Right about now, you’ve reached 11 on the year-in-review scale of 1 to 10.

It is human to finish a year and look back for markers of progress and any signs of retrograde. (It felt like a backsliding sort of year for the whole stinking world).

Ten best books of 2025. Twenty best movies. Eight food trends that won’t repeat in 2026. Six ways not to strangle your sister over the holidays.

Here’s one more, the year in numbers. It’s the world summed up, according to me, numerically.

800,000: TikTok followers for one social media influencer who repeated false information about a reported mass shooting at the Naval Academy.

373: Books pulled from the Naval Academy library for review because of President Donald Trump’s orders to remove anything resembling diversity, equity and inclusion.

8: Hours it took to read “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou, one of the books pulled for review, aloud at City Dock.

2: Months between the book ban and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s removal of the academy’s first woman superintendent, Vice Adm. Yvette Davids.

2: Women academy graduates elected as state governors this year.

4,007: Final margin of victory for Democrat Jared Littmann over Republican Bob O’Shea in the Annapolis race for mayor.

99: Votes separating incumbent Democrat Harry Huntley from independent challenger Tom Krieck in the Ward 1 Annapolis City Council race.

8: Number of columns I wrote on the election.

42: Percentage of the Weems Creek watershed paved in impervious surfaces.

33: Millions of dollars in grant funding that Annapolis still hopes to get from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for its reconstruction of City Dock as a barrier against climate change-driven flooding.

1: Days before the November election of a new mayor and City Council that outgoing Mayor Gavin Buckley held a ceremonial groundbreaking on the project.

15: Years it took plans for the Villages at Providence Point, a senior living development originally called Crystal Springs, to win through court challenges.

357: Number of items that I listed this year in the weekly round-up of seven things to do in Annapolis.

5: Glares I got from colleagues writing these lists for other areas when I revealed in a meeting that I was the one who came up with the idea of making the list seven items long.

42,702: People who read my breakdown of gun carry permits in Annapolis.

599: People who read my column on students collaborating with the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra for a production of Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.”

187: Columns published.

1,000: Number of words in my column questioning Baltimore’s fascination with Edgar Allan Poe.

1,173: Number of words written by readers who disagreed.

2: Columns I started but couldn’t finish.

Being a columnist at large — it’s a more modest title than wandering philosopher — has given me a chance to get out beyond Annapolis. Here’s some of what I saw.

7: Members of Congress from Maryland who agreed to pose for a selfie with me in January.

1: Member of Congress who said I should be fired for writing critically about him.

200,000: Number of permits for concealed firearms issued by Maryland in 2024 and totaled in an annual report to the General Assembly in January.

47: Number of guns seized by police at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport.

6: Number of guns seized in March.

1: Total punished by jail time.

1,500: Number of times a photo of an offset pier support under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge was shared after a Baltimore County woman posted it on social media.

12: Regional news media outlets that ran stories on it.

36: Hours before the Maryland Transportation Authority posted that it was safe and has been like that since the bridge was built.

150,000: Number of Montgomery County residents who receive food assistance from the county.

28: Percentage of Somerset County households that receive food assistance through the SNAP program.

6: Budget addresses I watched.

Most days, like you, I find out what my Banner colleagues are working on when I read the published stories, columns, and see the photos and videos. It’s been a number-filled year for them, too.

35,000: Number of Baltimore school children.

5: The percent of the city school system’s annual budget it would cost to provide dedicated bus service instead of forcing kids to rely on mass transit.

6: Number of massage therapists who accused Baltimore Ravens Kicker Justin Tucker of inappropriate — I mean, really, really inappropriate — conduct in a story published Jan. 30.

16: Total by the end of February.

10: Weeks of suspension handed down to Tucker by the NFL after an investigation.

126: Days between the first allegations and the decision by the Ravens to cut Tucker.

144: Days between the suspension and the sale of Tucker’s house in Owings Mills.

68: Length of Cam Little’s field goal kick in November, breaking Tucker’s 66-yard record from 2021.

And of course, not everything I do is about work.

674: Miles traveled to Michigan for my son’s wedding.

632: Miles traveled to Kentucky for my daughter’s 30th birthday.

32: Years of happy marriage.

42: Years as a professional journalist. (Kinda belies what I wrote above, huh?)

2,500: Dollars I dropped on treatment for my dog’s scratched cornea.

25: Books I’ve read this year.

11: Bird species my smart bird feeder recorded.

22: Dollars spent on dried fruit for a holiday fruitcake.

12: Ounces of spiced rum used in my take on the recipe.

72: Hours marinating the fruit in the rum.

13: Days feeding more rum to the finished cake, wrapped in cheesecloth.

4: Number of people at our annual Christmas party and in the newsroom on Tuesday who were willing to try it.

1.8 billion: The latest Powerball prize I didn’t win. If you’re reading this, you didn’t win it either.

I hope the numbers added up for you in 2025 as well as they did for me. Happy New Year.