XXXIV. spreadsheets

on the mandatory end of year review

I wrote sixteen newsletters this year. I wanted to get one more in for 2023, some sort of last minute cramming instinct, something profound before the ball reaches the end of its 70-foot drop. I am writing from an octagonal room, three fourths of its sides are windows. I can hear my friends downstairs picking over bagels, and the birds outside squabbling low over the barren grass. Earlier this morning my friend padded into my room and got under the covers. Face to face, with our hands pillowed under our cheeks we talked about what we want this year, what we’re afraid of, how surprisingly sturdy we feel in these desperately slippery times. It is good, I think, to state your intentions, to giggle while sketching out a grand plan in the air with your finger.

I didn’t catalogue enough to make a best-of list (like this one! and this one!). It wasn’t until the last quarter of the year that I realized I should take note of what shows I attend, so my nascent spreadsheet would classify me as a Broadway musical and modern dance enthusiast (not untrue). I am thinking about the different methods we have of recording ourselves, mapping our trends, aggregating personal data to practical or nonsensical ends. I was teasing my mom about the superfluity of the Apple Watch—she uses it to record her steps and sleep—can’t you just tell if you’ve walked or slept and then estimate if it was more or less than the day or week before? What is it about the number, the little bar graph of the month, that is so illuminating?

I love having a January 1st birthday, and I love the pomp and ritual of marking the passage of time, but there is a sinister underbelly of the New Year: the annual mandate that we look at our numbers and improve. Finish not only strong, but stronger, and have the proof to back it up. Nowhere is this numerical inflation as moral good more apparent than in the Goodreads Reading Challenge controversy. See the deeply saddening headline: Very Short Books to Finish Your Reading Challenge Strong. I have been a Goodreads user since 2017. In that first year I read 13 books with a 5 book goal (all of which had been automatically posted on Facebook when I finished them, unbeknownst to me until Siduri commented on “my” post about finishing The Picture of Dorian Gray, a small but humiliating social media faux pas). It was intoxicating. From that moment, I knew the lure was strong—where else can you achieve a 260%? Thus, I have tried to maintain a purist’s eye towards my reading goal: it is to reflect a lived experience not shape it. I have humbly bowed my head on the December thirty-firsts that have left me several books behind. There are all sorts of little rules I’ve set for myself and I can only conclude that I am afraid that I am no match for the promise and punishment of unchecked data. Do you write something you’re about to complete on the to-do list just to give yourself the dopamine hit of crossing it off?

a puzzle joyfully completed on December 28th

This year I hit my reading goal. I made a Letterboxd profile but always forgot to update it. According to the app the only movies I saw were John Wick 4 and Scrapper, a woman of taste. I’d like to travel more in 2024. I need need need to go get my passport renewed and get a state ID. I probably won’t get my driver’s license but it is important to tell myself every year that I will. I want to write twenty essays next year, twenty is better than sixteen even though I don’t want it to be. This year was so full, impossible to quantify…but if I were to estimate:

• I spent a billion hours on Instagram, except for the two months when I deleted it

• I said, “I’ll never drink again” 42 times but I’m only now starting to mean it

• I cried 32% more happy tears

• I spent less time on stage but more time developing my work

• I was 50% more cold, but finally got a PCP, so now I know I’m just kind of like that

• Loved every second even when one could argue I did not

Happy New Year :)

xx

Mia