The older I get, the more I begin to notice that my life revolves around numbers. How much money is in my bank account, how many days of daycare I’ll pay for this week, how many words I need to type in order to get my book finished, how much weight I need to lose, how high my cholesterol is, etc. Take today for instance.

I got up at 8 a.m. and spent a total of 20 minutes checking e-mails. I then hurried to get my daughter to daycare by 9, but ended up getting there at around 9:30. I went to the gym and walked a total of 17 laps which took a whopping 20 minutes before riding the stationary bike for 11.5 minutes and getting 2 miles in. This means I’ll be able to eat those extra 50 calories I’ve been wanting to get my hands on. Woo-hoo!

After the gym, I went to the store. Geez, I hate to even think about the numbers involved there. After spending about $20 at the store, I stopped to put $42 worth of gas in my car. That will get me about 350 miles. Maybe. All the while, I was thinking that last night I had just hit 43,000 words on Keeping the Faith and that I really need about 20,000 more to ensure that I hit novel length with this one. We’ll see. I’ve been working on this book for approximately seven months, four days, three hours and twenty-six minutes. During that time, I’ve thrown out about 97 pages worth of plot that I hated.

When I got home from doing all of this, I checked the tv listings to see what was on and decided not to watch Seven, The Three Amigos, or 1408. I had to get to work by 1 anyway. So, after answering 32 e-mails, a couple of instant messages and commenting on three or four blog posts I remembered that I needed to get the ISBN numbers for a few books I wanted to find. By the time I looked these up, I was sure that my brain might explode.

You see, I hate numbers. That’s why I try very hard not to do any tricky math and I can’t really commit to playing the lottery. There’s just too many damned numbers.

Until next time…

Subscribe to Benston Blogs by Email