2019 working with the lovely Estelle Weyl kicking off Houdini documentation. However there was still a bit to learn, as there always is with contracts, and Joe was a great mentor. In his own words come August

quote! The change I have seen in your health since June, you looked so tired back then!

Are there a lot of Joe's in this post 🤔

It was true, I pushed myself very hard over the summer when we were not full lockdown but semi lockdown. Making sure I got out, I saw human beings. I would be completely wiped for days, but it was good for my mental health and that's just as important as my physical health.

The goog contract ran until the end of the year, and I know some great people at Google pushed for budget to extend it. However I refused an instant extension (yes I'm the lady that turned down a google contract 🤷🏻‍♀️) because, well MDN.

But that was my latter few months workwise. And again big thanks for both clients for understanding my personal situation. When Google found budget to extend my contract I just needed to say no. It wasn't sustainable to do both. I still feel bad about this, but it was the right descision.

So that was work, and it's great work. I'm still with Mozilla. A big update was done in December where MDN content moved to a static site. It's a really good change and I'll do a summary of how to contribute at some point.

Other things that rolled along on 2020. It was a difficult year for everyone, but Live JS is still ~a~live. Peeps have been building things in lockdown which I have a lot of respect for. Back in the spring/summer the group did live streaming. It was p awesome and I wish I had been more involved. Matt has been playing live with his software and Tim P and Sam have been working on modV and did a workshop with it.

Even with my sickness Tim H released a few podcast episodes we had in the draw.

OK it's about Joes and Tims

I feel a bit more on top of things now, so hopefully we'll see more episodes this year. The feedback has been awesome and generative art is so hot right now.