As per usual, I’m closing the year out by breaking down my experience into quantifiable elements, because I tend to count things, and it feeds my OCD tendencies. Also, as crappy as the year might feel overall, looking at things from a numbers perspective helps to highlight things that weren’t necessarily so objectively awful, which is definitely the kind of thing I need to see sometimes.

For example, I kicked all kinds of ass in terms of my cycling habit, and made some decent progress with my musical side gig, in terms of sales and performances, especially given current conditions, and somehow managed to become a published poet as well.

That said, I can’t help but notice I’m pointing out a lot of objectively not cool things this year. I’ve lost friends, missed out on potential cool experiences, and cultivated all kinds of frustration and depression because of said conditions, especially the way a relatively small percentage of society continues to refuse to act with basic responsibility and exercise a base level of empathy for their fellow humans.

So yeah – 2021 has definitely been a mixed bag:

• 0: hours I’ve spent in an actual office this year – working from home, all the time.
• 2578: miles spent on road and trail, biking and hiking
• 55: miles in this year’s longest single-session bike ride
• 4: total number of rides over 50 miles
• 49.6: average bike/hike miles per week across the year
• 74: books read this year
• 4: total vaccinations injected into this body
• 1: number of places (besides the vaccination center itself) that have asked to see my COVID-19 vaccination card)
• 13: musical performances in front of actual, live people, including open mics
• 1: open mic performances where the only audience member was the bartender
• 1: number of print publications I’ve had work appear in
• 15: songs written
• 1: records I released as me this year
• 3: records (including mine) on which I appeared
• 38: individual music sales (online and physical)
• 1: number of times my music streams revenue hit the $10 threshold to actually disburse funds to me
• 2: conventions actually attended in person this year
• 6: appearances on podcasts/online video for interviews/performances
• 311: beer check-ins according to untappd
• -30: total difference in pounds of body weight over the last 365 days
• 0: Pegasus award nominations/wins (it wasn’t our year)
• 5: facemasks I currently cycle through
• 1: facemasks lost this year
• 2: trips to the drive-in (only place I feel comfortable going out to the movies)
• 3: trips out of state
• 2: number of elections voted in
• 1: political candidate donations
• 0: number of my candidates who actually won
• 98: the percentile I fall into on spotify in terms of users who listen to Frank Zappa
• too many: people I know who contracted COVID
• a small percentage, but still too many: people I know who’ve died of it
• ∞ : times I’ve silently cursed non-masked idiots in public (or at least feels that way)
• ∞ : times I’ve chosen the longer line at the store to avoid unmasked/improperly masked idiots
• 3: years we’ll have been dealing with this whole pandemic business when the calendar changes
• forever: how long it feels like we’ll be dealing with this because of those people I mention two and three lines above this one

It’s kind of hard to feel some sort of optimism right now, to be perfectly honest, but I’m going to try. Hopefully the coming year will be a little better. Long-term historical patterns suggest the current state won’t hold, and will eventually swing the other way; I just have to hope we’re here long enough for the pendulum to move.

Happy New Year.