I wrote this a month or so ago when I was in a much different headspace (I am cycling through depression right now). But I still want the same for this relationship.
****
I think about you all the time. After my first heartbreak I thought I’d never love anyone as much again. But this love makes that young love pale in comparison. This morning when I came home and saw you lying in our bed you looked so wrapped up and so small, so fragile. I thought: my whole world is somehow contained in that body. How can something so vast and so mysterious be in something so ordinary-seeming as flesh and blood? But there you are, your eyes like oceans I could fall into and drift in forever, your hair like a forest my fingers get blissfully lost in. The hills, valleys, caves and cliffs of your body. I could wander forever.
I’ve never really been happy before. Oh, maybe some fleeting pleasure. But I’ve never been able to be “patient, kind, balanced, fine.” Not fully, as you know. But I’ve learned so much. I’m starting to trust you and myself more. I understand now there are things we can’t give each other. But now I want to know how we can help each other find them.
Let’s stay happy together. Let’s listen to each other. Let’s be patient. I want to make this last forever. I want to beat the odds with you.
I’ve begun running again. For most of high school, I used to run every evening after school around our subdivision. It would be totally silent, and mostly dark. There were streets that were pitch-black those were my favorite ones to run in. I could be sure there would be no one there (because no one was as insanely lacking of the instinct of self-preservation as I was), and running in the blackness made me feel like I was disappearing, too. I liked that feeling.
Noting the difference in my phases of depression / mania prior and post to that period of regular, strenuous physical activity, I’m fairly convinced that exercise is an extremely powerful mood regulator that is largely ignored by the psychiatric field. My own psychiatrist freely admits to this disregard of the psychiatry towards anything that isn’t psychoanalysis or pharmacological – anything that has to do with emotion or the body and its needs. Basically, all the psychiatric theories that had been carefully constructed for decades were thrown out with the rise of psychopharmacology in the 80’s. And that’s a terrible shame, because meds only work for so long.
Anyway, I abandoned running and the gym when I started college. That’s really when everything went to shit. I’m only realizing this now that I think about it.
I still don’t really like to run in the gym, on a treadmill. I love running at night, though. I’d forgotten how pleasurable it was – not at all something to slog through in the name of fitness. I lost track of time as I ran quietly around the empty streets. In the previous years, plenty of streetlights have been installed, and I no longer hear the evening symphony of the toads in the puddles of the empty lots, or the crickets in the trees. They’ve probably all been murdered by pesticides. And I’ve given up on ever spotting a firefly again – when just a few years ago, I once saw a whole swarm of fireflies in the highest treetops. It was such a lovely sight that sometimes I wonder if I dreamt it while I was lying on top of the water tower. (It, too, has since been fenced with barbed wire.)
So many things have changed. But the air was still fresh and cool, and it was still quiet enough for my thoughts. There was a full moon, and enough clouds in the sky to reflect its light – but not so many clouds that they blocked out all the stars. The trees, the houses, the grass and the streets were all silver.
“In the sky, the darkness surrounded the moon, and it seemed like at any second it would take over, and the moon would be no more. And yet its light shone on the ground. How could it be that the moonlight had no effect on the darkness around it? How did it reach the earth without leaving some silver trace? He felt his intelligence and curiosity quicken, and he knew he would eventually find the answer; and when he did, he would love moonlight. From understanding, to love, was not such a big step.”
– What Hearts, Bruce Brooks
I want to take you here. I want to drive with you in my father’s (long gone) dark red pickup truck and find the darkest street with the clearest view of the stars. I’ll spread out a blanket in the back and we’ll lie there like the teenagers we no longer are. I want to make you feel young again; I want to hear your laugh, deep and rich and full of joy. I want to lay my head against your chest and listen to the beating of your heart. I want to run my fingers over and over in your hair. I want to bury my face in your familiar scent, in the hollow between your shoulder and your neck that I’ve fit into like it was molded for me. We are not new, you and I – we’ve been lost, found, kicked around. But I can make us feel new again.
