Much has changed since I last posted here, which, for those of you keeping track, was August 8, 1976.

New job. New apartment furniture. New life.

And yet, sadly, no new post ideas. Well, scratch that; I’ve many ideas, just no time motivation to spew them onto the web.

I’m open to suggestions, including those involving embezzlement and heresy.

Emberesy.

It feels good to be back.

A couple of weeks ago, as I prepared to copy edit one of the Call’s last opinion pages of 2009,  I couldn’t help but smile.

There, staring up at me from the page proof, was one of those year-end cartoons. It depicted a woman attempting to return “2009” at a retail store’s customer service counter. “Nice,” I thought to myself, and proceeded to proofread the rest of the page.

Later, as we were finishing things up in the newsroom, my editor suddenly said, “So did that opinion page look all right?”

“Oh yeah,” I replied. “That cartoon was pretty strong, though.”

“Why?” he said. “2009 was awful.”

It was getting late, and I wasn’t about to debate my boss, so I said, “Yeah, I suppose it was.”

As I made my way back to the apartment that night, though, I struggled to find any devastating “low-lights” of my 2009. Sure, our national economy is about as banged up as a head-on car crash victim, millions don’t have jobs and our government is probably going to implement one of the most contentious pieces of policy (health care reform, to clarify) in the history of this country.

But hey, I had a pretty good year.

Perhaps it was all luck. Maybe 2010 will be the year everything that could possibly come crashing down on me will do so. I hope not.

As an act of gratefulness, not selfishness, I wanted to reflect on some of the major positives in my life in 2009. Compared with the negatives, life wasn’t too bad:

I signed up for Jogging 101 in January and lost more than 50 pounds by December.

Here’s a surprise: I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. Sure I’ve tried, but they’re just not my thing. So when I signed up to jog for academic credit two days a week for the first couple months of 2009, it wasn’t part of some well thought-out scheme to become the next Usain Bolt or anything. I just wanted to get some exercise.

The first few sessions were, um, rough as hell. Looking back, I’m guessing I was able to run about a half-mile before quite possibly approaching full-on cardiac arrest. But I was determined to change that, and eventually realized I could block out my fatigue by staying focused. That was the barrier-breaker.

Class ended in March, but I kept jogging. It was tough some weeks to find the time, but I strove to make it work. By the end of the class I was up to one mile; by graduation, two. The fitness guru in me only grew stronger over the summer. I portioned off what I ate and kept up the exercise. Soon I was up to six consecutive miles of jogging and weighed an amount I hadn’t seen on the scale since high school.

That, above all, was my top accomplishment of 2009. Sure, jobs are nice. Independence is nice. But as the “old saying” (I think?) goes, “If you don’t have your health …”

Our student newspaper wins big in New York City; Chicago blows my mind; and I graduate on-time, with the degree I set out to get.

It was technically a technicality. The staff of our student newspaper, the Northwest Missourian, left a major journalism conference in the Big Apple without a Best in Show award we thought we had a great shot at winning. Tragic, we thought, but it wasn’t the end of the world.

Flash forward a couple of days: Our adviser calls me into her office and informs me that the newspaper that did “win” the award actually entered into the wrong category and, whaddya know, we were the real winners! Now, I really don’t like all the pomp and circumstance involved with awards, but this sure did give me a great feeling. I’m still so proud of everyone.

For the past umpteen years, my spring breaks have been relatively lame. I go home, spend some quality time with the family and generally do absolutely nothing exciting. Not in 2009. Less than a week after returning from NYC, my friends and I headed to the glorious city of Chicago for an amazing vacation. Let’s go back next year, Ben and Stephanie!

May 2, 2009: My birthday, but this year was a bit different. I graduated, celebrating the close of my last year of formal schooling. Better yet, I was celebrating the fact that my journalism major and Spanish minor, for better or worse, never changed from the first day of college. It was definitely difficult bidding farewell to some amazing people, though, no matter how great it felt to hold that diploma.

What dying newspaper industry?  I got a job!

It took a few days, but not long after I moved back home in May, a harsh reality set in: I’m unemployed, and the folks can’t support me forever. So I dove into the job hunt, sending out application after application, not really caring where these jobs were, as long as I nabbed one of them.

Then, in mid-May, I received an e-mail from the general manager of Call Newspapers, a weekly in south St. Louis County to which I had applied. They had an opening for a reporter.

“We’re interested,” the general manager wrote. “Write a news story from the attached list of facts and send it back to me.”

I had the story written in an hour.

Long story short – no pun intended – I was interviewed, and something clicked. I walked into the Call’s newsroom as a “cub” reporter on May 28 and, holy cow, I’m still there seven months later. The gig is great, and I’m very thankful I have it. Some days are more challenging than others, but the experience has been wonderful.

Home sweet freakin’ home

My car is awesome. It’s a ’96 Toyota Avalon. Used to be my grandmother’s, but I won it in a coin toss – yes, you read that correctly – after she died two years ago. Comfy seats, great heat and air conditioning … truly a stellar vehicle.

That said, driving it two hours to and from work became rather monotonous after about a month. Something had to change.

I began looking at apartments over the summer, my only criteria for the place being a location that significantly would cut back on my commute and that wouldn’t break my financial back.

Perused south county for a pad, but lord, beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder down there. The complexes looked fabulous on the outside but, well, the inside …

So I moved north, inquiring about – and quickly walking away from – apartments in Clayton. One-bedroom on Forsyth: $700 a month. No thanks.

Then I searched Dogtown, a residential community tucked in neatly beside Forest Park and the new Highway 40. There, I hit the jackpot. One bedroom. Wood floors. Dishwasher. Reasonable price. Sold!

It’s been great living on my own, keeping track of just me. I go grocery shopping every Sunday and (try to) clean house every Wednesday. Still don’t have much of a social life, but hey, it’s all about taking those baby steps.

I got my first ‘real-world’ pay raise and thwarted H1N1.

These two accomplishments are combined because they’re pretty self-explanatory. Moving on …

Of course, I’d be lying if I said nothing got me down this year. There were a few pretty frown-worthy happenings in 2009:

I parted ways with all my college friends.

Three cheers for technology, because that’s the only way I keep in touch with these incredible people. I miss them terribly, there’s just no other way to put it.

Michael Jackson is dead.

Yes, I guess you could say I’m quite fond of the King of Pop. As cheesy as it sounds, I remember what I was doing when I heard the news. I was taking a break from writing a story at work when I brought up TMZ.com and caught the “Michael Jackson dies” headline at the top of the page. Couldn’t believe it. Still can’t. But his music is more alive than ever, at least in my apartment.

I saw flashing lights in my rearview mirror for the first time.

Remember how I said the pre-apartment commute to work wasn’t exactly a pleasure cruise? My first speeding ticket turned it into the daily trip through hell. Eighty in a 65 = $95 ticket = massive insurance premiums! What can I say, I’m just a speed demon.

The Avalon meets Bambi’s mom.

I’ll be painfully honest here: this “deer” friend of mine could’ve cost me a lot more than just moderate car damage. Had I hit it any differently, I might not have lived to type this. I’m ridiculously fortunate.

There you have it – my 2009 in a rather large nutshell. Major milestones and minor setbacks that put me in the minority in thinking the past 365 days weren’t too shabby. Selfish as hell? Perhaps. Grateful as hell? Definitely.