Phillip Retuta's Blog

The Life and Times of a Filipino-American

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Thoughts on Dying, Death, and the Leftovers.

Taken in 2008, during a ghost tour in Chicago’s Mt. Carmel Cemetery.

Let me preface this post: I have no intention of dying anytime soon, so don’t worry about me, my physical health, or my state of mind.

I was lying in bed the other day, and I realized that if I were to ever die in my sleep, the medical examiner or coroner would be able to pinpoint the exact time of my death. I wear my Apple Watch to bed every night in order to track my sleep, and the app I use monitors my heartbeat or if I’m wearing my watch at all. I assume that if my heart stopped and I died during my sleep (the best way to go, in my opinion), my watch and the sleep app would record the exact minute I passed on. All the data would then be transferred to my iPhone. Good luck, though, trying to figure out my watch or phone’s passcodes.

I know it’s morbid to think about death, but the thought of it has always been in the back of my mind — especially with my family and friends. Those thoughts are only exasperated at the fact that I lost two good friends in the past 6 months. I worry and dread the day either of my parents pass, and I fear I won’t be able to handle it. My dad just turned 76 and has surpassed my grandfather’s age when he died, so I have slight anxiety about inevitably when it comes to my loved ones. We all know it’s coming for everybody eventually, but are we emotionally and mentally prepared for it?

Me, on the other hand? I think I accept myself dying at anytime. It’s entirely possible I could die tomorrow or next year or 60 years from now. I’m a fairly unhealthy individual (hell, I’m trying to be otherwise), but maybe I’ll be one of those centenarians who’ll tell his great grandchildren the horrors of 2020, of Trump, of 9/11, of AOL, and of how Taco Bell removed potatoes from their menu. It’s hypocritical to worry about others dying but not worrying about the death of oneself, and I know my loved ones want me to live as long as possible. I admit, it’s selfish to hold onto others but have a certain degree of apathy towards oneself.

Regardless, I feel like I should make a living will. I’m not rich enough yet to have my own lawyer or create a will on Legal Zoom, so I’ll state my intentions here. This may not be official official, but here’s where I want everything to stand, and how I want to divide my pitiful estate. Who knows, I could get married and have kids, and this could all change.

In the event of unseen circumstances, this is the will of Phillip Nievera Retuta (well, as it stands like right now):

  • I do have life insurance from work, and currently my brother is the first benefactor, and then my dad.
  • I’d want Dusty and Nico’s ashes/paw print and collar given to my parents. They’ll love Dusty as much as I do and would want Nico’s remains.
  • Electronics, computer equipment, and design/camera/media equipment given to my brother. He’ll need it and want it.
  • Fish given to my fish enthusiast friend Gino. He’s the most capable of taking care of my aquarium.
  • Plants to be split up between Morgan, Vi, and Monica. They’re good with plants.
  • Vinyl records can be split between friends.
  • Mark can have my sourdough starter.
  • Cooking equipment given to my mom.
  • Books to be split up by anyone — first come, first serve.
  • Any nice clothes can be split up by anyone — first come, first serve.
  • Dog toys to be split up between Dusty and the rest of the dogs.

I suppose that covers most of my earthly belongings in the unforseen event of my death — but god knows if I’ll buy a car or house next week, win the lottery tomorrow, or suddenly adopt a dozen kittens. It made me realize that when I do make an official last will and testament, this post might cause some conflict: if I die at 107, I don’t want my friends feuding over my LCD Soundsystem records or my copy of David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day. Ah well.

Should I end this with a signature to make it more formal?

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To Be Vaccine and Heard.

On Bergen Street. Someone wrote “HOAX.” Can you believe there are deniers in NYC?

Day 304 of self-isolation (and day 165 without gas/heat).

My entire family back in California received their first dose of the COVID-19 Vaccine yesterday — my parents, my brother, my uncle, aunts, and cousins. Despite the horrible, horrible infection, hospitalization, and death rates in the Los Angeles area, there was apparently a surplus of the vaccine at my cousin’s nursing home (he works there, and I think as a director). The extra doses were distributed to friends and family of every patient and worker at the facility, and my mom explained to me that this was all legal. I suppose it helps that my parents, aunts, and uncle are over 75-years-old now and that my brother has a lot of pre-existing health conditions, so I can’t judge them for wanting and receiving the vaccine.