On many of my solitary nights running around and around here, I used to wonder if I”d ever have anyone next to me. On some nights, I felt the loneliness so strongly, I felt convinced that no one would ever love me.
You take me down with your quiet
Of all the weapons you fight with
Your silence is the most violent
– Tell Me How, Paramore
* * * * * *
I used to think that people were so lucky to have friends to spend time with (because I hardly have any) but lately I’ve noticed that even for people with many friends, their relationships have become more and more fragile and fragmented. It’s so easy to cancel a date, so easy to keep messaging “Let’s get together sometime,” telling yourself that you’re doing your part to maintain the relationship, and just never actually show up.
I have no idea what we’re all supposed to do about this. I do know that this is very, very bad news for all of us, and probably the main contributor to anxiety and depression. Uncertainty = anxiety. When the world is telling you that your generation is a failure, when the job market is telling you that your hard-earned skills are useless, when advertising is shitting on your values and repackaging your most precious emotional experiences to sell you laundry powder, what truth and worth is left in life except the love and trust that we have in our relationships? And how are we supposed to feel when it turns out that we can’t trust each other to be there when we say we will? How many of us can honestly say that love exists in our relationships – even in the ones where it did exist before?
I’m tired of getting over it
And starting something new again
I’m getting sick of the beginnings
By the way – it should go without saying that I rely on my girlfriend for human company and that I’d be totally isolated without her.
I think this is why having a significant other has become virtually a necessity in our social landscape. It’s evident simply from the sheer number of articles discussing why you don’t need a significant other – why must you deny it if the pressure wasn’t so strong to begin with? – and if it affected you so, it must be something you feel internally, too. I’d even go so far as to say that the pressure to have a significant other is a personal desire that is projected onto others as an external, societal pressure, so that you don’t have to face the fact that it is something you desperately want. Nobody shames people for not having a boyfriend or a girlfriend – that just isn’t a thing that happens.
SO’s are a necessity now because the monogamous romantic relationship has become the only type of relationship wherein one person can be reasonably expected to reliably be there for the other; it is the only relationship wherein it is acceptable to demand to be a priority, to demand that the other keep his or her commitments and not make excuses. This is something that most people seem to have become uncomfortable in asking even from close friends and family members. There is the fear of being labeled “clingy,” the shame experienced in the perception of having fallen down the list of another person’s priorities, and the pride involved in the unwillingness to admit that you value their presence enough that your feelings were hurt by their absence – if it is apparent that they don’t feel the same about you, how could you admit to the way you feel?
I can’t call you a stranger
But I can’t call you
I know you think that I erased you
You forgot me but I can’t forget you
And I won’t replace you
There is this need to keep up the illusion that our own lives are filled with exciting experiences and opportunities. Our real relationships are sacrificed at the altar of the illusion. Why should you feel bad about someone failing to show up at your apartment for a quiet night in, when you could just as easily go over to four clubs in one night and meet a dozen hot strangers? Maybe: because you and your friend missed an important conversation about your problems, your fears, and your plans, and instead you wrecked your liver with shots, your lungs with cigarette smoke and your eardrums with a hundred decibels of awful DJ’ing; and you met a dozen strangers who will never mean anything to you, and that you will never see again apart from the next nights of irresponsibility and running away from the pain of disconnection (if that).
I feel like I may have asked too many rhetorical questions in the course of writing this.
I’m procrastinating about my paper right now. I know this is the only ticket to getting out of here. And even then it’s more like standby booking than sure seating. But still…
When I think about this disconnection, I think about you. It makes no difference in the grand scheme of things, and the things I’ve described are true even if I had never met you… but the truth is that I think about this because of you and the hope you gave me that things could be different. For a short while, they were. It was all the difference in the world.
