How the Words are Strung

Oh, fuck it all, you just don't have time to work.

You want to work all your life till you fall off the edge of it.

It all just depends on what you call work, and on the way the words are strung.

When they're strung into your ears through the headphones, and you parse them down onto the screen, and you trawl and you trawl and you trawl, your Honour, they sit like gastro in the pit of your stomach.

And you earn good money doing this, the best money you could earn. And you moan.

When the words are strung into your mind in images, they glint out your fingers from the eye inside and you dob them down onto the screen, and you edit slow, and you don't have any of the other sort of work, the paid stuff, you've made exactly zero dollars today and those bills are piling up but fuck it all, you feel rich.

And for a person who had CFS for so long, you're so mindful of the way your energy can fluctuate from day to day, and it's not about health this time, but it still amazes you, the difference. And you haven't had enough sleep, and you haven't had any coffee, but the buzz is on and you rework a few old blog posts, and you hit "send" on your email program and they whizz off to the editor, and you're not going to be paid for those either but then you feel even richer. And some stupid dull worries fall away and light things rise up instead, small simple things that you wish to do today and which now fill you with pleasure, little things like going to get some organic veggies to sup on this evening and doing the dishes.

And you whizz away into the bathroom to clean the sink you haven't been able to rouse yourself to clean for weeks, the one with the soap encrusted into its surface all olive green, and the goo collecting round the rim of the sink, and the toilet that smells like wee.

Some workdays are so different than others. It just depends on how the words are strung.