- Sang “Someone’s Waiting For You” to myself
- Took showers as often as possible
- Kept a picture of my cat on my bedside trolley-table (drawn by my roommate)
- Wrote many letters threatening to sue all my doctors
- Tried as hard as possible to draw realistic colored pictures from a magazine (left by the same roommate who drew my cat)
- Played Plants vs. Zombies on the computer (the only game on it)
- Wrote on the computer
- Ate sweets
- Masturbated often
- Replayed Jenna Marbles videos in my head
- Read novels
- Thought about Gulf War POW’s and about how lucky I was to not get beaten up every day
- Ran on a treadmill
- Crossed off days on a calendar
Category: Anger
A Few Questions
1. Where do the wild and lonely thoughts that come alive late at night go to sleep in the morning light?
2. When is a prison not a prison?
3. Why do literary theorists love so much to repeat words in such a fashion: “both fatal and fated to die,”* “both castrated and castrating?”** Perhaps it’s something they’re taught to do in school
4. Is the sudden and exponential rise of interest in large musical productions such as stadium concerts and music festivals a manifestation of the perennial human yearning to belong to something bigger than just oneself? For at these times the mass of humanity moves as one, even if it’s just to uselessly jump up and down like excited infants, or panicking interns
5. I wonder if I could be able to go to the park every day and play there, and if my kitten can go with me.
6. Wonder what my kitten’s doing right now?
7. Why am I on so many medications?
8. So many famous historical figures, especially artists, were (or would have been) diagnosed with mental illness. Who’s to say what’s a mental illness, anyway? The DSM changes like a teenager’s mind about what to do with her life. How many of today’s would-be great artists are being medicated into stupors
9. Continuing that thought, I’d be the last person to say that one should preserve a clear illness just to maintain an artistic productivity. What I’m trying to say is that I wonder how many of the people diagnosed today with a mental illness actually just contain an excess of emotional and physical energy that would find a glorious outlet through an art form? With guidance and encouragement?
10. So much of modern life has to do with finding ways to trigger release of dopamine into people’s brains. There are infinite ways to do this. Phone apps are one of them. Every crop grown, row of jewels matched, like or heart triggers a release. What I wonder is, could the anxiety from being deprived of these things be as strong as actual withdrawal from a drug
11. When will everyone see that the transition of the economy into a renting economy needs more regulation? For as of now, companies involved in the renting industry take massive advantage of renters and rentees alike. (Airbnb of homeowners, Uber of car owners, Spotify of musicians, Steam of game developers, etc. etc.)
12. Why does this house make me so sleepy?
13. Will I be able to trade my board for another with different screw positionings?
14. Hmmm.
15. Why is MØ so emotional that her saddest songs bring a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes?
16. Could it be that a mastery of bokeh is the secret to successful and popular modern photography?
17. How much of my hatred for popular culture is borne of jealousy and the bitterness of being forever an outsider?
*John Weir,
**David Rudd, University of Boston
Featured image by Leonid Tishkov, from a series about a man who fell in love with the moon and spent the rest of his life with her (Private Moon).
Filipino Standards
Me: anyways so i’m randomly looking up choreography to Body On Me
and the most watched is some awful video by Filipinos
J: Are you making a porn
Me: just some hot girls dancing in front of sports cars
nah not yet hahaha
dancing first, then porn
but anyway it’s like
it reallly shows how filipinos are willing to put up with stupid crap
they literally just parked sports cars in a garage and then danced mediocrely in front of them
there’s no story, no set, no angles, no nothing
and it’s got 3M views
stupid shit
J: Hahahaah wttff
the second most watched is this Korean video. it’s got a set and lighting and all
but for sheer volume of people watching the Filipino vid beats it
Adventures With Periorbital Cellulitis Pt. 2: Relentless Burning the Invader To Death (Prime Suspect: Staphyloccocus aureus)
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alternative title: Why I’ve Been Such a Huge Goddamn Bitch Lately
alternative title 2: Why Many Doctors Are Full of Shit
Exhibit A, two days ago immediately after release from the ER:
Exhibit B, just a few minutes ago, immediately after application of a compress full of scalding hot water:
Exhibit C, my med cert from that night. Details obscured because even though I hate the people who did this to me, I don’t know what people online might take it into their heads to do if this post were taken out of context.
Roughly the following conversation occurred between me and my mom (a doctor) this morning (it’s very long, with many asides about school so I cut a lot out):
MD: How’s your vision on the right eye? Can you try looking at things while covering the left?
Me: Vision is all right. It’s just the painful abscess that wouldn’t let me open it. It was so big and the swelling went down so fast that the skin there is now wrinkled oddly if you look closely.
MD: So it’s small already? If it doesn’t go away by Saturday we need to see Dr. G.
Me: It goes down fast with the hot compress but flares up again without it. That’s why it’s all I’ve been doing for the past 2 days. With breaks only for sleeping and eating and when my hands get tired.