And now you’re gone. Yes, you’re still around. But your face is like a bolted door. And you don’t smile anymore. How do you do that? How do you close yourself off so completely? How did you learn not to need anyone (except your girlfriend, I suppose – though I suspect you could get by without her just fine if you had to)? I want to know, because sometimes this pain is almost more than I can bear.
The truth is that need you in my life. And this is as absurd as any ridiculous crush I’ve ever had, even if I now only want you as a friend. Even more absurd – a crush people can understand, but to want a friend so desperately? How much of a loser can you be?
You don’t have to tell me If you ever think of me You don’t have to tell me, I can still believe
Caring for someone who’s depressed means you’ll always second-guess yourself. I should have encouraged her to be strong and maintain her workload / I should have told her to relax and take it easy. I should have made her go out and meet her friends and do what used to make her happy / I should have let her rest. I should have been there for her more / I should have given her space. I should have made her seek professional help / I should have let her choose what she wanted to do
**it’s weird, I walked this way and I feel it all the time with the same name, but I still don’t know the right thing to do for you and it’s all that’s on my mind now. I love you after all, and I wish I had protected you; I’ve completely failed in that respect and I’ll always be sorry. Give me another chance to be the person I should have been for you all your life (and rarely ever was)
I love you. I love you. I love you. Live through this, and you’ll see that you have a life beyond their eyes and beyond everything they think and say about you.
“I’m thankful to those who defend me, and I’m not surprised by those who hate me, but either way you are missing the point. I don’t blame you for wanting to attack or defend me; that’s how we’re trained to think about complicated issues. But I don’t matter. It’s debatable whether my ideas matter, but for sure they matter much more than I do.” – TLP
I.
The reason why I don’t use my real name on this blog is because I don’t want the majority of my readers to know me as a person, because then this becomes a personality blog – “Sorry I haven’t written in a while guys, been in bed with a nasty case of hives” etc. etc. – but it’s obviously impossible to completely prevent my real life bleeding into my online persona.
I wouldn’t want that, either, because I express strong opinions online – opinions not entirely based on fact. If they are not entirely based on fact, then they must be qualified by the fact that they are coming from, well, me.
II.
If you, dear reader, have been patient enough to rummage through my oldest entries, you’ll know that this started as a kind of poetry blog. I currently hate most poetry, and I hate most poets. I think they (and I, formerly) are all whiny shits who haven’t truly suffered in life, so they (and I, formerly) make up fake sufferings so that they will feel special.
“Grief is selfish. For whom are the tears?” – Jeannette Winterson
“I used to believe with sentimental assurance that I would be able to preserve his essence in my writing, even after his death. But his actual dying was so painful it ruined my plot. So much for my immortalizing my beloved…
What I can’t express is how grateful I felt for my students’ everyday lives. My lover died enraged, a form of narcissism. There is nothing as selfish and luxurious as pain, because it’s all about you. His death was terrible and special. Watching it, I felt terribly special too.
Afterward, though, I was tired of being important. I didn’t want the glamour and egotism of pain anymore. My students taught me to get over myself. I was moved by their stating the plain facts of their ordinary day. I wanted them to know mine.” – John Weir, What I Did Wrong (abridged)
As I may have said before, this blog has evolved into something I didn’t quite intend from the beginning. I don’t really know how I come off to most people. For most of my life I had no idea how to talk to people, how to approach people. Now that I know how, I can’t stand to be around most people.
For this reason I don’t have many friends.
I’ve suspected for a while now (and you may have come across this theory elsewhere as well) that it’s impossible for a person to know herself by herself. It’s as if we need someone to hold up a mirror for us, tell us who we are.
Since I rarely ever interact with people (including my family) I cannot say with complete certainty who I am. I’m a student, but I hate my school. I used to be someone’s girlfriend, but not anymore. I’m someone’s sister, and someone’s daughter, but just barely.
I’ve been told I have talent for writing, and I can say without ego that I believe it, but I’ve never been published anywhere.
I’m beautiful right now, but who knows when I might get fat again.
