Mergers & Reservations

Why You Should Buy Lululemon

Women: You know the deal. They accentuate your assets and through some variation of gypsy magic, tuck away all your undesirables.

Men: You don’t know the deal. Let me enlighten you. Lululemon has a men’s line. And you know what? It’s swaggy as fuck.    

If Nike was the father-figure who was always good at sports, and UnderArmour was your badass Michael Vick lookalike half-brother who once got into a scuffle with Barry Bonds over the delineation between “midgets” and “little people”, Lululemon would be the sophisticated uncle from out of town who always gave you nice shit on Christmas. He runs Iron Mans and dates ethnic models.

Now I’m not telling you to buy Lululemon (NYSE:LULU) solely because I’m a minority stakeholder in the Co. They make hella nice apparel that lasts. And if they don’t, come find me. I’ll give you a nickel. For reading my blog. 

I reflect on life twice a year: December 31st and March 4th

I’m late this year because NYE was downright inappropriate and batshit crazy. If anyone tells you otherwise, they didn’t suffer concussions and they weren’t there.

Notable Occurrences of 2011
-Made horrible decisions
-Lived in San Francisco
-Started working w/ a start-up
-Cooked > four edible meals
-Worked 133hrs in a wk
-Accepted a full-time job offer
—Spontaneously flew to Vegas two days after and got murk’d
-Beat Frankie in Chess
-Started counting cards and sailing small boats
-Became a TA
-Got called an asshole

Hopeful Occurrences of 2012
-Hit 150 before graduation in March
-800 on the GMAT
-Skydive
-Learn French
-Spend a week in Uruguay
-Have a Wikipedia page
-Make a new gym playlist
-Attend the Geffen Playhouse (not the strip club)
-Stop playing hide&seek with my future spouse
-Finish The Fountainhead, This Side of Paradise, and East of Eden
-Spend every dollar to my name before July 16th
-Not get called an asshole

Let me tell you about

what I do.

I do work. I do a lot of it, and I’m fucking great at doing it. I go go go until you can’t go no more, and then I keep going. That keen sense of pushing yourself to a hundred and staying there for as long as possible? Are you kidding me? That’s like the goddamn precipice of human accomplishment right there. I live for the moment when you zero in on an inconstancy and your synapses fire and the caffeine kicks and you go into cardiac arrhythmia for just a split fraction of a second. Because the moment succeeding that connotes a breakthrough, and every hour thereafter lasts but a millisecond.

These eighteen, twenty hour days I’m working are offset by a sense of achievement unlike any I’ve ever experienced. From folding cotton tees in the backroom of PacSun to modeling million dollar IPOs. My life’s a Childish Gambino anthem on repeat.

PS. Standard and Poor’s, you can go fuck yourself.

Every Night’s Another Story

Tonight’s began last night. And last night turned on that imperceptible pivot where ten P.M. becomes four A.M. And yet you found yourself unmoved, planted in that damned ergonomically patented chair. You debate the efficacy of an hour’s respite and a hot shower.

You stop debating and you do. You sleep, you wake, you walk to work. You’re still reeling from last Tuesday’s phone call, but you think the better of it and pick up where you left off the night (morning?) before.

Hours pass.

There’s a disconnect between what you want and what your body will allow. Your eyelids droop, shut, and shatter awake. You take a shot of 5hour. Berry-flavored. “This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, trea”

Another hour passes.

And you’re done. But you realize you spent more time on the phone with FactSet ActiveGraph consultants today than you have with your kid sister all summer. You’re sad. You’re also late. The Giants game started at 7:15 and you have box seats. You join two fellow laggard co-workers and make your way to AT&T Park. You drink, you eat, and you drink some more, in celebration of a major project done right.

The pitcher throws. The batter hits. The crowd groans. The game ends. Your team lost. But what better way to drown loss than a round of IPAs?

Your Blackberry vib-rates. Again. Ag-ain. You enter your eight-digit pin code and press enter. You are met with a mighty long string of letters and errant punctuation marks. You read it. Again. And again. What?

Your co-worker reads it. Your other co-worker reads it, to you. That project you’ve been working on for six weeks? Well it needs work, and he reads you the guestlist. Heads of head of heads of head. Edits are to be made by 6AM pst. But you’re silly and had a whole beer, which wouldn’t be a problem, had you not inherited your father’s low tolerance or remembered to take your famotidines. Without Pepcid support, you might as well be drunk. Go home, sleep it off, and turn at four? No.

You take a taxi to the office, drink two tall glasses of water, and chase with half a liter of VitaCoco. Somewhere in between you sneak in another 5-hour energy. But lo and behold, you and your Analyst realize there is not much to turn. Sober and more awake than you were twelve hours ago, you labor and you toil. It’s one-thirty and you’re already done. No sleepover tonight. But you’re still more awake than you were twelve hours ago. Your analyst makes the finishing touches and bids you goodnight.

It’s approaching two hours after midnight. You’re awake and your options are limited. You decide on 24Hr Fitness. You stretch, you lift things, and you realize you’re the only one there. Besides Dwayne, he works at the front-desk 12-6a M-W. An hour passes and you’re in another taxi, this time en route home.

This story ends anti-climatically. We shan’t work together again.