Number of bicycle rides in 2024: 5
Number of walks I’ve taken: I wasn’t counting. Let’s estimate that I went for a walk with the dogs maybe 7 times in 21 days.
Number of alcoholic beverages consumed: 0
Number of times I wanted a drink really bad but nevertheless resisted: 5
Number of dreams I’ve had about drinking: 1
Number of pounds I’ve lost in January through exercise and alcohol abstinence: 0
Number of blog entries written in 2024: Including this one, 15.
Number of consecutive days I skipped writing and posting a blog: 6
Number of consecutive days of sitting meditation: 10
Number of total days of sitting meditation: 17
Total hours spent in sitting meditation: 6
How I’m feeling on a mindfulness scale between 1 and 10, if 10 is really mindful and 1 not at all: 6
Likelihood that anxiety, sadness, or stress has made me feel less mindful: 1/1
Likelihood that meditation practice is helping, nevertheless: 1/1
Number of songs almost fully tracked and ready for mixing: 4
Number of silly music videos I’ve created and posted using an app called Spool: 2
Number of record albums purchased in January: 7
Fraction of albums purchased yesterday that are squarely NOT in my wheelhouse, feel a little bit like guilty pleasures, and/or were purchased out of a sense that, love them or not, these are significant or important records that must be in my collection: 2 out of 3
Despite the fact that 2 out of 3 of the aforementioned albums are squarely NOT in my wheelhouse, the number of these albums, after listening, I nevertheless think are great, perhaps even works of genius: 3
Fraction of albums bought yesterday for which the artist is not identified by name in the cover art: 3 out of 3.
Fraction of the albums bought yesterday on which neither the artist’s name nor the album’s title appear in the cover art: 2 out of 3.
Number of novel-length works of fiction actively in the revision process: 2
Number of snow/ice storms in the Pacific NW in 2024: 1
Amount of time without power because of an outage: 30 seconds
Number of consecutive school closure days due to weather: 4 1/2
Number of work days I missed because of snow: 1
Number of jobs I hold for which I would miss a work day because of snow: 1
Number of drumming gigs canceled because of snow: 1
Number of times I have thought of drumming as a job: 1
Number of consecutive days during which I did not leave my house in a car: 6
Probability that my biggest disappointment in 2024 thus far is how little I have read: 1/1
How bad I feel, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being very bad, and 1 being not at all bad, that I have read very little considering how many other things I have done in January: 8
Probability that I feel bad when I don’t read, regardless of how many other things I “get done”: 1/1
Probability that I will carve out time today for reading: 1/1.
michael jarmer 
Michael, appearances and lack of response to the contrary notwithstanding, I’ve been reading all your “paint-by-numbers” report cards on your January resolutions. I did wonder about the skippage, but didn’t really worry because 1) it’s what I would have done even sooner and 2) no matter how much you beat up on yourself for this and that, I know – KNOW – you are getting work done even when you don’t think you are. Do you realize what a favorable report card this is? No, of course you don’t. Because you suffer from Colburnesque Syndrome, aka Living in the Roz Chast Worry Chamber Syndrome, aka Eeyore Syndrome. Are you a Boston Red Sox fan? If not, you sure have potential there. What could go wrong?! (A lotta stuff, alas.)
All this by way of saying, Good Job! The writing in these daily blogs is so much better than you think. How do I know? Because otherwise I wouldn’t read them. I’m a busy guy!
Keep getting this work done, even – or especially – if it’s not quite coming out the way you expected.
Stay safe, stay warm, stay cool, cheers across the country,
Don