Very scary bacteria, this one. Causes lots of diseases all over the body. Something carditis in the heart, osteomyelitis in the bone, sepsis in the blood. Abscesses in the brain if a preseptal infection progresses to orbital.
MD: I’ll text Dr. G. if what you’re doing is okay
Me: Tell him I check my vision twice a day when I change the dressing and it’s good. And there’s no redness in the surrounding area, so the skin hasn’t been burned. No tenderness also except on the abscess.
Hm maybe I should email a pic?
MD: Yes send me the pic. I also talked to Dr. U. He said to use a warm compress only.
Me: Uh huh. I thought he would say that. But if I don’t do this, I’ll have to be admitted with antibiotic IV because otherwise the abscess grows again very fast.
MD: It’s not the hot compress that would bring down the swelling completely. It’s the antibiotics. I would really strongly advise you to see Dr. U ASAP.
Me: I don’t think you’re listening to me. I am taking the antibiotics regularly but unless I put on the compress repeatedly, the abscess grows again. Last night before I slept it had reduced enough that it looked like a stye. This morning when I woke it had grown so much that my eyelid was drooping a bit again.
MD: That is why you should see Dr. U. Because that is not the expected response. It comes and goes – weird.
Me: I told you it’s weird. That’s why I got scared. Not responsive to ointments or lacto or anything, only the hot compress
MD: But you are putting the Tobradex and taking Augmentin diba?
Me: Yes I am. Both of those as prescribed. Not responsive. It’s so strong. It should be cultured if possible I am very curious about it.
It grows extremely fast. In a matter of hours. If I hadn’t gone to the hospital that night I’m sure it would have burst my septum and went to orbital cellulitis then brain abscess after that.
It’s best if I can be examined at [redacted] because it’s nearest. I think you should get me a referral to a doctor of internal medicine. Ophthas seem to have no knowledge of bacterial infection. They just keep talking about my vision and there’s nothing at all wrong with my vision.
It was a Dr. Q. who let slip that I should be admitted right before she immediately referred me to the awful ophtha. Her label on the med cert is Emergency Doctor. So that or internal med doctor is what I need.
MD: Dr. U. is very knowledgeable. He mentioned to me the possibility of you being admitted to give you IV antibiotics.
Me: Yeah I can tell he is but he’s quite far to see personally.
MD: If you want pasundo na lang kita tomorrow AM but bring your important stuff in case he advises admission.
Me: I’ve been eating so many vegetables that I’ve become really grumpy because I don’t like the way they taste. My appetite is much different, I have to force myself to eat. And some things smell much stronger to me now. I suspect there may be a mold or bacteria infestation in our bathroom because it always smells like poop even though no one just pooped and it’s very clean.
My major symptom right now is grumpiness.
MD: Your dad will fetch you tomorrow at 7Am and you will go straight to Dr. U. Bring your things in case he advises admission. The side effects of appetite and smell sensitivity are antibiotic side effects.
Adventures With Periorbital Cellulitis: Unverified Medical Information Filtered Through My Limited Understanding (I am not a doctor and I have no medical training whatsoever)
Periorbital cellulitis, also known as preseptal cellulitis (and not to be confused with orbital cellulitis, which is behind the septum), is an infection of the eyelid and portions of skin around the eye, anterior to the orbital septum.
Periorbital cellulitis must be differentiated from orbital cellulitis, which is an emergency and requires intravenous (IV) antibiotics. CT scan may be done to delineate the extension of the infection.
Affected individuals may experience the following; swelling, redness, discharge, pain, shut eye, conjunctival injection, fever (mild), slightly blurred vision, teary eyes, and some reduction in vision. – Wikipedia
VOCAB:
Preseptal: an infection involving the superficial tissue layers anterior to the orbital septum
Orbital septum: a thin membrane that forms the fibrous portion of the eyelids. – Wikipedia
I. How Infection Occurs
The body has lots of mechanisms and barriers in place to prevent infection. The main organ in charge of preventing infection is the skin. You hear a lot of talk about the immune system, but the immune system is just in place to trounce the invaders that got past the skin.
This is why most people can use the filthiest public restroom toilets and not acquire an infection: because the skin on your butt can protect you from most pathogens.
Since the skin is so boss at doing its job, pathogens can only penetrate the body at points where there is no skin, or the skin is broken, or there is an opening in the skin.
Points where there is no skin: Mucus membranes (eyes, nose holes, mouth, ear holes, buttholes, peeholes, vaginae, maybe something else I’m forgetting)
Points where the skin is broken: An injury (a scratch, wound, broken bone, etc.) or an irritation (eczema, itchy insect bite, etc.)
Openings in the skin: the pores (which are the openings in the skin for the hair follicles, and also sebaceous glands)
If you look at this rather cute and possibly a bit inaccurate diagram right here, you will see that the hair follicle penetrates quite deep into the skin layers – deeper even than the heat receptors, which is one of the slowest types of receptors to respond to stimuli (this is why a person might take a moment to jerk their hand off a hot pan handle, while the same person would instantaneously shriek and jump on a chair if a cockroach brushed against their leg – the touch receptor is much higher up on the skin layers than the heat receptor).
