The Bright Side of Life

The holiday blues are hitting again. Some things are making me feel bad, such as my new shoes which are hurting my feet. I ordered a pair online, which was the same model as my old shoe, but somehow it's just not working. Either the leather is too hard or I got the wrong size. I'm considering buying a new pair soon but this will make me poorer which is making me feel worse.

I also had an epiphany: Manila, the city I lived in for 25 years, is ugly. For most of my life I believed the Dept. of Tourism's brochures of how beautiful our city is, but apparently, it has no aesthetic value whatsoever. I realized it the other day when somebody said, "Manila is so ugly (but we have nice malls)." I thought about it, and I concur. If I wasn't born there, I wouldn't even consider it as a place to live. According to the few historical writings I have read, Manila used to be a "beautiful" city before the Japanese and MacArthur fought over it during World War II, destroying the city and killing more than 100,000 people in just one month. This was almost 60 years ago and nobody seems to remember or care about it.

I was really "out of it" yesterday as I bungled along with work and fell asleep in the middle of the day. I woke up at 9:30 pm and had dinner with Carina in a Philippine fast food on 14 Street. It helped a little, but I really think I'm in a funk. I had half a fried milkfish:

On the bright side, I discovered Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Life of Brian. Holy Grail was very silly, while Brian was funny and deep. For a moment, I related with Brian since across the board his life was just bad. However he still managed to look at the bright side of life in the end, which was very touching, sensitive as I am these past few days. Skimming through the DVD, I read that Brian (and King Arthur) in real life had died in 1989. It was sad news, but I still felt a sense of hope, since his work will live on forever.