As always, let’s start with the numbers …

Physical Comics Read: 17 (94/120)
Digital Comics Read: 0 (469/471)
Trade Paperbacks/Graphic Novels Read: 2 (15/53)
Books Read: 17 (105/142)
Movies Watched: 1 (100/138)
TV Seasons Completed: 0 (78/90)
TV Shows Completed: 0 (32/37)
Podcast Episodes Remaining: 240

You know how they say that the numbers don’t lie? These numbers lie. Well, not all of them. Just the podcast numbers. The reason for that is because while my remaining podcast episodes on my iPod went up by two after this month, the overall number I have to listen to actually went down.

Hear me out. I’m not lying.

So what happens when you listen to a podcast that has been around for several years and you subscribe to it is that your podcast app just downloads the most recent show. That makes total sense. After all, if you subscribe to Time or National Geographic, you don’t get the first issue from 100+ years ago dropped in your lap. Well, I have been listening to the “Ghosts in the Burbs” podcast and started way back in its first couple of seasons, which was about five or six years ago. That meant manually downloading the episodes I wanted to listen to. I had done so with the first two years’ worth, listened to those, downloaded the next couple of dozen episodes, listened to those, and so on until just today (in fact when I was on my walk an hour before I sat down to write this post), I got officially caught up. That’s roughly 50-60 episodes (I skipped the ones that are not directly related to the main story) that I added and then worked through on my feed. So yeah, actual uncollecting, even if the numbers don’t reflect that.

I’ve got a few other shows like that along with a few shows that I haven’t listened to in so long that they’ve stopped automatically downloading. So that podcast number might not get even close to zero for a long time.

As for the others? Well, I find watching stuff to be kind of hard. I don’t know, maybe I’m just in a slump, but I haven’t really been that interesting in streaming movies or TV episodes lately. I started watching a movie a week ago and then didn’t pick it up again (but I promise that I will), and there are shows I know I should work my way through but have preferred to enjoy the company of live sports. Well, that and GBBO. And the new season of The Vow. And Celebrity Jeopardy! And The White Lotus. And … well, there’s a good amount of new TV on right now, so watching old episodes of Scrubs or The Wonder Years got bumped down the priority list.

I read a lot more comics, though. And as you can see, wrote a lot more reviews. The theme months have been really helpful here because I literally set aside comics to read in October (and right now, there’s a pile next to me for November’s #WarComicsMonth). It’s put the fun back into these read-throughs, as has the notion that I can just throw the comics that I have into a donation or #ComicBookCircleOfLife grocery bag and not feel obligated to bag and board them. I feel like that’s a win for the habit, right?

Books, though … man, it took me FOREVER to read the book that is the November Required Reading episode. This next one is taking a little while as well because of the amount of time I don’t have.

I love this time of year because of its coziness and quiet; unfortunately, this time of year is also one of the most overwhelming and stressful, bringing frustration and anxiety. So I’m trying my best here to not let that ruin things. Hopefully, November won’t feel as crazy as October did.