You will also note that the hair follicle creates a relatively large opening in the surface of the skin, just begging for pathogens to penetrate it and have a sex party inside the skin, and multiply like wildfire.
Normally, the immune system (as previously mentioned) can trounce invaders that get past the skin. HOWEVER!! If one or more of the following conditions occur:
- The individual is immunosuppressed (the immune system is weak)
- The skin is irritated
- The invader pathogen is particularly strong
Then the pathogen will have their sex party inside the body.
This is exactly what happened in my eyelid about a day or so ago.
II. Etiology; or in layman’s terms, How The Hell Did This Happen?
Now, it is impossible to say with complete certainty what are the exact factors that led to the bacterial orgy inside my eyelid, but I have some guesses:
- I tried out some cheap mascara and eyeliner – this possibly created irritation in my eyelid skin and weakened its defenses
- I slept and bathed in a dirty place – this may be when the bacteria started sneaking its way into my eyelid, via the hair follicles of my eyelashes
- I did not get enough sleep or eat well – this is when I began to be immunosuppressed
- I spent time in an establishment full of smoke – the irritation grew worse, allowing the bacteria to overcome my already distracted and suppressed immune system
- I was further sleep-deprived and thus immunosuppressed- this is when the infection mounted and began to attack my cells full force.
III. Back to the Main Topic At Hand
As per the definition given at the beginning of this… whatever this is, preseptal cellulitis is an infection of the front of the eyelid. It is called preseptal because it is in front of the orbital septum. Behind this septum is the orbit of the eye.
That means that when a patient has preseptal cellulitis, the only thing between that person and a raging infection of the eye itself (literally) is: their immune system, and a thin membrane.
This raging infection of the eye itself is called orbital cellulitis, and it is definitely no fun to have.
Orbital infection can be extensive and severe. Subperiosteal fluid collections, some quite large, can accumulate; they are called subperiosteal abscesses. Complications include vision loss due to ischemic retinopathy and optic neuropathy caused by increased intraorbital pressure; restricted ocular movements (ophthalmoplegia) caused by soft-tissue inflammation; and intracranial sequelae from central spread of infection, including cavernous sinus thrombosis, meningitis, and cerebral abscess. – Merck Manual
Quick lay translation: Orbital infection is a huge bacterial orgy inside your eye socket, wherein bacteria multiply like crazy, creating large amounts of bacteria sludge that can create enough pressure to make your eye pop outwards and make you blind. In addition, the infection can also spread to your sinuses and your fucking BRAIN.
Obviously, preseptal cellulitis and orbital cellulitis are not the same thing. However, they can occur on a continuum – meaning preseptal cellulitis can lead to orbital cellulitis – which should be obvious since, as I’ve stated, the only thing separating the infection in preseptal cellulitis from the orbital is the thin septum.
Additionally, preseptal cellulitis and orbital cellulitis often look so similar at first, that most medical articles online lump them together in one article and emphasize the importance of distinguishing the two.
The danger of preseptal cellulitis progressing to orbital cellulitis is real and present enough that emergency referral – EMERGENCY FUCKING REFERRAL – for preseptal cellulitis is required for the following conditions:
- All children
- Any patient with any indication of possible orbital cellulitis
- All patients who are systemically unwell
- Occasions where there is doubt over the diagnosis
- A patient not responding to treatment; or
- When drainage of a lid abscess is required
IV. The Terrifying Night When I Realized That Bacteria Were Having a Sex Party In My Eyelid
At around midnight, my eye had inflamed to the point where I could no longer see out of it. I had visited a doctor earlier that day, who had prescribed antibiotics, and I had taken the two tablets required that day.
I am familiar with most types of inflammation and skin irritations, and have various creams and oral medicines on hand to treat the common ones (such as eczema, fungal infections, acne, allergies, etc).
I also have an unusually high pain tolerance, such that various professionals who inflict pain for a living (e.g. dentists, salon waxers) have commented on it. Corporal punishment was frustrating for my parents when I was a child because I refused to cry no matter how hard they hit me. I can walk off blows and wounds that would incapacitate most other women. It’s not that I don’t feel the pain, it’s that I can force myself to bear it without complaint if I think I have to. (Perhaps this imperviousness to moderate physical pain is compensated for by my psyche with a heightened sensitivity to emotional pain – but that’s a topic for another time.)
Given these two things about me, I became utterly terrified when the inflammation only got worse and worse despite all the medicines I had taken, and the pain was excruciating.
At around 2AM, I decided I’d better get help. I decided to go to a hospital.
I chose [redacted hospital] for the following reasons:
- It is a hospital for rich people, and I knew that doctors would be too busy with more serious cases to help me at a hospital for poor people
- It was nearby
- I was admitted to that hospital once, three years ago, so there was a chance that they would still have my records
- My psychiatrist is a consultant at that hospital
At this point I was half blind and streaming discharge from one eye. I wanted to call an ambulance but I figured that I would get to the hospital faster if I used an Uber.
