A couple years ago, I wrote this post on Medium about how 2022 went. I didn’t end up writing anything for 2023, but I figured I wanted to continue the tradition again for 2024!
I really like the way I formatted it, so I hope you don’t mind if I slip into a sentence case a bit more… comfortable.
ahhh, enough with those pesky capital letters, this is a lot more personable. (this is usually how i type in every other context.) now, without further ado:
what happened in 2024
i’ve been on hormones for almost three years now! i switched to injectable estradiol as opposed to estradiol pills, and i’m so grateful i did. (to any toronto-based transfems looking to do the same, check out pace pharmacy.) while switching to injectable estradiol, i discovered i was regularly feeling so weak because my doctor was underdosing my hormones. i started progesterone. i found a new doctor, one much closer to me, who’s actually experienced with trans health care and hormones. i referred him to pace pharmacy. i got my hormone-related health issues sorted out 🙂 luckily, i managed to avoid getting covid a fourth time.
i got a bunch of cute clothing, and i donated even more. i took a lot of cute selfies. like, a lot. i started laser hair removal on my face, after almost putting it off until next year. i experienced more gender euphoria than i’ve ever experienced in my life. i dressed up for halloween for the first time in years.
i spent an entire year NOT moving out of my current apartment! this is the first year since 2020 that i’ve had that luxury. i got a shelf, and a proper bed instead of a futon.
i became good friends with the only neighbours on my floor. they’re a really cool trans couple my age and they’re incredibly talented musicians/sound engineers to boot. i watched the entirety of “gravity falls” with them this year. currently, we’re in the middle of watching “arcane.” one of them gave me a haircut!
i got a cat! (kinda.) i got a bottle of rosé for returning the cat to his owner. i got to drink the whole bottle of rosé with my friends, and then the cat came back. i took so many photos of this wonderful cat. beautiful beautiful baby.
on the subject of friends: i turned a handful of local twitter mutuals into an in-person community for me. a lovely slutty stoner woman named cass is now one of my best friends, and we have plans to hang out on new year’s eve. i made soup with my friend olive, talked a lot of comedy with my friend valerie, and became a recurring love interest for multiple people in a toronto polycule. i kissed lots of gorgeous women this year. i also got on prep because i can.
me and thea are still dating! thea has also started seeing a lovely woman in philly, who writes beautiful poetry 🙂 me and thea saw each other in person multiple times this year, and in april we got to stand in its backyard and watch the solar eclipse. we celebrated two and a half years together, and i got to show it off around toronto when it visited :3
i went to iceland with my family and saw some icelandic relatives for the first time in 10 years. i got to see my amma and afi, and they gave me many hugs and a lovely trench coat. i got to hold a baby fox! i befriended many lovely icelandic cats. i became a stan of the bónus pig. i got a hat with the bónus pig on it, and then didn’t end up wearing it on the one day i saw another person in toronto wearing bónus merchandise. i listened to “gullvagninn” a whole bunch. my mom was surprised when i knew the words to it, as i speak very little icelandic.
i got to shout out my icelandic-canadian background in a usa today puzzle, and then shout out my mom, my dad, and my brother in the write-up. i didn’t talk to my college-age brother a lot this year, so every time we talked it felt like i was meeting a whole new guy. my brother’s so cool.
i watched “i saw the tv glow” multiple times. i saw “madame web” and “megalopolis” in theatres, because i love terrible movies that are masterpieces in their own right. i saw some other movies too, some of which i even remembered to log on my letterboxd. (some standouts: “crimes of the future” and “hundreds of beavers.”) i watched a lot of hivemind, and sad boyz, and adam mcintyre videos.
i listened to a lot of music, but not enough. here’s a playlist of songs that got me through the year anyway. i kept writing music with no intention to release any of it. i might release some of it soon, but i won’t get ahead of myself.
i took more of a step back from comedy this year. somehow, that didn’t stop me from getting into drama with the kenan thompson pop-up festival in toronto. i also wrote an article for toronto-based newspaper the grind about being trans in the toronto comedy scene. i was invited to the grind‘s christmas party, where i learned that company work parties are probably the most fun for the people who actually work there. (i appreciated the invite, though! have me back!)
i went viral twice on twitter, the nothing app. i had some other good posts that should have gone viral. i went on bluesky at some point, probably.
2024 in crossword puzzles
i attended the american crossword puzzle tournament in april and placed in 63rd out of 739 participants. i placed in 1st in the junior B (“BJ”) division of the tournament, which consisted of only me and adam aaronson (a worthy opponent). i got to crash at paolo‘s place after he won the whole damn thing. after taking a break to nap for most of that evening, we spent the early hours of the morning watching “snl” clips and content slop in the form of youtube shorts. i got to hang out with many other friends that weekend, including but not limited to: jenna lafleur, brooke husic, alisya reza, max kurzman, sarah sinclair, and annie rauwerda. i met andrea carla michaels, who’s ridiculously funny. i also participated in my first escape room.
i attended lollapuzzoola in august and placed in 1st! i did not expect to win an entire crossword puzzle tournament ever, especially after not even completing the finals puzzle correctly. as an unofficial prize, sid sivakumar gave me a funko pop that looks like spongebob getting saucy with a pizza box. (for the record: we’re good friends and this was an inside joke between us beforehand LOL.) i also got a trophy and a shout-out on the “fill me in” podcast. i met the inventor of wordle, who was delightful! quiara let me crash on her couch the night before the tournament, and brooke let me crash on her couch the night after the tournament. coincidentally, i’m not the first lollapuzzoola winner to do so.
