OPINION: My media up and downs

I’ve been in a real reading slump lately. During the time I would normally be reading or throwing on an audiobook, I’ve found myself either turning to podcasts or sticking to historical nonfiction. While neither of these are bad, it certainly doesn’t help me whittle down my giant To Be Read pile.

I’ve barely even started the book we’re discussing in fantasy book club tomorrow. If I can’t get it finished soon, that will be the first time I didn’t finish a book in time for book club - which is a bit of a problem when you’re the one hosting it.

The thing is, it’s not like the books I need to read are bad. I know I like the genres and authors; I know friends with common book interests love them; I just can’t seem to get myself to start most of these books, let alone get immersed in them.

It’s weird the way even passion for hobbies moves in waves - sometimes you’re almost at the crest, fully immersed and unable to understand how you have ever felt differently. Then there’s times like now when reading the books I had previously been excited about feels like a chore.

I can’t tell if I’ve just been too busy this year or have had too many reading slumps, but I’ve fallen very short on my original reading goal. Last year, I had a reading goal of 200 and was very proud to hit that in one of the very last days of December.

This year, I set a slightly smaller goal of 175 books for the year. Around July, with Cheyenne on maternity leave, I knew I’d be quite busy. I changed my goal to 100 books and figured I’d still hit that pretty easily.

Well, that’s not happening. With only 21 days left in the year, I have to read 15 more books to hit my goal of 100, and that certainly isn’t going to happen, especially with my slump right now.

While I’m a little disappointed I’m not going to hit that goal, I think I’ve had too many reading slumps this year for it to have ever been plausible. Maybe I’m far enough removed from school now that my brain is just yearning to learn rather than enjoy my usual fiction, but that might also be a stretch.

Either way, I’ll truck my way through the book for fantasy book club and know I’ll eventually find my way back to passionate reading again.

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Last week, I finally got to participate in something I’ve been watching from the sidelines for years - Spotify Wrapped. While everyone else was spending the years building their various playlists and finding new artists on Spotify, I was staying loyal to YouTube. I had plenty of music playlists there, and since I was already paying for YouTube Premium to watch videos ad-less, I could listen to all my music ad-free as well.

However, this year I finally caved. Between a few gift cards I had been gifted and the free first month, I had almost a year of free Spotify Premium, so I went for it. I downloaded the app in August right before road tripping to Yellowstone.

Since then, I’ve been slowly building up playlists and discovering all the Spotify offers. When Taylor Swift’s new album came out in October, I was mindful of Wrapped coming up soon, so whenever I was with Cheyenne, I made her play it instead. My hope was that I would have a fun/cool Wrapped for my first one. Well...

My top five genres were bubblegum pop, alternative rock, lullaby, oldies and alternative rock. Considering the playlist I listened to most often was “Feminist Rage,” I did find these categories quite funny. I also spent way too much time trying to figure out what I listened to that would be considered lullaby. My best guess is Disney ride soundtracks because everything else was pretty loud.

Due to oldies being one of my top genres - thanks to my “Poppy Morning Tunes” playlist - my listening age was 67. To be fair, I think my friends would agree with this age estimate.

My top five songs weren’t a huge surprise to me. One through four were Chappell Roan songs, and the last was “Labour” by Paris Paloma. However, Taylor still managed to top my artist list, followed by Chappell, Sabrina Carpenter, Paris Paloma and ILUKA.

I’ll be interested to see what my Wrapped is after a true year of listening, not my exploring four months. And shoutout to Spotify for doing this at the end of November so our data is completely hijacked by Christmas music. Share your Wrapped - I find it fascinating what it says about a person.