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All hail Dead Week, the Best Week of the Year, a time when nothing counts, and when nothing is quite real.

You guessed it, it’s that time of year again¹.

I was actually just wishing for a way to count the things I didn’t do. Something like, I actively spent xx days not consuming toxic news, or I put my phone down xx times when I caught myself doom-scrolling. Or maybe I could find a way to calculate all the little things I did, that actually add up, like how I sent out xx number of postcards to friends last year, or how I spent xx hours reading Cars and Trucks and Things that Go with my kid, or exactly how many cups of coffee I drank.

But regardless, there are a few bigger things I do count, mainly so I can see how I measure up to myself from previous years. It’s not optimizing and trying to get better, as much as it is noticing trends and how things change from year to year… and more importantly, why they change that matters to me.

So here is 2025, by the numbers…

BOOKS - I’ve always loved to read, so books are my favorite thing to take stock of in any given year. (2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021).

This year I read 28 books. It was pretty evenly split along gender lines. 54% were written by women, 46% were written by men. 75% (ACK! Do better, Lyttle!) were written by white authors, and only 25% by authors of color (that breakdown is 8% Black, 14% Asian, 3.5% MENA). So there’s definitely room for improvement next year. I started tallying these stats about seven years ago when I vowed to actively diversify what I was consuming, after realizing that most of the lit I loved from college and what I was reading still was mostly written by white men. It’s what I was taught. It’s what I was seeing and hearing about from the media. And I knew there was more out there. I had to do and be better — by purposely seeking it out.

This year, my favorite books were The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong, Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy, James by Percival Everett, and Through the Groves by Anne Hull. Martyr! and Red, White, & Royal Blue both get an honorable mention for being fun, memorable reads. Also, if you ever want really great non-fiction, largely about a place, pick up a John McPhee book. I devoured Oranges (which is about the citrus industry in FL) and The Pine Barrens (rural NJ).

I left the Amazon-owned Goodreads app a year ago; you can now find me here.

PODCASTS - I do love podcasts. And it shows, with 17,500 minutes or 12 days and 3 hours worth of listening. That’s up about 50% (or 100 hours) from last year. I think what that really points to is that I walk a lot more now in Philly, and I’ve almost always got my AirPods in. The same goes for commuting in DC last year, too. When I’m on the move, I like something in my ear that keeps me engaged.

As for what I’m listening to: Finding Mastery took the #1 spot again (for most listened to podcast). A Small Voice dropped two spots, but is still in the top 5. And there are three newcomers: Sasha Wolf’s PhotoWork: Conversations on Photography, Amy Poehler’s Good Hang, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Wiser Than Me were all loved.

MUSIC - HA. My Apple Music is a hot mess. What can I say… I have a toddler. I/we listened to 14,908 minutes of music. The London Philharmonic was the #1 most listened to artist (that’s me trying to get him to go to sleep or chill out by bringing some calm to the mood), with Mac Miller, Neko Case, the Fugees, the Indigo Girls, and Paul Simon all being popular plays. A hilarious note, one song became my new anthem, my Top song of 2025 was… The Alphabet Song by Jose-Luis Orozco and the Caramba Kids. That’s right, “ABCDEFG…” was on repeat…

A few musical notes: This year, I discovered Geese frontman Cameron Winter’s solo album Heavy Metal and absolutely loved it². It’s been on constant repeat. It feels so fresh and new and like there’s a really great singer-songwriter out there amongst the ranks again. And Mac Miller’s Circles was my feel-good album of the year. Having a bad day? Perhaps a little Good News?

STRAVA - Like last year, my mileage suffered. In 2023, I rode 2,193 miles (all on the “real” bike. In 2024, I only rode 1,279 miles on the “real” bike, but tacked on another 583 miles on the e-bike with my daily commute to downtown DC. The 2025 numbers are similar. I had a contract job downtown for the first 6 months of the year, so my commute helped get me on the bike a bit. I rode 2,308 total miles, and 1,221 of those were on the e-bike. The cool thing to see was how active I was again once the contract job ended. July and October were two of my busiest months biking, and all of those were hard-earned pedaling rides.

DUO - ¡Hola amigos! En Duolingo, tengo una racha de 999 dias — y subiendo.

y AQUI - One of the numbers I’m always most proud of is this one. Since last year, I’ve added about 1,000 total Substack subscribers, bringing the total to 3,550.

A sincere thank you to all for being here, for reading, for commenting, for DMing. I’ve enjoyed the conversations and the connections. I’ve also enjoyed writing postcards to some of you, and hope to do more of that this year. It’s been a great way to reestablish some sense of community in this weird and wonderful world.

1. Though I have to admit, reading this post about why the author doesn’t make end-of-year lists called Who’s Counting? gave me a lot to think about.

2. Pitchfork agrees, and put it at their #3 spot for the entire year. And the track “Love Takes Miles” was their #1 song of the year. Did I mention this guy is 23 years old? My god, I hope he has a long and wonderful career, providing many more years of incredible tunes.