This was my first mistake, as I arrived at the hospital looking somewhat chill – that is, not screaming and lying down on a gurney.
Since I lacked a health card, though I entered through the emergency room, I was put in a corner with other people just chilling.
I had started crying while talking to the woman at registration, and she completely ignored this, along with my pleas to let me see a doctor.
I was only loaded into a wheelchair when I began sobbing from the pain. I could no longer see. Vaguely I heard someone protest, and the man wheeling me said, “Umiiyak na e.”
The resident ER appeared, and during the short talk with me, she let slip that admission and intravenous antibiotics were advisable for my condition.
Then some complete asshole of an ophthalmologist appeared. I told him that I needed to be admitted; I needed antibiotics, and I needed painkillers. He ignored this and began examining my vision. I reiterated that there was nothing wrong with my vision; I had an infection in my eyelid. He gave me some stupid bullshit about there being lots more bacteria in the hospital than at home, and advised me to take some meds and put on a hot compress, all of which I had been doing already for more than a day. At some point during the discussion, which was growing heated, I said: “So you’re saying that you want this infection to get worse before you’ll treat me?”
They put me on a gurney. I looked at my watch. It was around 3:10.
I decided to give them 10 minutes to find me help, after which I would leave and try my luck somewhere else.
10 minutes passed. I began to get up from the gurney.
A nurse or possibly a doctor stopped me. I said, “If you’re not going to help me, I’m going to go somewhere else.”
Perhaps frightened by the possibility of lawsuit, they then began actually trying to ascertain my condition. Most importantly, however, they had to find out if I would be able to pay. Since I had no money on me, and the hospital records had been wiped recently, the only thing I could do was name-drop my doctor, who was a psychiatrist.
At that, they called the resident psychiatrist, who started asking me questions to find out if I was a violent mental patient. (“Do you have thoughts of hurting yourself or others?”) I told her that I was properly on psychiatric meds and stable, I just had an infection.
Finally, fucking finally, they administered a painkiller IV. It was around 4AM. I finally got some sleep, as the pain had been keeping me up all night. They wheeled the gurney to an empty corner surrounded by those slide-out divider things. There was a yellow sign on the wall that said FALL RISK, which matched the yellow bracelet on my wrist also marked FALL RISK.
V. In the Morning: I Bully Lots of People
Because no one loves me, and also because I had lost my phone in my haste to get to the ER, I only had a stuffed dog for company that I had brought with me in my backpack. I cuddled it for the few hours while I slept.
When I woke up, the resident psych told me that my psychiatrist was on the way. A nurse brought me a paper tray of food, with the most disgusting fish fillet I had ever tasted in my entire life. (Hospital food must be completely sterile, and this unfortunately involves heat-bombing the fuck out of the cooked foods.) The banana was edible, though. I ate that, along with some wafers in a tin that I had also brought with me. I don’t think they provided any water.
I asked someone for an eye patch. I put it on my eye. I asked for another one to take home with me. I said I’d pay for it. They didn’t give it to me.
My bill for their stupid “care” and “facilities” came to P8,000. I bullied a man at Billing Counter and a woman at Credit Counter before they let me go. The woman at Credit tried to take all my money. I told her, “I still have to get a cab and eat. Do you want me to starve?” She started talking to someone else on the phone, and I walked away from her to try to find the resident psychiatrist. I got all the way back to the ER before someone caught up with me and brought me back to her. I started raising my voice and cursing at her to handle my payment already and stop fucking around. At that, she called her supervisor, who called my doctor, who talked to them, who finally let me go without apologizing at all.
Outside, a doctor in a car yelled to a guard to find me a cab, but he did not.
No one was at the Grab taxi stand, and the line for cabs was about 20 people long. I could not stay in the heat and dust of the streets, as the infection would flare up again.
I walked out of the hospital grounds and tried to hail a cab, but none stopped.
I stood on the island in the middle of the street in the sun. I considered taking off my clothes. Luckily, just a minute or so before I did that, a cab stopped for me. I got in and we talked about our country and how hard it is to live here, me practising my best Filipino accent and pretending to be poor so that he would not overcharge me. It worked.
I went to school because I thought it might be finals. No one was in the room. I went to my professor’s department to try to find him. All the professors there were busily laughing about how they wouldn’t be able to tolerate Duterte as president, while I sat there with my bandaged eye and bandages on my arms from the shots and the IVs, and two hospital bracelets, because nobody knew where my professor was. When I got tired of waiting, I said, “You don’t have any kind of system to keep track of what your schedules are?” The professor I was speaking to, a middle-aged, bespectacled man, said no. I asked then if I could use one of their computers so that I could message someone and ask for help. He said that they were busy with grade checking. Behind him, a bank of unused computers were on. I replied that the library computers were constantly broken because the IT personnel never updated them and never junked old files. He just mumbled something.
I wanted to slap his glasses off his face. Instead, I just put my hands on the table in front him, on top of the papers strewn there, and leaned forward for a moment. I fixed him with my one eye. He stared back. Then I pushed off the table and left.