i continued to make writing crosswords my full-time job. i started writing crossword puzzles for both write magazine and the walrus in canada. i published my final xtra magazine puzzles. i wrote multiple apple news+ crosswords and continued writing puzzles for the believer and anyway. i wrote one custom crossword puzzle for a commission, and would love to do more in the future!
i name-dropped the band ekko astral in the usa today crossword and got noticed by them! (they released their debut album this year, ranked #1 in pitchfork’s 30 best rock albums of 2024. check it out!) i also got some sweet ekko astral merch.
oh, and also:
i got to hear about my friends and family enjoying the book. i ego-surfed a bit more than usual trying to find out what people are saying about the book. the reviews here are particularly nice, in case you’re looking for a reason to finally buy the book. i have a book!!!
i also contributed two puzzles to another published crossword puzzle book!
i published more than my usual amount of crossword puzzles to this blog. i wrote a crossword puzzle for every day in november, even through computer issues. i wrote three 21×21 puzzles which i’m very proud of (here’s #1 and #2, #3 isn’t out yet hehe). i started making silly thumbnails for this website’s blog posts. i added a secret page to this blog!
i published my first serious (not shitpost) cryptic puzzle with the avcx+ cryptic division. i constructed a variety puzzle that will appear in analog magazine in the near future. i started participating in weekly trivia. ya girl is branching out!
i went to pride and got recognized by a fan of my crossword puzzles! i posted about maverick in a local facebook group and got recognized by a fan of my crossword puzzles! wikihow told me they were a fan of my crossword puzzles, and then let me co-author some wikihow articles about them. this part of the article is particularly braggy but i still can’t believe all of this happened.
i updated my linkedin (finally) and enhanced my resumé (finally). i applied for a position at the atlantic that ultimately went to the incredibly talented kelsey dixon. coincidentally, i was featured in crossword clues for both the atlantic AND kelsey’s blog.
me and some of my gen z friends were written about in the new york times.
(important note: shortly after the new york times article was published, i signed an open letter to the new york times denouncing their manufactured consent for the palestinian genocide. i have a lot of nuanced feelings about the new york times at the moment, with my anger directed at the larger institution that enables genocide denial rather than any individual puzzle editor/constructor. as a result, i just don’t feel comfortable financially supporting a harmful propaganda machine at this moment, and this boycott is a way i can send that message within my own industry. with this being said: if you want to read the new york times article i was featured in, this website has it for free. from the river to the sea, palestine will be free. please support puzzles for palestine, whose second edition comes out shortly.)
i referenced annie rauwerda in a usa today puzzle and got mentioned in wikipedia’s in-house newsletter. i was interviewed for an article in canada’s maisonneuve magazine about the politics of crossword puzzles. two days later, i got to speculate about the future of puzzles in linkedin’s “gametime” newsletter.
speaking of the future…
plans for 2025
i want to eat more food! i often forget to eat until the day is halfway over, and i want to gain some weight to fill out my curves. i want to be better at budgeting for food, and preparing food, and making time for food. this month i made an incredibly good shepherd’s pie and i want to continue to make stuff like that.
i want to work out more in the new year. something more than just walking for extended periods of time. i find myself getting tired really easily, and i want to feel as young as i am! this also includes taking less naps. as much as i love my bed, my naps have derailed more afternoons than they have saved.
i want to stop worrying about whether my transition is “working.” i have this pesky habit of comparing myself and my transition timeline to the lovely women around me. this isn’t good for my mental health and helps nobody!!! as long as i’m on the right hormone doses and i’m doing things that make me feel confident in my body, i’m okay. i’m excited for all the flattering clothes and lovely accessories i’ll wear in the new year. i want to get my ears pierced, and i want to get a tattoo finally. with every year, i become more and more unstoppable. i don’t plan on that changing.
i want to embrace crosswords more as an art form. i want to elaborate on this more in a future post, but that’s all i’ll say at the moment.
finally, i want to get a cat of my own. i can’t keep getting attached to cats that aren’t mine, LOL.
final thoughts
i’m posting this on christmas day 2024, which means i turn 23 tomorrow. this is always a weird time of year, as i’m in my head a bit more than usual thinking about all the things i have and haven’t done with myself. this time of year really lends itself to that sort of thinking, at least for me.
this is a bit of a dark tangent, so pardon me as i veer into something uncomfortably earnest: i didn’t expect to make it this far. i grew up with terrible ocd, and my undiagnosed gender dysphoria as a kid made me dread the day i ever turned into a “real man.” the last thing on my mind was making concrete plans for the future, as my depressive episodes and intrusive thoughts convinced me i didn’t deserve them. crosswords became my only escape from everything in 2020. it’s the reason i started this blog after many previous failed attempts.
i’ve been out as a trans woman for three years now, and with every passing year i find more and more reasons to care about living. more reasons to care about myself and the people around me. more reasons to get out of bed and remember to take my medication. i’m ready to live my life like it’s going to be long again.
typically, i’m waiting for the current year to end, hoping that the arrival of january will also bring a fresh start, less baggage, and better luck. this year was different. 2024 is the first year i can remember where i didn’t want it to end. this has been the best year of my life. i still feel so many emotions all the time, i cry a lot, and i fear for the future that i know i’m going to live through, but it all feels worth it again.
my heart is really full writing this article. i’m really bad with coming up with names, to the degree that i didn’t come up with “ada” nor “luna” when brainstorming names for myself. (can you believe i once had a stint with a naming firm?) however, i think i nailed it when i called myself “luckystreak.”
i truly believe that i’m the luckiest woman alive.
merry christmas and happy holidays. if i don’t see you before 2025, i hope to see you in the new year. thanks for enjoying the puzzles 🙂
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