Yesterday started off horribly: my brother and my mom were fighting and had called me several times to complain about each other, interrupting my work day. What can I say? My co-dependency and empathy can’t ignore my family. The last phone call, however, was jubilant: my brother and mom miraculously reconciled, and they were all driving to LA to get the vaccine.

I’ll admit, trying to talk and counsel my family earlier in the day left me pretty irate — I acted collected, sure, but I was still very annoyed inside. In spite of my healthier lifestyle, I could feel my blood pressure getting raised. During that last phone call, however, my entire family insisted and begged for me to immediately fly to California and get the vaccine with them. Was it truly that much of an emergency? Sure, if there was a death in the family, I’d drop everything (with at least a day or two to prepare), but they wanted me to come now — despite work (and a new semester starting in a week), not having a dog-sitter for Dusty, waiting for my gas to get fixed, and a little apprehension of flying 6 hours, enclosed, on a plane.

Logistically, it’s hard. I do a lot of design and video work for my day job on a new iMac Desktop; my 2010 MacBook with the broken shift key sure isn’t powerful enough for work if I were to “work from home” in California. Dusty, also, is a major issue: she’s in the midst of blended, in-person/virtual dog-training (which I poured a lot of money into), is too big to put under a seat on an airplane, and it’s hard to find a dog-sitter so soon and in a pandemic. For fuck’s sake, each time I let someone dog-sit her (or with Nico), I’d prep meals and winter clothes and poop bags and compile a comprehensive yet exhaustive care guide.

Nah, my family just felt so desperate to see me, and I think the prospect of personally getting liberated from seriously contracting this virus excited them too much. My mom, especially, is super worried about COVID-19 that it’s almost paralyzing. I know she just wants the best for her family.

I don’t think my family even realized that both the Moderna and Pfizer Vaccines (and I don’t know what they got) requires two doses. I’ve tried looking it up, and I’m wondering if you have to get your second dose at the same location. Surprisingly, there’s no info on that anywhere on the internet. Did my family expect me to stay in California for a month? Fly to LA then back to NYC and then back to LA? It all seems too silly, too rushed.

Despite my parents wishes for me to quickly fly to California for a dose of the vaccine, I’m not worried. Again, COVID-19 in California is pretty bad right now, and flying to LAX and being in the LA area feels pretty dicey. Here in New York, I’m not really exposing myself to any risk, aside from walking my dog, getting coffee, and running errands — all the while masked like a ninja, mind you, and my errands aren’t everyday occurrences. I don’t see anybody, and I’ve gotten used to washing my hands 2000 times a day.

Plus, if there’s any positive of having high blood pressure and working in the higher educational system, I think my pre-existing conditions and being academic administration poise me to get the vaccine sometime between late February and April. I’m in Group 1C, perhaps? They say patience is a virtue, and I’m willing to wait — even if I don’t receive the vaccine in the spring.

Anyway, I’m glad that the vaccine is here, and I’m especially glad that my family got it. Their fears and hyper-vigilance regarding the virus will definitely temper down, but I do worry about everyone else in America — especially the anti-mask and anti-vax people (the Capitol Riots will undoubtedly become a Super-Spreader Event). The daily death toll is breaking records every fucking day, and despite the vaccine, I wish parts of America would just come to their senses.

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Christmas 2020 Musings.

This dumb year.

2020, huh? In my 37 years of unusual existence, this marks the second Christmas ever I didn’t spend with my family. The first time was in 2018, when I knew Nico was dying, and I wanted to spend one last holiday with her and didn’t want to fly to my parents’ new home in California.

