2024 by the Numbers -- and the Letters

(Also: Elizabeth Bishop has nothing on me.)

Where to start? NARQ as I will soon start writing on my students’ manuscripts at Eckerd College’s annual Writers in Paradise: Not A Rhetorical Question. I don’t measure out my life in coffee spoons. Instead I use the 3 W’s and one R: Walking, Working out, Writing, and Reading. When I make my daily to-do lists, those four words are almost always there. (Except on Tuesdays and Saturdays, when I don’t workout. On Tuesdays and Saturdays, to paraphrase a favorite Frank Lima poem, we eat peanut butter on toast and revolutionize the dining room table.)

One of the first photos of 2024, one of the last.

Anyway, here are my 2024 stats.

Walking: In 2024, I averaged 5.4 miles a day. Yes, that’s down from 2023’s 5.5, which was down from the 5.6 I averaged in 2021 and 2022, BUT — I was at 5.3 for much of the year, until I overachieved my little heart out in December, averaging 5.9 miles per day. I walked every day, with my lowest mileage day coming in at 1 mile on June 19, a travel day; highest mileage day was 8.9 on Oct. 8.

Working Out: I took 237 rides on my Peloton, for an average of almost 20 rides per month, hitting my 1,000th ride in April. I aimed to finish in the top 20 percent for most of my rides and usually achieved that.¹ And, with just a few exceptions, I worked out with my trainer, Todd Bauer, via Zoom three times per week in multiple locations: Baltimore, New York, New Orleans, Tuscany, Los Angeles, St. Petersburg (Florida).

Writing: I’m not sure how many new words I wrote, as I spent the first six months in revisions on my next book, Murder Takes a Vacation, reworking 80,000+ words through three or four drafts. You can pre-order it here. Since October, I’ve written about 15,000 words on a new novel. Meanwhile, I published four columns at Oldster for another 4,000 words, give or take. But as my friend Ann Hood likes to say, quoting the poet William Matthews, revision is the party, so that means I was partying almost nonstop in 2024.

Will I ever stop begging you to preorder this book? Yes, on June 17, when it is published..

Reading, I failed my “top-shelf” reading challenge for 2024 and I should have seen it coming; the minute I try to impose any kind of rigid structure to my reading life is the minute I fail. That said, thanks to the judicious use of audiobooks, I averaged about four books per month and that’s not too bad. It’s not good enough, but it’s not too bad. It also doesn’t include the poetry I read for ModPo. Anyway, in 2025, I’m going to read whatever I want, whenever I want.

How else can I quantify my year? I take fewer selfies these days, share fewer still on my one real social media account, but I had some favorites from 2024. I especially like the one in which my pajamas match the shade.

Favorite selfies of 2024. The arm shot was taken specifically for my trainer, Todd Bauer.

Anyway, I’m not making any real resolutions for 2025. Resolutions feel hubristic these days. But I am adding one letter to the things I try to do on a regular basis: F — for fun, you perverts. In the last month of December, I had an unusual amount of fun and I realized I need even more fun in my life. Miles, words, workouts — it’s all very dutiful, nose-to-the-grindstone, easy to quantify. Fun, not so much.

My friend Joyce took this photo at a glass-blowing party she organized. Could I look any happier?

Finally, 2024 was a year of losing². An election was lost and, along with it, a lot of people’s rights were lost, or will be. The Orioles made it to the playoffs and promptly fell apart. I lost a favorite earring, a favorite bracelet, a favorite watch, and favorite sunglasses. Oh, and then just to keep the streak going, I lost my house keys on the penultimate day of 2024.

It’s tempting to use the euphemism “lost” for my mom, but I didn’t lose her. Although she died on Sept. 7th, she’s omnipresent in my mind and heart. Almost every day, I think of something I want to tell her. (Odd, because we didn’t talk daily after she moved back to Baltimore in 2022.) The red bracelet in the photo above was one of her birthday gifts to me last year. My mom was highly hostile to the Internet and no longer drove, so I have no idea how she tracked down a Bakelite bracelet for me.

Anyway, 2025 is here, whether we want it to be or not. Let’s go.

A highlight of 2024

Read/reading: Bunny, Mona Awad; The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller; How Sondheim Can Change Your Life, Richard Schoch; Everything is Possible, Elizabeth Strout (book and audio formats); Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia, Kate Manne (audio); More: A Memoir of Open Marriage, Molly Roden Winter (audio).

Rereading: Lost Girls, Robert Kolker; The Moon by Night, Madeleine L’Engle; Heartburn, Nora Ephron (audio).

Me, me, me: Oh, I have such good news, but I can’t share it just yet. Soon, very soon! Also, The Mystery Box returns in 2025.

1. If I filter my results by gender, there’s a huge jump: I’m almost always in the top 10 percent, often in the top 5. But — and I think this is really cool — if I filter by age, there’s virtually no difference. Yay, old people on Peloton! We’re pretty fit. And, yes, I recognize there’s a thread of ableism here. If you’re working out really hard in your 60s, you’re one of the lucky ones.

2. I’ll take any excuse to share Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art.”