I thought I’d be done in a year.
I thought that in 365 days I could
listen to and write about every artist
in my vinyl collection. It’s the
370th day and I am just this moment
finishing out the P’s. At this rate,
I may not finish until the end of the
year. Maybe, if I had never skipped a day
or never taken a break, I might have
made it. But who’s counting
and who cares? I don’t care so much
about the original goal to finish
in 365, but I do confess I have been counting.
Here are some numbers to goggle at:
As I have said, in 370 days,
I have reached the end of the letter P,
the 16th letter in the Roman alphabet.
I have composed 220 pieces of writing.
I have listened to 200 artists.
I have listened to 466 albums
from start to finish,
plus a number of albums
I’ve listened to just for kicks,
or because they were new albums
from a letter in the alphabet
that I’ve already completed in the collection.
I have written 115,968 words as blog entries,
not including the notes on the vinyl editions
or the very repetitive (identical these days)
closing paragraph describing the project.
My longest consecutive daily
listening/writing/posting streak: 100 days.
I have written 495 manuscript pages—
in the format of the skinny essay,
or the poem-like-thing.
How much further to go before I’m done:
four and a half boxes,
or approximately 225 to 230 LP records.
According to some math that I did not do in my head,
I am 66.954% through the project of
listening to everything.
