This is not the flesh and meat of the pubski post I would like to make, but in the meantime, This Time I'm Really Going To Do It, I Swear - another post about New Years, but from last year lil , shamelessly mine, I know. The question I have is: Did you really do it? _____________________ Edit: Here is some of my flesh and meat. In 2014, I completed 313 submissions[1, 3]. I sent 77 distinct poems to 70 presses [2]. Seven (7) were accepted for publication, in six (6) distinct publications, although not all have been published in 2014 (a few slated for Jan 2015 I know for sure). My "acceptance ratio" at Duotrope is 2.6%, although that covers my entire history of use at Duotrope which goes back to 2012. I have appreciated everyone's support and encouragement this year. I've reached out to a few of you privately, and publicly vented, about submissions and rejections. You all have been wonderfully supportive and positive and have kept my head directed towards the right frame of mind, if not always squarely in it. I mention these statistics because I think it's a great, (depressing? frank?) indicator of what it can take to gain a measure of outside "success" at one's passion. This is a year's worth of work expressed in one set of metrics that, of course, doesn't really reflect a lot of the work/writing I've done, directly and indirectly poetry-related...but I like metrics, and I like quantifying things, and at times like this - anniversaries, New Year's, birthdays, etc - I like to note them. Work is hard. Keeping up your passion is hard. I imagine that successfully sustaining a long-term relationship is in its way just as hard as slogging through poetry submissions, and so on - what I'm saying is that I'm sure every single one of you has worked just as hard at something as I have at poetry this year. It's not easy. I hope for all of you it has been worth it. I admire and respect the hell out of all of you, sweating away at your own individual passions and pursuits. Best wishes, and LOVE, for each and every one of you in 2015 - muted or not, whether we agree on any single topic or not, hushed or not, in the USA, Hong Kong, and everywhere in between. (from ref - your secret sentimental) [1] This is confusing phraseology. This is a count of all of the individual, non-distinct poems that I sent to non-distinct presses. Often, I can submit, say, 5 poems to a magazine at a time, and I can submit the same 5 poems to multiple magazines for consideration, Hence, I sent out 313 poems, but the number is misleading because it reflects neither actual number of distinct pieces nor actual number of distinct presses. [2] There are a number of presses I submitted to twice in 2014, so while there were a discrete 70 of them, that does not mean I sent one submission to one press total over the course of the year. [3] These numbers as of 1:41 P.M. today. I know it's ambitious but I'm hoping I can send just a few more out...just a few more...before 2015. :)
I'm pissed off right now because I'm three pounds heavier right now than I was on my birthday, but that's still seven pounds lighter than I was on my last birthday. I run 8 minute miles pretty consistently. I don't exactly dust everyone I come across, but I'm pretty swift. Went running two days ago and was absolutely smoked by this kid. He was doing a sustained run at about the speed I can sprint. I then realized I'm old enough to be his dad. That's been my year in a nutshell: On the one hand, I'm getting older. I have officially slipped out of anybody's target demo. On the other hand, I make it look good. Hot wife, adorable daughter, bitchin' career and hyperexotic italian superbike. I got knocked across 4 lanes of the 405 this year and stood up to flip the other guy the finger. I made six figures pushing faders. And although it's galling to bail on Hollywood without having my name in lights, I can say I was there when the lights started going out. I got mixes to finish but first I gotta get over this cold.
I ate a 230 calorie Protein Fusion for lunch today. The UltraLean's taste better, but they made my pee the color of Kenneth's shirt all evening. I think I'll keep Soylent in the lunch mix for now. I've remained about 3 lbs lighter since my 72 hour fast. I also started one 'skip lunch day' each week. Since I just eat lunch and dinner, that's a 22 hour fast once per week. Until the baby, I was 144 lbs since I was 18. I am back there again, and I am staying. It becomes freakishly easy to gain weight as you approach middle age. Jesus Christ dude. That's what freaks me out most about motorcycles, the other drivers.I'm pissed off right now because I'm three pounds heavier right now than I was on my birthday, but that's still seven pounds lighter than I was on my last birthday.
I got knocked across 4 lanes of the 405 this year and stood up to flip the other guy the finger.
I tortured my metabolism through pernicious anorexia as a teenager. As a consequence it's super-efficient. If I eat three pieces of pizza I gain about 4 lbs and keep it on for about a week of calorie restriction. The disturbing thing was comparing my calorie requirements through MyFitnessPal with my daughter's calorie requirements through Babycenter. MyFitnessPal says that I need 1800 calories a day - 2300 calories if I'm going running. I'm 6'0, 195 lbs. BabyCenter says my daughter needs 1300 calories a day. She's 2'3, 24 lbs. That'll fuck with your perspective: "If you want to maintain your weight, eat one more meal than your toddler but eat about the same thing."
