I'll probably regret that title. Apologies to fans but I hate Spongebob on aesthetic grounds. I just find him and all his fellow characters ugly, to put it bluntly. Funny, sure, but ugly.

But that was the least of my worries when I found myself finally boarding a bus after waiting twenty minutes in persistent rain on Monday, and finding myself staring at garish orange curtains with Spongebob and his friends all over them. I had almost taken a cab, but a woman in a uniform that said Pediatrics waved at the one with a lit service sign first, and I felt I shouldn't fight her for it. Just as well: a woman in the back opened the window and flung a clear liquid out, which I guess wasn't a big deal given everyone was wet already, just really weird. And disappointing since everyone was so desperate for a ride.

But finally the bus with offending curtains stopped. I would have liked to face away from the curtains, but there wasn't room for me to move, the automatic umbrella I had hastily closed kept threatening to pop open, I had to find a way to slide my backpack off so I could reach my wallet--which then promptly turned over and spilled all its contents in the bottom of my bag, Sixty pesos worth of coins, which was the exact amount I needed for a roundtrip commute on these buses which they'd tried to label as jeepneys, only the name caught on as easily as X did for Twitter. I managed to scoop up enough to pay and move to a spot where I could contemplate why Spongebob had a pink dollop on his head, with a little more comfort.

I felt horrible about being late for my first day at an 8-5 office job since 1998 (my other work has been either teaching, part-time, or flextime). But as it turned out, nearly everybody was late for work or school that day. To quote my husband, "Traffic was historically bad...." The important thing was that I got there and with a fairly dry body and absolutely dry feet, thanks to new boots. Only the million old receipts in the back pockets of my backpack were a casualty. So maybe it wasn't the best start, but I got my start in my job, and it was not at Krusty Krab but at a publisher, Milflores.

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I guess it's obvious why a writer would want to work at a publishing house, but I assure you there's more to it than that. First, I really do enjoy going to work if I like the job and the workplace. I like having something new to see and do every day, which is extremely helpful in stimulating my imagination as a writer. I am one of those who couldn't write a word during lockdown. It was only when things eased up and we went out once a week that I gradually became unstuck. I need real life to feed my writing. New stimulation from screens won't do it.

And if I don't have my own thing, I am going to be miserable about my kids not only being away at school all day but growing up and becoming more independent. Which is how things should be. Perhaps in a few more weeks I would have become okay with being alone at home while they all went out. But with all their baby and toddler pictures around me all the time, I doubt it.

But most of all, as a reading advocate as well as a writer, it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time. I know I can't produce all the books and other materials that I feel people, especially children, need to read. I can't even finish all the stories I start! But I can help other people do this.

My biggest worry about working outside the home was that I would lack energy to care for my family and continue to write. But so far that doesn't seem to be happening. After a short nap, not only do I get dinner on the table and the lunches in the lunchboxes, but through the past week I spent a little time after my kids went to sleep revising a play for submission. And finished two days before the deadline.

On my last day before the weekend, I encountered the Spongebob bus again! I was sure of it once I faced the curtains. What were the chances of another bus having those exact curtains? The conductor I had recognized from the start. The driver might have been the same. There was no rain this time, but he was horribly slow even on stretches with no traffic.

I will try to avoid Spongebob in the future. But I think the important thing is that I am not working at the Krusty Krab but in an industry that I love.

I found out not long after that the area where I get off the bus is called Ligaya. How appropriate.