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Some good news: Our suking optical shop will reopen across the street from its former location, at Acacia Dorm on the UP Campus. (If you’ve never been there, it’s near the UP Chapel and the Infirmary.) To get ready for the happy occasion, let’s revisit some of the dozens and dozens of eyeglasses Nella has made for me. (Except for a couple of frames I bought on a Seoul bangketa, all of them are intact and usable, so there are a lot of them.)

Nella’s great-grandfather was the first optometrist in the Philippines and her entire clan is in the optical business, so she has a collection of vintage frames. Years ago, when nobody cared about vintage spectacles (“Ay, luma. Wala bang bago?”), we would root in the bag full of junk and find frames that could be spruced up and reused. (No doubt some of them had previous owners who are dead, but I’ve never had haunted glasses. Dammit I should’ve gotten Prof. Nieves Epistola’s old bangaw glasses. I would not mind being haunted by such a cool ghost.)

Incidentally, these photos were taken by Allan, who swears he only used one or two layers of filtration. If the photos look plasticky to you, feel free to bite him.

These were my very first sunglasses. I could never wear sunglasses before these because my eyesight is bad enough without adding dark tints, and prescription lenses were expensive. I still wear them sometimes. (These are old earrings. I added little glass chili peppers I found in Quiapo.)

And another pair of vintage frames with prescription dark lenses. Also still in use.

These photos were taken at lunch last Saturday, after my three-day shut-in to start writing my next novel (I got a lot of work done but was stir-crazy after 48 hours). That’s Allan in front, Deo and Bubbles at the back. These glasses I saw online—they’re Danish-made, deadstock, so they were on sale. I asked Pat in Bangkok to buy them for me, and Nella made the lenses.

So when people ask me why I don’t just wear contact lenses or have laser surgery, my eyebrow goes into orbit.