Yeah, a few pubski's ago: https://hubski.com/pub?id=193148 Oddly, I haven't gotten sick, despite my wife and daughter getting sick, and some of my colleagues. I am not sure if it gave me an immune boost, but it seems possible. I think I might do it every fall.
Psh, a fit 20-year-old is commonplace. Sexy, maybe, but they've got a hell of a wind on their backs. A fit 30-year-old is on a good track. A fit 40-year-old is impressive in my book. I fell out of running after 3 ankle injuries in a year (2/3 from walking down steps while spaced out), but I miss the days of setting myself in a random direction and passing through cities and towns without a care in the world.
I change it up. I run, but I also bike (the two hours it takes me to Torrance Beach and back, all within a stone's throw of the ocean, is one of the few things I will miss about SoCal). I also longboard, although I haven't in too long. I used to do a lot of rowing on an Ergometer but I sold it because we had one at the health club here, but I don't go to the health club all that often. Shit, I even did spinning for a while. Only thing I really hate is weight machines and free weights, which is a damn shame because I could sure stand to use 'm.
With you on the former, against you on the latter. Picking up free weights after putting down running did wonders for my posture in a way a hundred of miles of road never could.Only thing I really hate is weight machines and free weights, which is a damn shame because I could sure stand to use 'm.
My "last serious boyfriend" - broke up over 3 years ago, used to live together, whatever - interloped on my New Years celebration by means of a mutual friend. He proceeded to both get wasted and try to get me wasted. He then told me he "knew my current boyfriend wasn't the one" (implying it was because said boyfriend and I have broken up and gotten back together), that he had been stalking me and could remember exactly when I blocked him on Twitter (which I personally couldn't even remember doing), and started telling me that a year ago there had been a rumor that I had slept with someone. I'm not sure there was actually a rumor but I'm sure he was trying to figure out if I had. He also wanted us to start talking and be friends again. He did not present these topics in this exact order. It was immediately after he started talking about how he knew my boyfriend wasn't "the one" for me that I walked over to our mutual friend, relayed the deterioration of the conversation, and began to dodge him for the rest of the night. This ex? I haven't so much as talked to him for more than a minute in about two and a half years. Where he gets off thinking that he has any iota of an idea what I want/need in a significant other and what would make a person "the one" or not (putting aside for the sake of discussion all my OTHER objections about such phraseology) I have no fucking idea. I'm pissed and feel my privacy has been seriously violated. Apparently he also likes to ask our mutual friend how I am doing. Me? Our relationship ended three years ago, bud, and you were a creeper 35yo sleeping with an emotionally screwed, drug-addled 20yo. Frankly he's the ex I think about least and whom I like to pretend I didn't date the most. Oh, and he also told me that he thinks I've "packed on a few pounds" since we broke up when in reality? Since I stopped living with a directionless, anti-motivated stoner and smoking an eighth every three days (oh and quit eating double cinnabons/day etc) - which I did because frankly I was so bored and stifled in the relationship and lifestyle I had to stone myself blind in order to be okay with it - I've lost 2 pants sizes and 20 pounds. He just happens to remember me as the sickly, food avoidant stim freak I was when the relationship started, not the fatass who left it. (By the way - I am around the same weight/body shape as that 20yo girl was now, anyway.) To put the cherry on top, after telling my boyfriend about this, said boyfriend then found said ex and friended them on Facebook. In the meantime, I'd blocked the unwelcome fuck. When I asked current boyfriend why he had done this, he began to talk about how he would message my ex and tell him to back off. Sorry, buddy, not your right, your job, or even a good way to handle the situation. If you won't even tell me your last ex-girlfriend's name because I want to check if she actually does or doesn't have a criminal record, I don't know where the living FUCK you get off thinking you can step in and 'handle' my ex for me. Plus, the correct move here is to block and ignore the ex on all media, not stir up more shit, drama and potential rumors by needless, sophomoric posturing. This isn't a pissing contest. My ex is my ex and has already 'lost' a million times over (I mean, depending on your take, ha ha ha). There is nothing to prove. So now I'm lying in bed stewing, pissed, and unable to sleep. In need of venting so here it is, Hubski. fuck idiots.