gone for a day

We treated ourselves to a nice dinner of deli, seared abalone, lamb, and apricot cake in a hotel-restaurant overlooking the pretentious part of this city.

I take lousy pictures with my oversized Nokia.

Back to reality

I want to feel proud of myself again. Nowadays, no matter what ‘achievement’ I accomplish or impossibility I make possible, I do not feel any sense of pride.

The reason: I am getting older. I am much less conceited now than I was 5 years ago in college, back when I was the one true fascist and everyone was inferior to me. I miss taking pride in what I do. Promoting myself. Making everyone else look like losers.

I want to be the heartless, stuck-up fucker I was born to be (again). I want to look at where I am now and feel proud, and then brag about it. For one day, I want to relish in my achievements. When people ask me how the business is going, I want to be able to say

I’m raking in more money in a month than you do in a year because I am so goooood at this. *waits 5 seconds and snaps fingers* Whoops! I just made your whole week’s worth of pay. And why? Because I work fucking hard. And everything I touch turns to gold. Now go hang yourself.

and not the usual

Oh, it’s ok. I’m overworked and always worried.

I don’t want to be nice. And yet I am. I really am. Even my friends notice.

Make me a pompous prick again please please please.

I want the biggest head in the world.

Make that universe. Just for a day.

break

So we’ve been working odd hours for the past two months now (owing to the ‘establishment’ of THE EMPIRE) and we finally had a day off to just go around town shopping not for office supplies, but for ourselves.

MSP got clothes (never knew that geeks could be so fashionable) and looked at watches (but didn’t get any). Meanwhile, I covered the basics I have been neglecting the past 60 days.

It’s amazing what a good pair of jeans, nail spa, hair treatment, and a few new shirts could do to an overworked fascist like me. I’m just smiling :)

_____________

EDIT:
"Filipinos have a good work ethic and those who spend a lot have their own businesses and are successful in their own way. Buying something expensive is just their way of rewarding themselves and I applaud them for that."
- Richie Ortega of Souk (a high-end retailer in Manila)

Still, why the hell do i feel guilty sometimes?

here it is

We finally got our sign from the shop.



That’s MSP putting the Sieg sign in the car, ever so carefully.
So the company is official. I think I’m gonna pass out.

digression: new sneakers

It has come to this. My life has been so meaningless that I am actually elated over cheap sneakers.



After a week of looking, I finally got a decent pair for $80 (it was on sale) from the Lacoste outlet in Gateway Mall, which is the ultimate irony ever to be built on Manila’s scorching soil. The mall stands right smack in the middle of the ugliness that is Cubao, carrying brands like Fornarina so that the third-world peasant class can count their pennies and realize that the amount of money that the middle class pays for ugly pink pumps marketed as ‘Italian fashion’ could already buy them a month’s supply of food.


Public transport drivers and other militant groups in Cubao. Photo by Arkibong Bayan for http://www.bulatlat.com/news/4-6/4-6-jeepneydriving.html

I would like to think that I am socially-aware, and in my own yuppiedoodah way I try to ‘balance’ economic injustice by:
(a) buying things that are on sale,
(b) driving a mid-range car, and
(c) giving to charity.

But at the end of the day, I’m really a stinking snob. I don’t take public transport as much as I should, I eat in ridiculously expensive restaurants, and I spend thousands a month so I do not have to sweat. (Air-conditioning is a luxury around here).

I wonder why I’m still hell-bent on making my life better for no apparent reason. That interior décor magazine cover? That’s how I want my place to look like. And I want to be that woman/man in that commercial on CNN – the one who sips brewed coffee every morning, sitting on an Eames chair watching the stock market on a 1000” flat-screen television, holding a copy of Entrepreneur.

Torture myself, that’s what I do. Every time I hear about how successful start-ups are in the first world, I die a little. Will I ever be able to make the same thing happen here in Manila? Will our business really take off? Will I be able to recruit good employees? Am I really cut out to build an empire? Sometimes I feel like a kid. I don't know what I'm doing half the time.

All I know is I have all this energy and I want to work and work and work until my eyeballs pop out so that I could retire earlier and live comfortably sipping lattes. And then I will feel guilty about my success, but at least I’ll have coffee to blame it on.