Today is a really bad day. I almost can’t talk about it. I’m sort of choked up.
My Klout score went down.
The second derivative of the rate of change of my number of twitter followers went negative.
My Amazon score for my last book went up (better for it to go down, which in the perverse world of “up/downs” on Amazon, would mean that things are looking “up” for my book).
My last article got fewer Facebook likes than I would’ve hoped.
My online chess rating went down.
The deal I had hoped would close last week didn’t close. So the number in my back account stayed the same. Or probably went down. Who knows. I avoid looking at it.
And worse yet, I’m having a mini mid-life crisis. Two days ago my daughter turned 13. Today my wife turns 44. I’m the father of a teenager and the husband of a 44 year old. Even worse for her, she’s the wife of a 44 year old. I’m the husband of someone who is married to a 44 year old. (As an aside, I was almost finished writing this article when my wife told me her ex-boyfriend’s birthday is today also. I said, “I bet that was very important to you when you two first met” She said, “yes, it was TOO important. And it’s not fair that you know me that well to know that.”)
Then I looked at Paulo Coelho’s blog. He got 10,000 or so facebook likes on his last post, which I don’t even think he wrote. It was about kangaroos. That Paulo Coelho! He could write about two Martians who come to some spiritual catharsis while trying to cross a crater and he’d get 70,000 facebook likes and 20,000 new twitter followers.
To top it off, I got 7.5 hours of sleep. I aim for 8+. Ideally I get 11 hours of sleep.
I’m having a bad numbers day. Did you ever have a bad numbers day?
This is totally “first world problems”. Whoever coined that phrase is a genius. I wish I could be him. He’s probably in his 20s. I could be his father. I might be his father.
I wish I was one of those people who donated to 50 sperm banks 20 years ago. Now I could be a grandfather. I could have 30 children in their 20s. But I didn’t.
I preserved my sperm like it was gold. My advice to all 20 year olds: Donate every week to a sperm bank.
Now I have a 13 year old.
When I was 13 I had acne, braces, glasses, my hair was so thick and wild I couldn’t comb it, and I played dungeons and dragons and tried various incantations from the Satanic Bible in order to get girls in my class to take their clothes off in front of me. It didn’t work. (In retrospect, probably better I did not donate to sperm banks).
Poor honey. Thirteen is a long way from 44. My new 13 year old said to me, “16 is a probably an ok age to have a boyfriend. And maybe 14 for a Facebook account.” She wants to figure out the world around her. She wants to know all the right numbers.
It’s a harsh world, filled with numbers that will rate you, rank you, measure your breast size, calibrate your beauty, strengthen your bank account, count your winkles, guesstimate your wisdom, measure your “influence”, determine your likeability.
But honey, you’re always my little baby. And Claudia, I have been 44 for 32 days longer than you so I can show you the ropes the next time all the ”44s” have a meeting.
We already have an agreement that when she turns 81 we can decide if we still want to stay together. Another number to worry about. One year closer. Maybe tomorrow I’m going to take one day off from numbers. Hopefully then I will have zero problems.