This year the pandemic has proven to be hard for everybody, but my mom is super worried about contracting COVID-19. Of course, I don’t blame her: both her and my dad are in their mid to late 70’s, and the last thing I want is to see them get sick or (god forbid) die anytime soon. California is in pretty bad shape now, with 1 in 80 people in the LA area testing positive for COVID-19. Since the viral breakout in the spring, my family have quarantined themselves inside their house. However, when they do venture outside for necessities, they literally wear gloves and a secondary mask over their masks, and when they return home, they douse themselves with disinfectant spray. As vigilant as she is, my mom understands that I’ll be on a plane for 6-7 hours and doesn’t want to risk me getting the virus there or in California. Personally, I’m not as overly cautious as my mom (or even some of my friends), but I get it; if I can minimize the chances down to zero, we can all make sacrifices. My family and I are perfectly satisfied celebrating Christmas virtually, and because of FaceTime and my parents using it to call me everyday, we won’t feel so distant on the holidays.

Yeah, I’m spending Christmas physically alone, and I don’t mind. My parents are in California, nearly all of my New York friends are visiting their families across the country (there’s definitely a sense of COVID-fatigue), and Brooklyn always feels so fucking empty during this time (more so than usual). I recall in 2018, watching Nico slowly die and dog-sitting a bunch of my friends’ dogs as they visited their own families, there was a sense of sadness and loneliness; I did feel alone. I witnessed something I love fade away, in a city devoid of its usual vibrancy because all the other transplants had to see their families.

Now, in 2020, being alone and isolated is the norm, and I feel a lot of us have adapted to such conditions. It isn’t so bad or miserable — mainly because, instead of expecting the inevitability of loss I did with Nico’s last few months and convalescing her as the cancer ravaged on, I now have Dusty by my side. I’m able to focus on this puppy, on personal projects, and hone my skills and talents; Dusty, as far as I can tell, has so much time, and thus I have so much time myself.

This Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I’m ordering a pizza, baking some cookies (using my early, Black Friday present from my parents: a Kitchen-Aid mixer), watching Netflix and classic Simpsons, and giving Dusty some new chew toys and treats. I’ll FaceTime with my parents and probably use Scener to watch Wonder Woman 1984 with my brother. I’m going to make a steak dinner on Christmas Day, as well as bake some chive rolls from Bon Appetit. Maybe I’ll coerce my friends who are out-of-state to play Among Us. And finally, I’ll use the rest of my winter vacation taking photographs and editing some videos from old vacations — just simply catching up on forgotten work.

It’s going to be a very good, a very productive, and a very therapeutic Christmas.

Here’s a song from The Both (Ted Leo and Aimee Mann) that perfectly encapsulates my mood, but don’t get me wrong, I feel great.

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Santa Maybe.

I probably stopped believing in Santa Claus around 8 or 9, but my parents thought I still did. It was probably something about retaining innocence or the fact that I was the youngest child — as first generation Asian immigrants, maybe my parents wanted me to believe in Santa as a way to acclimate with American culture. In any event, it was always a tradition in our family to open our presents on Christmas Eve, and during my childhood, my parents and my older brother would still leave another present for me the next morning, under the guise that Santa Claus left it.

Naturally, cookies and milk were left overnight (always Oreos or Chips Ahoy), and in the morning everything was half consumed — a little bite into each individual cookie, and the glass of milk half full (as opposed to half empty). I always knew better, particularly because who could resist not eating all the cookies, of any cookie?

In 1993, I was a huge fan of X-Men: the comics, the poorly-scripted and bastardized animated series, and most of all, the action figures. I had the whole semblance of a team: Professor X, Wolverine, Storm, Gambit, Rogue… I even had the original team: Cyclops, Beast, Archangel, and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figure of April O’Neil that I painted the hair red and blue armor around her cheekbones. She was supposed to be Jean Grey. They have yet to officially release her so I improvised — faceplate, green eyes, and all — but you know what just became available to toy market?

Iceman.

Weeks before Christmas, I was at the now-defunct department store Venture (think Target or Walmart), and I stared in awe at the Iceman/Bobby Drake figure displayed in the action figure toy aisle. Surprised at its rarity, I immediately grabbed it and begged my mom to buy it. Sure, the action figure’s head was way too small compared to his X-Men counterparts. Yeah, the toy’s special “feature” was that his chest, coated in a temperature-sensitive paint, turns from clear plastic to frost if you put him in the freezer. I needed Iceman to join my team, in order to complete to the original 5 members. Iceman, with his stupid ice slide that didn’t slide, had to defeat the Magneto that had a chest that sparks for some reason or Juggernaut, if you toggle the switch on his back, swings his arms back and forth, like he’s dancing at wedding.

