A week before the elections my friend Smoketh and I walked around UP Diliman. I wanted to jog, but of course deep in my heart I probably didn’t, because I “forgot” to bring my running shoes, so we just walked around the oval. Which was just as well, as my Runners’ Knee was starting to act up again. When my left knee started to buckle in 2019 whenever I stepped up the stairs I had an MRI done on it, which confirmed the diagnosis. Which was weird and unintentionally pretentious, as I was nothing more than a casual runner.

“The next time we come here in the campus, VVM might already be president,” I told Smoketh. “Also, I can’t believe my book will officially be released during the Marcos regime!”

“For whatever consolation it might give you,” Namtab Pots later on told me when I told him the same points, “maybe you will become this generation’s Lualhati Bautista!”

A few days ago the publisher had sent me samples of possible book covers. It has a cute rubber ducky on the cover, and we were discussing whether we wanted it to be the standard yellow duck, or a black one.

“Maybe the black one emanates bad vibes,” Smoketh said. “It actually looks like the raven in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven.”

“You might be accused of supporting blackface with the black duck,” Namtab Pots said, preemptively taking the potential woke point-of-view.

“He is so cute but why is he wearing a wide-brimmed hat?” Asked LinDLR. “Is he enjoying his last few days in the beach?”

“Can the duck wear a pink bowtie?” I asked the publisher. “Or, or, or, a flower like Jasmine Trias!” Except, we realized, that the duck has no ears. Needless to say, this book is the most un-Lualhati Bautista book of all.

Time to re-read Dekada ’70, Bata Bata, and Gapo.

Categories: Blogs