It's my fault I reverted to old habits and put all my hopes on this.

I mean, I told myself before. Do not put all your hopes on one thing. When something else happens you'll be left with nothing. Not that there's anything in the first place, but you know people like me. We want something, we start to act as if there's something.

And now, here I am again. Here we go again. Nervous, wondering if I've made a fool of myself again. Curious, wondering if I should've hedged my bets in the first place. Angry. Or maybe that's too big a word. But I feel angry. "At myself, mostly." That's a bit of a worn record, but it's mostly true.

The other part is what's happening to me. How you, I think, played with this, I think. With me. Yes. With me. Or at least that's what I think. I don't think this is just failing to find common ground; this is deliberately making sure that we don't find it.

Or maybe I'm overthinking this. I am overthinking this, yes? My friends have always said think about these things too much. But I know that when I do just that, something is wrong. And the next step is, always, I scramble for the exit and get caught in the booby trap anyway.

Maybe it's wrong that I'm so highly strung, but it's also wrong to leave people with their expectations. Strike three. I regret ever getting into this, and if something happens tomorrow, well, nothing will happen, because that's it. I'm done. I'm convinced I'm done.

Is there something about living in the so-called "south" that I do not understand?

I live in Cavite. Okay. Geographically it is south of Metro Manila, but socially it is "very far". I live 15 minutes away from Alabang, so I think I have good reason to consider myself as a resident of the so-called "south". We shop in Alabang, we watch movies in Alabang, we eat out in Alabang, never mind the fact that there's an SM mall virtually in front of our subdivision's main gate.

And sure, the so-called "south" also includes the huge chunk of land that is BF, and perhaps anything north of Dr. A. Santos Road. But whatever.

I've always posited that people who live in that part of Metro Manila always get what they want. There'd be some establishment somewhere in Makati, or Ortigas, or Quezon City, some establishment that would be a huge hit. The BF people would loudly wish for a branch near their place. The Alabang people would loudly wish for a branch near their place. You get the idea.

And it's happening. Because we can't be bothered, apparently, to travel a few minutes more just to get ourselves something from, say, Fully Booked, we wish for a branch to open near us. Well, I'm not complaining about this one. They are opening a branch at the Alabang Town Center. Not sure when it will open, but the signs are out there. "Coming soon." My book-buying heart is excited. "See?" I told my sister. "The south gets what it wants."

I remember this story from almost a year ago. I blogged about it, actually. Story was, I went to ATC after a trip from Glorietta, a dozen Krispy Kremes in tow. I went to my usual stops - a bookstore or two, the lame Odyssey branch that sells old, crappy music in its new releases shelf - and twice was I approached by strangers, asking the same question: where did you buy those Krispy Kremes?

In Glorietta, I'd answer.

The first guy was this old man. The second was a teenager, probably 16, who doesn't seem to know how to converse with strangers. He was with his younger brother, who noticed my dozen Krispy Kremes first - and got a wee bit too excited, he goaded his brother to ask me where I bought them. Wrong first impression. I wanted to kick him somewhere, but of course I'd get my butt kicked. I am not from the south, after all, apparently.

A Krispy Kreme branch did open in Alabang a few months later - but in Festival Supermall, which is a bit of a different world altogether. ATC is high-end; Festival isn't. Go shopping there and you'd probably squirm because of the different crowd... provided you've not been to an SM mall, provided you're pretending to be that posh.

Then again, that branch had long lines right after it opened. South people, they'd swallow their pride just for their doughnuts. You'd see someone who doesn't look very hip struggle with how to buy Krispy Kremes - the lady in front of me one night wasn't sure if she'd buy a dozen original glazed or a half-dozen - and you'd just squirm. I didn't. I thought it was uncomfortable, but I didn't. I'm sure they would, probably.

This Saturday, another Krispy Kreme branch will open - this time, at the Alabang Town Center. If you knew little and you were listening to the radio today, you'd think it's the first Krispy Kreme branch in the so-called "south". Finally! A branch where we live! Well, it is, if you decided that Festival isn't in Alabang. (Geopolitically, it is.) The south indeed gets what it wants. And what it wants is a place where they can look, you know, not out of place. Which means a rush of people for the first five weeks, and me, annoyed that the south people have taken over the world, more or less. Maybe I should move out?

I'm writing this blog entry partly to draw your attention to this blog's new digs. Huh? Huh? Nice, huh? No? Oh, wait, if you're reading this on Facebook, then you're not seeing it at all, so click here if you must. And you must.

Misplaced cockiness aside, the new layout isn't really special. I'm no longer aiming to be a web design extraordinaire; those days are lumped together with my more impulsive high school days. I haven't done any HTML in a long time - not since print production class, yes, print production class - and to boot, I decided to give myself a crash course in CSS positioning. That should explain why I'm really giddy about this new layout. That, and the fact that this upgrade is long overdue.

Five years, in fact. The last layout - the one with the boxes and the big photos and the desaturated thumbnails for links - was naturally built to last, but it was getting cramped. (I designed it for 640x480 screens. See? I can never be a web designer.) I've been meaning to replace it for ages - it went as far as sketches written on the back of a Starbucks receipt years ago - but I only really got to do it over the weekend, in the middle of the two weeks between leaving my last job and joining my new one.

It is an achievement. I actually did something I've always been meaning to do, for a change! How many times have I told myself to do some big project, only to not do it because I've run out of time, because I've been busy with things I have to do urgently, or things that have distracted me?

And yet it feels I haven't done much. I've four days left before I start my new job - yes, I start on a Friday, and no, I can't do anything about it - and right now I'm thinking of all that I want to do before I get all caught up with being busy. Sure, I've been out and about these past few days, mostly to have my laptop fixed (again). I've done some shopping: two pairs of slacks and one new long-sleeved polo, to bolster my corporate sensibilities, an experience that has been oddly therapeutic - now I understand why they call it shopping therapy.

But I'm far from done with my shopping list. I'm bent on buying a new pair of shoes and more corporate-y outfits. (That doesn't sound so corporate-y. Neither did that one.) And I've told myself that I'll catch up with all the television I've been meaning to watch these past few months, but haven't because I had to watch a lot of television for work. And when I have lots of free time, perhaps after house chores, I decide to get lazy.

Four days left.

I'd be bent on thinking that I'm wasting my time, that I've wasted my time, and when I sit on my new desk (and a proper cubicle!) on Friday I'll feel a little out of my depth. Oh, I've lost my chance to have fun. So maybe I should start catching up with everything over the next four days. More shopping! More meet-ups! (I haven't done any, but I almost met up with Elaine.) Some television!

Or maybe I should just get lazy. Because I'll never get to do it in a while. In a long while. But what do I know? I'm just hoping to get some stuff done. Maybe hoping something does happen on Thursday, maybe. Actually, I'm just hoping you'd notice the new layout. It's still got orange. See?