After pleading with her, my mom refused to buy it, and I walked away from our cart in disappointment.

Christmas Eve rolled around, and I think I got a calculator, some shitty train that you’d get at the Walgreen’s seasonal aisle, and a giant sugar cookie decorated like a yellow smiley face. It was a sad Christmas, and by this age I already knew Santa didn’t exist. I did not expect anything to happen the next day.

To my parents’ expectations, I was wrong.

In the morning, right before breakfast, my parents and my brother forced me to search the house. By the way they acted, I deduced “Santa” gave me a present, and I spent an hour searching the house and deciphering cryptic clues my family gave me to the gift’s location. As I was about to give up, my family literally pointed to the plastic, light-up Santa displayed by the living room window. Lo and behold, next to Santa’s feet was Iceman and his dumb ice slide, packaged in bright orange, comic-halftone cardboard.

The magic of Santa? Nah, just my parents playing tricks on me, but I was privy to their games. You see, even as a child, I was a planner and a schemer. I knew how to straight-up manipulate others and turn things back onto themselves. I will use people’s predispositions of me against them, even as a 10-year-old. I knew their ploy.

The next year my parents had an inkling that I no longer believed in Santa. Still, I knew how to play the game. I think my lawyer cousin gave me a Sega Genesis that year, so my parents felt that they were off the hook from giving me a worthwhile present. On Christmas Eve, I got a book and a piggy bank — nothing spectacular. Christmas Morning rolls around, and naturally there was no present from “Santa.” Offended that my own parents failed to give me a good gift that year and had to rely on remote relatives to give me something cool, I began to cry and futilely search the house again. I acted distraught, searching every corner of the house for “Santa’s” present. These weren’t real tears running down my face, mind you, and I wailed, “Santa didn’t give me a present! Did he think I was a bad child this year…!?” The fake crying was pretty convincing, and my mom knelt down to console me as she whispered something to my dad in Tagalog. As my mom hugged me, my dad discreetly slipped away. A second later, he yelled to for us to come over to the kitchen.

Even though I checked the sliding door to our backyard during my disingenuous search for a secret gift, Santa apparently left a twenty dollar bill tucked in the opening of the door.

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A History of Cigarettes.

Age 25, smoking indoors (I know it’s awful), with Allan’s fist.

I remember I had my first cigarette ever during my sophomore year of college. After a successful Walmart run with my roommate Mike, we were walking back to our dorm room in the middle of winter. Trudging through the snow, he lit a cigarette and offered me one. I haven’t seen Mike smoke before, but he had just broken up with his long-term, long-distance girlfriend a few days prior. A part of me felt some pity for him, and I figured I’d join him — even if I didn’t inhale but let the smoke gather in my cheek.

I started smoking casually at age 24, while living in Chicago. On weekends I’d go to bars, and I remember chain-smoking outside The Burlington or The Flatiron with Margarita (she’s a mom now) or Bryan (I think he grew up to be a firefighter) or a guy named Tre (who the fuck knows where he is now). During the day, however, nothing; I had no desire to have a cigarette or even buy a pack. I suppose I just wanted to fit in.

By the time I was 26, I moved to New York City for grad school, at Parsons. It was during this new phase in my life that I started to really smoke cigarettes. The stress of school, being away from family and trying to meet new people, and the coolness and blasé attitude of Williamsburg circa 2009 consciously willed me to smoke. Smoking a cigarette gave me that solitude, that little “me time” to gather my thoughts, realize how lonely and overwhelmed I felt, and look like a total badass (though no one did see me smoke on the roof of my old apartment). By the time I knew it, I was addicted to cigarettes.