I’m bipolar – that’s for sure. That’s something I’ve known about myself since I was a very young child (I was six during my first depressive episode); though I didn’t know the name for it.
I’m a Filipino, but I despise the way this country is run. More than I love its people, which I do, a lot. But then I love all living things.
I love all living things. Even when I don’t like them. I don’t discriminate between a stray kitten crawling around in the dirt and a P30,000 long-haired Persian cat; I can love both. Not equally; I’ll love the kitten more – I have loved a certain kitten more – because it needs my love more.
(Central to my personal philosophy is that resources should go to creatures most in need.)
I’m a lesbian – another thing I’m quite sure will never change, unless I meet the missionary from Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. That’s the only kind of man I’d ever consider dating.
So that’s me.
When I am completely sure who I am, then maybe someday I can write with my face, and explicitly filter all my ideas through my persona.
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)
source: commonsensehealth.com
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.
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.
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
Note: This photo was taken while she was still in hospital. Her shoulder and neck muscles are constricted from the injuries. She is forcing her head upwards.
This happened last Tuesday (today is Friday midnight here).
I was walking along the sketchy sidewalks going to South Station in Alabang and I saw a hulking big dude go out of his way to step on a cat’s tail and grind the tail into the sidewalk with his toe. He was a huge fat fucker at least 250lbs and I saw that the cat’s tail was bent back on itself and broken.
He did that because he knew no one would stop him or do anything about it. Not even me. I know some of my friends worry about me, the things I do and the things I say when I see things like this happen, but even I am afraid of huge violent fat fuckers. (Serial killers usually start with hurting animals.)
Anyway I kept walking and I just cried and I haven’t been able to sleep well for a while because when these things happen it’s already too late to stop them. I could’ve kicked him with my pretty heel and then he could’ve strangled me and then I would die. I could’ve picked up the cat to take it to the vet and then it would scratch me and I would get B. henselae (cat scratch fever) and die.
He should’ve had parents who would teach him to be kind to animals. He should have had friends who tell him when he’s wrong. By the time he’s going around breaking random cat’s tails, it’s already too late to fix him.
II.
I’d just been full of restless energy since then, and I haven’t been able to sleep sound. I toss and turn in bed, and when I wake up in the morning I don’t feel well-rested. I keep seeing his body – what I could see of it under the pushcart – hunched over in pain, the broken tail trembling ever so slightly. And remembering how I stood on the sidewalk, staring at the departing dude’s back and agonizing over my decision to walk away / punch him / let him leave and take the cat.
III.
Guilt is omniscient. You know it’s guilt because no one else would blame you for what you did, and yet you know with total certainty that it was your fault.
Guilt, re-framed relentlessly, over the rest of your life.
The only thing that ever works is to understand your guilt as not coming from the failing but generated by you as self-punishment, so that you can go on with the rest of your life. Have you suffered enough today? Then go out to a club and get drunk and make out with strangers, it’s fun. You’ve earned it.
The guilt always stays with you. Always. It never goes away. Never.
So either you reach some kind of harmony with it or it beats you down. That harmony is sublimation.
Today I went on a walk with my mom in our village and we came across a tiny white kitten crawling unsteadily across the middle of the road, just waiting to become roadkill.
Amidst my mom’s protestations (she doesn’t like dirty things) I picked it up and carried it home.
I put it inside the outdoors cage where we’ve briefly kept poultry (chickens and ducks) for a little while before slaughtering them.* I got an old box and some rags, and filled an old ketchup bottle with hot water and wrapped it in a towel so she could snuggle against it for warmth.
Then I fed her some milk in a bowl. She didn’t know how to drink from a bowl because she had only ever taken food from her mother, I suppose. She kept pushing her mouth against my hand. It was frustrating to get her to drink the milk, but eventually she learned and she finished the milk.