I needed to find a cab from school to my dorm. I walked into another dorm to ask for help. Upon seeing my bandages and bracelets, the receptionist asked dully, “Mag-iinquire po ba?” I said fuck no, I needed a cab. (Politely.) She told me the guard outside could help me.
The guard outside helped me.
I got a cab. I paid. I went up to my room.
VI. Epilogue
I’ve borne this ordeal with relatively little complaint considering the circumstances, and with fairly good humor. However, I’ve been cursing at a lot of people and I’ve decided to break up with my girlfriend for not taking care of me.
After two days of very little assistance (both physical and financial – my parents only sent me money this morning, after I spent every last peso I have on medicines and food and transportation). I’ve managed to make the swelling go down such that I can see out of the eye again. I am very proud of this.
I am also completely alone, but at least i know for sure now that I know how to take care of myself, just given enough money, and that pretty much no one in my life really cares for me that much.
Kill Bill: An Ode to Parenthood
This is the training we all got. In the context of the narcissism of today, meaningless acts become exciting and meaningful acts are obscured. – TLP
I. Why the Story of Kill Bill Had To Be Told In Two Volumes
In Kill Bill Volume 1, Beatrix Kiddo (aka The Bride, aka Uma Thurman, aka That Yellow Suit) kills a lot of people in a terrifying manner.
In Kill Bill Volume 2, Uma Thurman kills a few people, then she snuggles with her baby daughter.
Without the denouement of the story in Volume 2, the violence in Volume 1 (the violence dealt to Beatrix Kiddo and the violence dealt back by her) makes no sense. Yes, you understand that it is for revenge, but that doesn’t explain why she doesn’t just kamikaze Bill, and how she chooses whom she kills and whom she spares.
Here is the denouement, for your convenience, though you really should watch the whole of the second volume:
Beatrix is ready to kill Bill. What she is entirely unready for is that, upon bursting into Bill’s home, she finds that her child (whom she thought had been killed in the massacre which she survived) is alive, and being cared for by Bill. Bill has orchestrated a play scene with the child to make her think that this is all entirely normal, and Beatrix plays along. After dinner and a movie together, Beatrix leaves her sleeping child and begins the climactic scene with Bill.
Beatrix: Do you remember the last assignment you sent me on?
Bill: Of course.
Beatrix: That morning, I was sick. I threw up on the plane. Then I started thinking: Maybe I was pregnant. [So I took a pregnancy test.]…
Before that line turned blue, I was a woman, I was your woman. I was a killer who killed for you. Before that line turned blue, I would have jumped a motorcycle onto a speeding train. For you. But after that line turned blue, I could no longer do any of these things. Because I was gonna be a mother.
Bill: Why didn’t you tell me?
Beatrix: Once you found out, you’d claim her. And I didn’t want that. She would have been born into a world she shouldn’t have.
Bill: Not your decision to make.
Beatrix: I know. But it was the right decision, and I made it for my daughter. I had to choose. I chose her.
Got it? Bill owned her. He’s referred to as her “master”, literally, at one point in the movie. Many people in the world now can’t even turn away from a freaking box of doughnuts even though they know full well that their arteries are already filled with gunk and their pants don’t fit anymore. Each person has a certain thing, an addiction or obsession or love, for which they would do ANYTHING. Hers was Bill, until it was her daughter.
Remember, this is all before she ever saw or held her daughter. Her decision was made the moment she found out she was pregnant. In that moment, she decided to change her whole life and give up her obsession.
And then Bill tried to kill her and her unborn daughter.
That’s the reason for her revenge. Not because of her life, but because she thought her daughter was dead. This is why she stops her “roaring rampage of revenge” when she realizes that her daughter is alive. The ending statement is: “The mother lioness is reunited with her cub, and all is well in the jungle.”
But hardly anyone talks about this because it’s so much better to talk about the yellow suit and how it’s so cool when the blood spurts.
II. Why You Are Your Parents
A similar trope of deadly-warrior-turned-loving-parent occurs in Spy Kids (one of my most favorite movies, which suffers from terrible design, though I don’t see how it could have been made any better except with a higher budget). This is the story in a nutshell: There are two top-level secret agents who meet when they are sent on missions to kill each other.
Her mission was to [kill him]. You have to understand that these were dark and confusing times of enormous turmoil between countries. But when she got there, she couldn’t do it. He was different than she expected. And she began to wonder if years of detached, emotionless violence had taken its toll. So they kept in contact…
[Later on], they decided to marry.
On the day of her wedding, she felt like she would rather brave a thousand deadly missions than go through what she was about to do: the difficulties of staying together and raising a family. But when she saw him, standing there, with no doubt whatsoever – she took his hand, looked deep into his eyes, and said the two most trusting, most dangerous words you could ever say to anyone:
“I do.”
Fast forward several years later, they have two children. One night, they are discussing their children:
I: I spoke to their principal. Carmen’s been skipping school twice a month.
G: Why?
I: I don’t know. And those friends Junie talks about?