When I’d visit my parents during the holidays, I wanted to preserve the impression of the “perfect, youngest child” and avoided smoking around them. My parents saw me as the baby of the family and “the successful one,” and deep down I never want to disappoint them. I’d wait for them to go to bed, where I’d then sneak into the backyard and light a cigarette (mind you, I’m in my late 20’s by then). After I was done, I’d toss the butt onto the roof, where it would collect into the gutter. My parents have since moved, but God knows — if the new owners of the house cleaned the gutters — how many cigarette butts they’d find.

It wasn’t always clandestine cigarette breaks, Dylan-esque moments of reflection, or (forgive me) smoke-and-mirrors. I can recall four instances when I quit smoking for long periods of time:

  1. During 2010, where I began to feel physically ill. Nauseous. Weird stomach problems. I didn’t know what was the cause, nor did I ever go to a doctor — I didn’t have health insurance then. As a self-remedy, I quit smoking for 5 months and even became a vegetarian. I relapsed into meat and nicotine during grad school finals.
  2. During 2012, when my doctor told me my blood pressure was elevated. I didn’t touch cigarettes for 7 months, and I even had an app to track how long I didn’t smoke. One day, during a time where I was laid off and relying on Unemployment checks (and quite frankly, I was just bored), I bought a pack of cigarettes for the hell of it. Big mistake.
  3. 2016.
  4. In early 2020, for 2 months I didn’t have any cigarettes. I was on the anti-smoking aid Chantix, and it helped immensely: I was slowly and surely weening off nicotine, and after cutting down on cigarettes for months, I was eventually smoke-free for 60 days. Psychologically and physically, I was in a good place; for once, I was on the path to feeling healthy. However, the first COVID-19 case came to New York, and as each day passed, more and more co-workers refused to come into the office. The news and the virus itself spread quickly, till one day it was just me and a fellow co-worker at our desks. We both knew that we’ll be working from home indefinitely, so I packed my work iMac and anything I needed. In the back of my mind, I also feared getting laid off again or furloughed (ahem). It was then that I decided to buy a pack of American Spirits — not as strong as my go-to Parliaments or Camel Blues, but enough to “de-stress” me and give me time to think. With my work stuff ready to be transported into an Uber, I stepped outside of my office to clear my head and have a cigarette. Yes, I started smoking again when the pandemic hit.

If it’s any blatant indication, I smoke when I’m stressed out or worried. Like my college roommate Mike who had just gone through a breakup, I turned to cigarettes as a coping mechanism. Again, despite the contrary and all scientific evidence, having a cigarette by myself calms me; I’m able to gather my thoughts, contemplate everything, and enjoy the quiet solitude. It’s psychological: I like being alone sometimes, and I guess nothing drives people away than the smell of cigarettes.

Recently, however, I was feeling ill — like, really, really ill: tightness and small pains in my chest, feeling dizzy and almost blacking out. My blood pressure was dangerously high. Constant tests had ruled out COVID-19, so I know it was my heart and blood pressure, and I know my diet and especially my smoking had become detrimental to my health. I’m getting older, and my habits were killing me. It was time for change (again).

So, as of this writing and as I’m chewing some expired nicotine gum, I haven’t touched a cigarette in over two weeks.

I don’t know, as fatalistic as I can be, I want to be there for my parents, my brother, my friends, and especially my dog. I figured quitting smoking (hopefully for good) will extend my life a little longer, so I can be with this puppy (I don’t want to smoke around Dusty, and a part of me feels my smoking gave Nico her cancer). I’d have a lot of regret leaving behind my family and friends, but I’d feel even more guilty for a dog — a creature wholly dependent on me — to be left alone without her owner.

I know for a fact that my blood pressure has returned to normal since I stopped smoking (I have a blood pressure kit at home, and I just came back from my primary care physician), and I’m saving so much money on not buying my usual pack or two a week. Working from home and self-isolating is also relieving a lot of stress, especially now that I’m full-time again and my social obligations are sparse. Who knows? Maybe with this pandemic and with this dog (and yes, with this expired nicotine gum), I’ll finally quit smoking for good. Wish me luck, but if I can handle and mediate my anxieties (and hey, writing on this blog is a perfect outlet), I think I’ll be fine.