It's been a year since my last post. The year 2010 was awesome in its own way. It sucked, yes. There's no doubting it. I still chose to tag 2010 as awesome simply because it tested my mettle. Challenging was an understatement. Torturous? Not even close. The pessimist in me screams suicide. The optimist in me simply says, "Hey, you lost about 20 pounds." I chose to go with the optimist. So why did I choose to say 2010 was awesome? Here's why it WAS NOT awesome, and why it WAS awesome: I changed careers early in the second quarter, with no definite place to transfer to. In short, I killed my cash cow. Bad move. I essentially stepped out of my comfort zone and treaded waters that were previously known to me. It made me realize how much had changed, job market-wise. It also made me ask myself important questions. Do I matter? Are my skills still relevant? AM I STILL RELEVANT? If I didn't leave my comfort zone, I wouldn't know the answer. Of course, leaving my comfort zone simply to find out if I do still matter, if I am still relevant, was NOT the best way to go about it. Still, it happened. And yes, I found my answer. The homestead was no picnic, either. Blood pressures rise, tempers flare, voices get raised, all for the littlest of things. The frustration builds up from the desperation to find a new cash cow. And soon. And, as if on queue, the househelp suddenly decides to leave us. We were still able to pay for wages, but I think she was in cahoots with the Universe to fuck with me. My "hiatus" wasn't really all bad, though. I get to spend most of my time with the wife and the willspawn. I was able to, sort of, reconnect with the people that may have been thinking I've forgotten about. Yay for reconnecting. There were times when everything seemed hopeless and that the only solution was to collect insurance from my death. Okay, not really. Because I'm not insured and I hate being in pain. At these times, which is most of the time, I turn to da innarnetz. Yes, I picked up quite a number of lolcatspeak vocabulary along the way. These... 'KADAs'  have brought a lot of LOLs that got me through the day. Through a lot of days, actually. Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook... well, not really as much from Facebook, and Plurk. The people there are awesome, and despite every sucky thing that's also happening to them, they manage to make an annoying animated GIF and make themselves, and others, laugh in the process. I made a mix of escapism and reality. Want some?

• blog.ademagnaye.com
• stream.ademagnaye.com
• facebook.com/noisynoisyman
• comicgasm.com
• iamkeysi.com
• hilarion.tumblr.com
• facebook.com/larrycayco
• twitter.com/hilarion
• larrycayco.blogspot.com
• comicology.i.ph
• facebuko.com
• ambigrams.tumblr.com
• pinoypickuplines.tumblr.com
• twitter.com/orasid
• facebook.com/jonasroque
• facebook.com/jmhighdef
• kikayrunner.com
• facebook.com/kikayrunner
• twitter.com/kikayrunner
• noelledeguzman.net
• twitter.com/noelledeg
• noelledeg.tumblr.com
• checkyoulater.net
• fozzard.asia
• baklaako.com
• kaininmo.com
• fritzified.com
• facebook.com/eishaddap
• weirdcontrovert.tumblr.com/
• twitter.com/blogie
• angdabawenyo.com
• robilloblog.com
• davaodeli.com
• ittalks.net
• mindanaobloggers.com
• electricdropkick.wordpress.com
• electricdropkick.tumblr.com
• electricdropkick.posterous.com

The above list is my way of saying thanks. The people behind the websites listed above are the same people I interacted with, annoyed, creeped out, and maybe disgusted, online. And for those times I was not feeling a hundred percent and bitchy about it, they knew to let me vent and rant my heart out. Good folks all around. I can't say the same thing about their sites, though. So click at your own risk. LOLJK. A year after my last post, I'm in my late-thirties. I'm officially a dirty-old-man if I hit on anyone below 30. As far as New Year's Resolutions go, here's mine: don't make any resolution and just do it, for fuck's sake. Stop complaining and do it, for fuck's sake. Yep. Totally mature of me. Fuck yeah. The challenges are still there, let's face it. They don't disappear. They just morph into something else, something unfamiliar, something terrifying, but it's still the same challenge. Bills still pile up. Debts are still unpaid. Well, some of them. The human-resembling squatters are still there and will still be as annoying as they want to be. The Philippine Government and its LGUs are still going to disappoint. Kotong cops are still going to, well, kotong. My grammar and whatever I wrote here is still going to be made fun of by juvenile geriatric fucks. But still, I rediscovered what I should have been doing at a time when everything was really falling apart. There's no one else to blame for whatever happened to me but myself. There's no use to beating myself up about it. There's no one else that can do something about it but me, and it's going to take some time to change an old habit. Nike helps a bit, though. I meant their slogan.

"Just do it." "You said tomorrow yesterday."

Yeah, it hits the spot, right there. So why was 2010 awesome? I learned more from that year alone than the previous years combined, both professionally and personally. I learned that it doesn't matter if you do or do not matter, that it only matters if you want to. I learned that my skills, all of them, aren't relevant all the time, and that some of it are relevant some of the time, and not having any skills at all are what makes you not relevant. I learned that being relevant is directly proportional to how relevant you want to be. Skills are learned. Relevance is relative. Attitude matters.

I'm half of a septuagenarian already but it is only now that I ask myself profound questions that doesn't force me to think of an answer of the wise-ass kind. Ten years ago, I think, in a job interview, I was asked what I see myself doing five years from then. I always had a canned response of someday being one of the supervisors or managers of the company I was trying to get into. That, or owning and managing my own business. At one point, I had this delusion of becoming a rock star playing the guitar in a rock band. A few years passed and a few grand spent, and I got nothing to show for it. I feel embarrassed as I remember what I was doing back then. And this was a VERY LONG time ago. I also thought I can make it in the digital age by becoming a digital graphic artist, learning the tools of the trade that is Corel Draw and Photoshop. Or become a mountaineer, climbing all sorts of peaks and trudging through valleys for Discovery Channel. Yeah, I want my fifteen minutes of fame. I'm not really sure if I have ADD or something because I easily get distracted by a new gadget or some other weird stuff; I lose interest easily. Also, mountaineering got in the way of my smoking, so I quit mountaineering. I occasionally go hiking at least once a year, though, so quitting mountaineering isn't really set in stone. Then, more delusions of grandeur in the digital age crept up my mind by way of becoming a professional blogger. Yeah, the cause of this blog. Unfortunately, I'm a friggin' introvert, and the only way I interact with other people socially is through the anonymity of a username and an avatar. And that's basically the reason I don't attend events and other PR-related stuff. That, and lack of money and time. Fast forward to today and I take look at what I've been doing. I got married. My wife gave birth to a son that I shall refer to from this point on as Willspawn. I get by one day at a time, paying the bills and providing for my family, to the best of my capability, along the way. The downside of my current profession is that I work at nights, effectively killing off any kind of social life. Oh yes, I can make time to go out and enjoy what people-with-regular-working-hours have, but at this stage of my life, sleep is a rare commodity highly prioritized and taken advantage of in every chance presented. Ten years ago, I basically lied my ass off in that job interview. I lied NOT to the company, but to myself. I should have my own business right now. I should be the boss already. I should be thriving on my own. A lot of should-have's, but not enough of what-is's. Today marks not only my 35th birthday, but also an alarm clock going off telling me that I have five more years left before my life "begins." I want to know if life truly begins at 40. And I want to be prepared to do anything and everything I want to do when that time comes. That is, if I live long enough past it to enjoy it. In the meantime, I think I'll just ramble on... sing my song...