G: What about them?
I: They don’t exist. He has no friends. They’re keeping secrets from us, Gregorio. And I think it’s our fault. They’ve gotten this from us.
Hardly any parent is smart enough to make this observation or big enough to admit it: That their children’s problems are their fault. That whatever bad characteristics their children have were picked up from them. It’s our fault. They’ve gotten this from us.
Nope, never that. It’s from their friends at school. It’s from television. It’s from video games. It’s from listening to the rap music. It can’t be us – after all, they only spent all their formative years with us, picking up our bad habits, or in neglect.
“But Trinity,” says my audience which is probably nonexistent at this point, “This sounds like you’re saying that everything you are is because of your parents?”
Yep. EVERYONE I know is like their parents, including myself. Sara Duterte is a fair and effective leader like Rodrigo Duterte. Brian Llamanzares is an entitled prick like Grace Poe. My friend Red tends to be tempestuous and sharp like her mom, with moments of unexpected tenderness. My friend P. has this live-and-let-live attitude like his mom and dad, with a bit more of the democratic and permanent annoyance for mankind in general that his dad has. My parents are basically misers, critical and cruel and mostly friendless, just like their parents.
And me? Critical, cruel and friendless as well, but I’m working on changing that.
III. Okay, Back to Kill Bill; or Why Most of Us Are So Fucked Up
Given that your child inevitably becomes whatever you are*, it is then imperative to get your shit together before you even think about getting knocked up / getting someone knocked up. What does this mean? This means basically that you have to address all your emotional issues and secure your finances. A child cannot be exposed to adult issues that they cannot understand and are powerless to help with, because this will create issues inside them and they will grow into fucked-up adults.
This is why Bill orchestrated the play scene for when Beatrix saw her child for the first time. He knew that Beatrix would be emotional and he had to set the stage for her to demonstrate emotion in a way that would not make the child think that there was anything wrong or unexpected.
This is why Beatrix put her child to sleep before she went to talk with Bill and have their final battle.
This is why after she killed Bill, she lay on the floor sobbing pitifully and then walked out, all smiles, to watch cartoons with her child.
Most parents now don’t have the decency nor the strength to pretend for their child, to put on a show when doing so would be to the benefit of their child and not doing so would be detrimental to their child. Can’t pretend that they don’t want to rip their partner’s guts out. Can’t pretend that vegetables taste delicious. Can’t pretend that they respect the law.
If you’re not perfect, you’ll have to pretend, and they can’t even do that.
IV. Back To Me Me Me Me
Yesterday I drove my girlfriend’s family around so that they could save money. The only car we could afford was a shitty manual and I was having a really, really, really hard time with it. I was ready to cry and sleep. But it was late at night and the house was very far so I did not say anything because I didn’t want anyone to worry about me. When we got home I went in a room, closed the door and cried.
In the morning the eye infection that had been starting up the previous day swelled up so much that I could hardly open my eye anymore. Luckily, there was a doctor nearby. I drove the shitty car there. I walked in with my eye swollen shut and oozing slimy tears. I had an appointment, but I noticed a mother with her child so I let them go first because I thought it wouldn’t take too long. I was wrong. About half an hour in, I started crying quietly, without a sound, from the pain and the tiredness.
My girlfriend hasn’t been treating me very well because I have gotten very good at hiding my pain. I was always good at it, but even more so now. I am practicing because I want to become a person who will do whatever it is it that needs to be done, delivers what I promise, and doesn’t make unnecessary complaints. However, people are so used to others making random excuses and demands that they think a person can’t possibly be in need unless they make a scene. So we have been in trouble. But we’re talking about it.
The reason I’ve been so quiet is because I’ve been busy. I should be sleeping now, but my eye hurts so much that I can’t sleep. I’ve already watched Kill Bill Vol 2 for the 4th time and finished The Lost World and listened to my Korean tutorial audio tapes so there’s nothing else to do lying down with just one eye. And now I’m done with this so again I don’t know what to do.
*note that these are the fundamentals – for example, a loving Christian can end up raising a loving atheist, or a hateful atheist can raise a hateful Christian, but a completely loving atheist cannot possibly raise a hateful Christian and a completely hateful Christian cannot raise a loving atheist.
Portrait of an Egotist I: Rona Mahilum
By Henry Hunt for RD (1997)
I. Eight-year-old Girl Saves Her Five Siblings From a Fire, Including Her Older Sister, Who Acted Like a Useless Piece of Shit Despite Being Older and Bigger
Blazing oil suddenly spilled onto Rona’s bed and splattered the floor. Rona jumped up. Hearing sizzling, she realized that her shoulder-length hair was on fire. The blaze leapt to her clothes. She hit at the flames searing her head and shoulders. Safety was but a step to the door.
Then, in the light of the fire, she saw her brothers and sisters stirring.
She grabbed the first child she could, five-year-old Cheryl. She rushed down the ladder steps into the yard, where she lay the child under the big banana tree. Then she ran back through the smoke, squinting and holding her breath, and lifted four-year-old Ruben and one-year-old Rhocelle to safety.
