I'm not happy. A lurking sense of unremitted payments lies ahead. Paperwork hell, my trail has turned. The time-limited table of it steers action. It all gets done...

But I keep my writing time, a cherished quantity, like weighing a cantaloupe for its ripeness. I never guess it right; yet, I let it wait, to ripen, to slice it, like holding my pen over this blank page. Writing is not paperwork, though, in reality, it is.

Paperwork is counting receipts, categorizing them, organizing them into a bureaucratic format.

Blank pages, hungry to be filled, is not paperwork.

Paper money is not paperwork, either, unless a deadline is attached. Writing on deadlines is paperwork. Money with bills due on deadline is paperwork. 

Shredding papers is not paperwork. It's liberation or obliteration. Literature is not paperwork. Reading a good story is my vacation.

Most paperwork is digital anyways. Maps used to be paperwork. I liked the folding and re-folding of maps. I enjoyed that kind of paperwork, until Google eliminated the folding part.

​I write this now, paperwork I cherish, in my notebook, before heading into the canyon of receipts and deadlines and submission forms. Maybe not exactly hell, but certainly not heaven.

Okay, I'm happy now. The paperwork of joy is done.


10:14 AM September 18, 2026. Friday