After she had enough, I put her inside the box with the warm bottle and she went to sleep. I left the cage door open, and made a barricade with some cardboard: high enough so that the kitten wouldn’t be able to get out and become roadkill, but low enough so that her mom would be able to climb it and get her if she wished.
Then I went out to get drunk with my friends because finally I wasn’t fucking driving myself and I could get fucking drunk. I made dinner and tried to make friends with the dog but she was having none of it. (Dogs take on the personality of their owner, and her owner – my friend’s dad – democratically hates ALL people.) We drank Cuervo and we played “Would you rather…” And I asked them, which presidential candidate would you have sex with? And one of my friends claimed that Grace Poe is hot in person and she paid for their lunches one time, but I am not sure that I can believe that she is hot in person.
I got home at midnight and, swaying as unsteadily as the kitten when I first saw her, went to check on her. While I was looking at her sleeping inside the box, I heard a soft but insistent mewling. (The mewl of a kitten is much different from the meow of a grown cat.) I walked a little ways down the road and saw an identical kitten once again crawling across the fucking road and waiting to become roadkill just like my dead dog.
So I picked up the stupid thing and took it to the cage to join the first kitten. I watched them crawl rather pointlessly all over each other for a bit.
Then I noticed a white cat sitting about 10 feet or so away and watching me watching them, and meowing a little bit. I thought it might be the mom, so I took one kitten out of the cage and put it down on the ground.
Then I ran off and hid behind a car and waited to see what she would do.
She just fucking sat there like an idiot while the kitten crawled all around the sidewalk under the dim orange streetlights in that helpless, stupid manner of young things new to the world.
So I got her and picked her up and stroked her jaw for a while to make her happy.
Then I saw another white cat! Again watching us. Repeat the same scenario. Except this time, instead of crawling around in circles, the kitten went straight for the direction I’d gone. Ignoring the white cat, who was: a) a fucking cat, her own species b) nearer to her and c) meowing at her.
There’s nothing in the world like the feeling of being desperately needed by a living thing who looks for you, thinks that safety and comfort is found with you and no one else.**
I watched her crawling towards me. She couldn’t really walk yet, only crawl and stumble and fall over. I walked towards her a bit. When she heard my footsteps, she quickened her stumbling and loudened her meowing.
My heart was moved indescribably.
And then the driver was like, “Can you go inside now please so I can lock the gate.”
So I put her back in the cage with her sibling, with the hot water bottle and some milk. She’s out there right now. I’m in my room. I will see her tomorrow. I think I will sleep sound tonight. ||||||
*I’ve slaughtered a hen once, by the way. I thought it would make me more thoughtful about the sacrifice that goes into the decision to eat meat, because I used to flirt with vegetarianism a bit. But it didn’t work at all because the hen was way too chill about the whole thing. I slit her throat with a big knife and held her over a bowl to drain her blood until she died of blood loss. She didn’t struggle at all in my hands, just stared straight up at the sky with one stupid chicken eye as the life faded away from her.
This video is of a 100-year-old woman named Shirley Hyman, shot by Brandon Stanton of HONY.
I. The Meeting
I went to my friend’s party, and she had brought this young man to meet me. I sang my French songs and we had a good time together. And then around midnight, we were on this couch. We didn’t say we were going to get married; we just knew it. It was a meeting of the souls.
II. The Marriage
We used to go out dancing. He had very good rhythm, and it was always nice to have his arms around me.
We had been married for three years when he got an invitation from the President to serve as a military doctor in World War II.
I sent him some pictures of me and he apparently drew a cartoon of himself looking at them.
This is one of the letters he sent me: “The ships come and the ships go, but I stay here with my thoughts of you. Wondering how soon I’ll be once more with my little angel.”
III. The Parting
He had been sick for a year, and I saw that he was dying. All his strength had left him. And I said, “Moe, what will I do without you?”
IV. Sublimation
And he gathered up all the energy he could. And he said: “Take the love you have for me and spread it around. In love spread around, there beauty is found.”
My Name Is Trinity 