The fire had begun its slow, serious business of spreading through the house…
Rona entered again, then carried seven-year-old Roberto outside. He watched his sister, her hair and clothes still smoldering with flames, run back inside for nine-year-old Roda. Unable to lift her, Rona pushed her older sister out the window.
Finally her small body was overcome, and she collapsed facedown in the rubble.
II. She Was Practically Fucking Dead and Her Dad Was Ready To Dig a Fucking Grave For Her
As she negotiated the long, dark path home, Nenita’s thoughts were hopeful. She had left the town market around midnight, securing a few pesos at the fiesta. Then she smelled something burning.
She ran to the clearing, and saw her house.
The roof was gutted, its roof nearly gone. Beneath the banana tree lay her children – all but one.
“Where’s Rona?” Nenita yelled.
“I don’t know,” Roda answered.
Nenita dug through the rubble. A black, round lump, like a pile of charcoal, caught her eye. It was Rona, pulled up into a ball, facedown. Most of her hair was burned off. A thick, black crust of charred skin covered her back and scalp.
Rona had not shown a flicker or a twitch. Nenita felt for a pulse but found none.
“Rona is dead,” Nenita told her other children.
III. She Miraculously Wakes Up On the Way To the Hospital
Rona’s father, returning home towards morning, offered to dig a grave near the house. But Nenita could not yet accept that her child was dead.
For reasons not entirely rational, she decided to take Rona down the mountain to a village six hours away on foot, where there was a small hospital. Perhaps a doctor would at least confirm that there was no life in her little girl.
In the morning sunshine, Rona’s wounds were terrible to behold. Her left ear was a tiny nub of burned skin. Heavy, black crust covered her head and back, oozing pus.
Nenita gingerly washed the soot from the girl’s face, which somehow had been spared by flames.
Carrying her daughter, she trudged along the steep jagged paths, along steep hills and deep valleys. A heavy rain started in the afternoon. Cold drops slammed down, battering Rona’s encrusted back.
Finally Nenita stopped to wait out the storm.
As she slid Rona off her back, Nenita saw that the child’s eyes were open and looking at her. “Momma,” came a small voice, “where are we?”
“We’re going to see a doctor,” she said gently. Then she called out joyfully, “You’re alive!”
“Yes,” came the small voice again. “I’m alive now, but I’ll probably be dead again.”
IV. She Accepts Her Death
Examining Rona, the doctor found that she had third-degree burns over her scalp and back. Her left ear was gone. The burns were nearly a day old, and infection was mounting.
The doctor told her mother, “If she is not admitted, she will die.”
Explaining that her family did not have any money, Nenita asked that Rona only be given first aid. “I cannot throw away the future of all my children to help just one,” she said forcefully.
The discussion took place in front of Rona, who remained silent.
V. A Series of Fortunate Events Conspire To Save Her Life
A. On a Sunday afternoon in August, Mayor Lim sat at home reading an editorial in the newspaper Today. Lim felt his eyes fill with tears.
B. His city had recently voted to give an award to a Filipino boxer, but he did not accept the money.
C. The editorial urged the mayor to give the money to someone who deserved it: a little girl who had won her scars and her honor not in a boxing ring but in a ring of fire.
D. Now Lim began calling the editorial office, but no one he spoke to knew the exact whereabouts of the child.
E. So he chartered a plane.
F. On August 20, Nenita was scrubbing clothes in the river when people came running to say that police were looking for her at her home. Nenita walked home to find Rona. Along with the policemen, the two started the long journey down the mountain.
G. Doctors in Manila began a series of surgeries to reconstruct Rona’s shoulder and neck muscles. The city of Manila paid all medical expenses. Gifts amounting to 2.7M (in 1997 currency) have been given to the family.
“I did it because I love them.” – Rona Mahilum
Deardevils
I. So today my girlfriend and I went on a date and we both almost died. Almost. We weren’t REALLY going to, but it was a possibility under the circumstances. I mean, “NOW WE HAVE TO MOVE REALLY FAST OR SOMEONE IS GOING TO HIT US!” and “DUCK!” aren’t things you typically have to tell someone during a nice date.
II. I told off an MMDA guy on a sketchy road. He thought I wouldn’t get out of the car, but I did. My mom told me to never to do that again. I think she thought I didn’t know it was dangerous. Fuck, of course I knew it was fucking dangerous. I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of the things I do if I wasn’t so big, because I move rather slowly. (The alternative to being big and strong, by the way, is to be small and fast, when it comes to escaping physical danger.)
III. Someone said that Duterte said that he said that the following conversation took place before the number 911 became Davao’s emergency number:
D: Henceforth, I want 911 to be the emergency number.
Phone networks: But that’ll be expensive.
D: How expensive would it be for you if I blew up your cell towers?
Of course, he wasn’t really going to blow them up. Duterte’s not into terrorism. It’s an expression of how fucking INSANE it is to say that it’s an unnecessary expense to want to save people’s lives. This is the fucking result when emergency cases aren’t routed to the best available medical facilities. All fucking right?
