--EVERYTHING IS HALLOWED.  EVERYONE WANTS TO SEE YOU SMILE

…I was good at math.  For a quarter of a year I was.  In fifth grade.  The teacher thought one other girl and I were gifted in math and set us up on a regiment whereby we taught ourselves from a different curriculum.  With a few weeks, I was failing miserably and eventually returned to the same studies the rest of the class followed.  Since then, all these years later, I’ve thought of myself as bad at math, intimidated by equations and numbers.

But now I need numbers, or rather goals, thresholds, something to aim for and conquer.  It’s what keeps me focused, motivated and, well, going.

When I was running quite a bit it was only because I had planned a marathon.  Without a marathon in my future, I’d talk myself out of those early morning runs in the daylight-savings-time darkness, in the bitter cold.  But if I had a marathon slated, I had no choice.  I’d committed.  So it was drag my skinny ass out of bed and get to it.

Same goes now for writing.  Word count matters to me.  I know quantity is not a replacement for quality, but quantity does matter, and it keeps you honest, keeps your butt in the chair.

Same with getting published.  Someone once told me that I keep score too much, that it’s all about the numbers for me.  They said that cheekily, then retracted it once I probed for an explanation.  It was a slight, but it was also true.

I’m on the cusp of having 900 stories/poems published since I’ve been doing this writing thing full-time.  Does 900 matter to me?  Of course.  Am I shooting for 1000?  Absolutely.  By the end of this year, in fact.  It’s what keeps me popping out pieces, submitting even after multiple rejections.

For me, numbers are the whip, the lashes on my back, and I need that.

…I had a few things published last week:

http://lunarisreview.com/len-kuntz/

http://poetrysuperhighway.com/psh/2016/01/january-25-31-2016-len-kuntz-and-michael-estabrook/

http://theliterarynest.com/issues/vol-1-issue-4/fiction/Len-Kuntz/

and here on pages 79 and 81:

http://kaaterskillbasinjournal.com/issues/

…and these were some things I thought were pretty funny on Facebook last week:

-I lost my company four million dollars today how is your day going?

-The guy next to me in line at CVS is buying Muscle Milk and condoms. I'm buying mini chocolate doughnuts. Seems right.

 -I hate it when I gain ten pounds for a role and then realize I’m not an actress.

 -A tampon so absorbent it prevents crying.

 -A wise woman once said, “Fuck this shit,” and lived happily ever after.

 -I was going to write a story about apathy but I couldn't be bothered.

 -One thing I love about my new job is how nonchalantly we discuss blowjobs, hemorrhoids and ghosts in meetings.

 -I've been clean now for coming up on 17 years. Know what I've learned? Clean and sober people are more full of shit than junkies. It's true, on average. Think about that.

 -Here I am chilling with Domino, a dog that goes to an Ivy League school.

 -D got all excited thinking I was playing with myself under my shirt, but I didn't want to disappoint him and tell him I was looking for the M & M I lost. I think I'll just torture him a little longer.