Wizard-level reading challenge

The other day Kerri came back from her work at the public library and she brought with her a bingo-type sheet with all sorts of books on it.

The idea here is to choose books from the list and try to complete them all in 2023.

I read a lot, and while I have my favorite genres, I’m always up to broaden my horizons. So I’m going to do this challenge. Some of these will be easy to fit with my regular reading, but looking through the list, I can see quite a few that will prove challenging to find, let alone get through.

I’ll update this page as I go.

• A book over 500 pages written by a woman

• A book that intimidates you

• ✔️ A book that features two languages - Babel by R. F. Kuang

• A book published in 2023 by a BIPOC author

• A book where the protagonist has your dream job

• A book that was published anonymously

• A book with a pink cover

• A book published during your birthday month

• A book you chose based on the title

• A book set in a country you’ve never visited

• Two books that share the same title

• A book by a female author that uses a male pseudonym

• A children’s classic that is also a movie

• A book recommended by a librarian

• A book that’s mentioned in another book

• ✔️ A book under 200 pages - The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

• A book written by a-to-you new author

• A book featuring a road trip

• A book with the same title as a song - Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock

• A book with dual timelines

• A nonfiction bestseller from 2022

• A classic that you weren’t assigned at school

• A book featuring at least three narrators

Dry January

I’m doing Dry January to kickstart a longer streak of no drinking and help me resist the urge when it inevitably shows up.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve cut back my consumption of alcohol quite a bit, and the time between the mindless urges to drink has become longer and longer, which is terrific news! But I’ve still got some work to do.

For most of my life, I fell somewhere between a casual and heavy drinker, essentially someone who often drank, sometimes to excess but never suffered from any significant problems. But as I’ve aged, I’ve found it harder and harder to recover from an evening of even light drinking, and it became impossible to deny the effect it had on my sleep, moods, and general health. All of which was quantifiably reinforced when I started wearing my Oura ring. If you want to see how booze affects your sleep and health, get one of those.

It was terrible at times and getting worse, so I decided to try and cut back, which I have done, and I am feeling better overall.

So, it’s been challenging, but I’ve been able to cut back. I drink less often and in less volume than three or four years ago when it started to wear on me. I drink less now than I think I have my whole adult life, which feels like a big win. I’ll go long stretches without drinking, and most of the time, when I do drink, it’s not much. One or two drinks usually, with the occasional one or two more. Drinking beyond that has been rare, and oh boy, do I regret it every time I do that. Especially if I have two nights in a row of more than a couple, it isn’t easy to bounce back. I’m looking at you football trip to Seattle. Oof.

I’ve found counting streaks and participating in non-drinking challenges to be very helpful. They were something I used to scoff at. But I realize now can be helpful to circumvent the habit of drinking. A habit built over years of happy hours, parties, and overcoming social anxiety that, I now realize, was also a result of drinking in social situations, resulting in a crazy bad habit loop.

That habit is still there; only the loop has become longer and easier to circumvent. It doesn’t feel like it’s written into my bones like it once did. The thing is: I like to drink. I like the taste of many drinks—though I have grown less and less fond of beer—and how it feels, and it helps me relax and slow down my anxious brain (at first, anyway) and the social conventions around it. I like the ritual of drinking and the variety of trying something new. I know a lot of this is marketing and societal conditioning, but it’s a thing for me.

As an aside, I’ve also been playing with some alternatives to varying degrees of success. Kava, Ethanol-free libations (both of which do mess me up a bit, but in a much milder way), as well as micro-dosing THC, which works fantastic most of the time to help me shut off my brain. Maybe more on that in a later entry.

Now—most of the time—when I drink, I’d say it’s at least somewhat mindful. For lack of a better way to describe it, I decide to drink. Do I regret that choice? Sometimes, but not often, thankfully. I’m still coming to terms with it and trying to figure out what’s right. I know that alcohol is overall a net negative, and I often question why I do it. If this all sounds a bit crazy to you, I will say that I agree, and I don’t fully understand it myself. Nature of the beast, I suppose.

If you’re thinking about doing Dry January yourself, I wish you the best of luck and can say without reservation that a dry month (week, year, etc.) will be good for you. If nothing else, it should help you sleep, and solid sleep is the foundation for many good things in life.