Long ago on a visit to Victoria Peak in Hong Kong, I saw a woman alight from a fancy car wearing what looked like finely tailored clothes cut on the bias. Everything was high class.

Except her carriage, posture, and walk.

I filed that image away under “c” for future comedy resource.

Apparently, there’s an entire world out there where people can only wear couture brand names. Anything else is beneath them. We know these specimen as “label whores.” There’s one around every corner in every country. The ones who can’t afford it (or didn’t get their second mortgage approved to buy those Prada pumps) simply spot a t-shirt with a poorly printed polo player on the front. Two degrees of separation is surely better than Macy’s INC.

Early in 2008, my second cousin visited and opened a new universe to my perception. There’s an army of online bloggers who apparently photograph their brand name possessions and post it online. They would line up their possessions and photograph them, and then post it. (I had to say that twice just to make sure I wasn’t in Kansas anymore).

REALLY!?

It was as if the products which utilized the simulacrum of identities they co-opted themselves into by consuming, has become the identity itself. The deification of the object has become the lifestyle it was suppose to provide a gateway to.

I was shocked. I immediately sent the links of the blogs to friends without saying “will you look at this madness?!” They, in turn, made the mistake of reading every entry, thinking I was actually sharing something meaningful with them. An hour later, a few wrote back and said, “I love this line: I’m turning 27 and have nothing to show for it except a few designer bags and shoes”

I guess you could go the other extreme too. Take me for example: All these years I spent too much time working on my personality (it took that long and it’s still far from done!). And now it shows that I haven’t worked on anything else!

I was recently discussing diamonds.

The fact that hardened coal, artificially marketed as a rarity can continue to command such a high price, is a hint at how worth amongst human beings can be distorted.

I guess there’s no substitute for the gauging of one’s trophiness (or hottie-ness) like an 8 carat deBeers. Not sure whether it’s the artificially inflated cost or the suffering African miners that will make a woman feel loved.

There’s no secret that I thought Breakfast At Tiffany’s Cracker Jack ring was brilliant. But I would leave a man in an instant if he tried that stunt. I wouldn’t leave him for the cheapness of the gift.

I would leave him for his lack of originality.

But I was recently asked to pick a nice ring. My eyes immediately glazed over when I saw this:

(of course, they didn’t have my size)

Sure, I could settle for a fairly expensive imitation of a diamond ring (cubic zirconia?) or a lesser make-do diamond ring. But no matter how much you spend, it’s still a lesser imitation of something that may not necessarily be better, only more expensive.

Why not forget about the price tag for a change, and go for the best original? A plastic daisy ring may be $0.40, but there’s no better, $0.41 plastic daisy ring. It’s the best for what it is, because it’s not imitating any other ring. It may make allusions to a daisy.

But you can’t put a price tag on a daisy.

Speaking only for myself, I sometimes feel the same way about my trans* state: why try so hard to be an inferior copy of a girl when I hardly have to try being hard as the best 2-for-1 girl in town?

Ideally, being a 2-for-1 special would require that I request the very plainest and most cost-effective-looking ring that secretly costs an astronomical sum of money.

I don’t need the world to know how much money was spent on me. I just need to know that I put two dents in a man’s pant pocket.

How else can a 2-for-1 girl be satisfied?