IV. I stopped listening to anything that anyone from Ateneo had to say after Bianca Reyes died and NO ONE, but NO ONE, from there had anything useful to say about it. Her [redacted] is headed down the same road. Does anyone care? Of course fucking not. Filipinos are only interested in mourning loudly for their dead, not in preventing people from dying.
V. Since I think American / Filipino marketing is stupid bullshit, this puts me decidedly at odds with some of my professors.
A few terms ago, I got into a pretty bad confrontation with a professor during a presentation. To the point where I began slouching against the wall in disdain and she had to tell me, “Stand up straight.” I thought I was doing a good job of keeping my cool, but later one of my friends in the class told me that it was a patently hostile exchange, and my rage was obvious to everyone in the room. I told myself I’d never let it happen again… which is why I didn’t go to class yesterday. Nothing like that has happened again yet, but I felt like it was a possibility, so I pre-empted it.
Marketing and Multiculturalism
I.
It’s a predominantly American thing to want to manipulate reality instead of adapting to it (for examples: turning up the heat indoors instead of putting on more clothes, killing inconvenient wild animals instead of learning to avoid them, massacring natives instead of negotiating fair terms of land ownership). And since Filipino culture is mostly derivative of American culture, we buy into that shit too, wholesale.
Australians don’t massacre the frankly terrifying creatures in their land, but fatalities from animal attacks there are fairly rare – certainly much more rare than American fatalities from their fucking insane citizens who are constantly shooting each other en masse.
Bedouin tribes in the Saharan desert survive the oven temperatures sans airconditioning because of the design of their clothing. Black and white people can mix without making a huge deal of it in British society. The tendency to be uncomfortable with the unfamiliar / different, and the unwillingness to adapt and coexist without conflict, is a very American thing. I’m of course not saying they are the only culture like that (Bonjour, France!) but American culture is the most infectious of all.
II.
This tendency is the whole basis of marketing as we know it. They openly admit it in one of the definitions: To manipulate demand. Manipulate. Not to understand demand and therefore meet it in ways most advantageous to both supplier and consumer. Not to know the truth, but to force what you want to be true.
You don’t need a fucking iPhone to be happy, but they’ve made you believe it. I walked down the seaside boulevard once without a bra and no one grabbed my fucking tits (I think they will do that in Bombay or Calcutta, though). I look tired without makeup? I am, your girlfriend kept me up all night.
Heh.
III.
They talked about the best thesis. “They were so passionate! The panel asked them why they chose a bear for packaging and they had the research on hand to prove that bear shapes hypnotize people into buying cookies…” You think you can run a business on passion and trivia? Show up to the SEC with a briefcase full of passion, fill out your tax returns with the trivia you memorized? Your product will sell, or it won’t. That’s it.
IV.
The problem now isn’t not enough goods manufactured, but not enough goods sold. Do you realize what a GREAT problem that is to have? That we humans have made production so efficient that supply far outweighs demand? The role of marketing is supposed to be the efficient distribution of goods – to make sure everyone can have what they need and nothing’s wasted – but now we use it to sell people stupid shit. We have people spending thousands on concert tickets, clothes, movies and dinners out, when their houses are so dirty and poorly maintained, they eat fucking garbage all the time, they’re at work all day, then stuck in traffic, they never see their children anymore. Because they’re so convinced they NEED those things that they don’t, at the expense of things that they do.
Don’t get me wrong, I think a lot luxuries are nice to have. But it is absolutely fucking insane to neglect one’s basic needs to attain the nice non essentials. And that’s exactly what marketing now seeks to make people do. So fuck them. I’m in this field and I know its purpose. I am different. I will do things differently.
Why I’m Angry All the Time
You all don’t want to take care of yourselves because you don’t see the point of living long. You don’t see the point of living long because your lives are miserable and you wish they’d end hard and fast. I used to be like you for most of my life. I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t really want to live either. I’m not like you anymore.
“You like cats / dogs / fish / plants / children?” I love all things breathing. That includes humans. I love all of you because you are alive. I hate all of you because you make yourselves and each other miserable and destroy everything.
The opposite of a lie is not a different lie. The opposite of a lie is the truth. The opposite of “You’re a sucky writer” is not “You’re the most perfect writer in the world” but “You write about interesting topics, but you curse too much for your work to ever be accepted by a respectable publication.” (Also: The opposite of “You are a worthless fat pig” is not “You are the most beautiful girl ever” but “You eat too many cookies and not enough broccoli.”) Lies (insults and undeserved praise) obscure the truth; and knowing the truth is the only way to learn.
But you all don’t want the truth, do you? If you find out the truth it means you have to DO something about it, to grow and change, and it’s TOO HARD for you, isn’t it? Vegetables aren’t delicious, reading is boring, housework is for maids… I know, I know. Someday I’ll leave and I’ll never have to deal with you all again. I’ll throw food and money at you from a long way off. A long, long, long way off.
My Name Is Trinity 