ghana7crosswords

it's my birthday, and i can make a themeless 74 words so it fills easier if i want to!

it's also my birthday, which means i am getting very reflective about the year and life and all the stuff that comes with discretizing the continuous process of growing older. luckily i literally cannot, even if i wanted to, get emo about it because by pretty much all accounts it's been a really awesome year. here's an unordered list of things that happened to me this year that i'm happy about, for your reading pleasure before the crossword.

i kept transitioning! it's now been something something 1.75-2ish years since i realized i was trans, and 1.25-1.5ish years of actually being on hormones and medically transitioning and doing something about it! every day i learn new things and feel more like myself and it's beautiful and scary and magical and challenging and joyous in so many ways. i started laser which hurts but is effective. i got a haircut which was lowkey lifechanging, bangs remain undefeated. i'm slowly acquiring clothes which feel right. i flinch a little less every time i see myself in a mirror.
i'm out to basically everyone in my life! finally got around to family and work, and like occasionally i'll run into someone who i haven't seen in a while and have a fun new topic of conversation, but in general i'm out and it's nice not having to remember who knows and who doesn't and just being *me*.
i made so many crossword puzzles. it's hard to put a precise date on when my crossword era started but it was unambigiously all within this calendar year, and i'm so in love with this medium and have no plans on stopping ever. it's strange to have a new thing appear and lodge itself in my life so rapidly but it's also wonderful.
i made many crossword friends! it's crazy how the crossword community is like simultaneously a giant imposing thing and a shockingly small family, but it's full of amazing people, many of which i'm lucky to call friends (and even more of which i'm lucky to admire from a distance and be constantly inspired by)
i got published like *way* more than i ever could have foreseen. i developed many strong opinions (as i am prone to doing) on which outlets i do and don't like and am lucky enough to have made or have puzzles currently in the works with so many of the ones i really really like. i managed to keep what i enjoy the priority and not get wrapped up fishing for acceptances or making things i don't want to make.
i joined lil avcx! this is basically just a mush of the same feelings expressed in the previous two bullets but everyone there is so cool and inspiring and i just love the crossworld sm
i went to my first wedding! i went to my first wedding as a girl! it was very stressful in the preparation phase because it was alot of firsts and i cried alot from stress beforehand but then i also cried alot of happy tears watching my friends get married and give speeches and it was beautiful the whole time. the wedding was at a campsite which meant i was always slightly sandy and it was very buggy and the showers were kinda bad, but it also meant we got to play gagaball in the new hampshire stars after the reception so i'd say it was worth it. all in all, it's nice being able to cry now.
i got to see my second favorite band (slash, my first favorite band who isn't a washed up charlie kirk loving t-shirt salesman [maybe i'm dreaming still rips though]) They Might Be Giants! i maybe got my friends who i dragged to like them a little more (at the very least dom gets dinner bell stuck in his head now)! i met a crossword friend (frisco) in real life for the first time!
between those two things i went on vacation with my friends. it was so so so fun and many story-worthy things happened. i ate way too much food (not even "too much" in a yucky diet culture way just in a "oh my god i'm full literally all the time but it's so delicious" way) and i regret none of it because it was yummy and often italian or from the sea or both. we ran into brad marchand? i got flirted with for the first time as a girl and did not really realize it in the moment but it was still cool in retrospect. my friend won a tekken tournament and the rest of us got to be the evil rowdy away crowd. i was reminded why i love my friends so much.
i also went to new york city earlier in the year (so so so fun and incredibly overwhelming and exhausting and i need to go back), philly for pax unplugged (a yearly tradition i never want to drop ever), boston for mystery hunt (i love my god damn state so much), texas a few times to see family (i don't care that this is a broadly positive post, texas sucks so fucking bad, i love my family and love seeing them but god that place is just soul-sucking. galveston's marginally better though and randomly has an incredible italian restaurant)
i stopped using/giving money to spotify, windows (on my home pc), the new york times, and several other places that i forget at the moment. i made a big effort this year to minimize the amount of my money and time i give to things that i don't like/don't like me back. i set up draconian time limits and other things on my devices to stop myself from scrolling, to some success. i hope to keep doing this and expanding on it.
i played alot of very fun games. highlights from the pc are Strange Jigsaws, Unfair Flips, Blue Prince, LOK, Myst, Super Battle Golf, Sledding Game, and The Artisan of Glimmith. on the switch i played mario kart world and pokopia and not a ton else but those two were both all-timers so maybe the absurdly expensive console was worth it. in the board game world i discovered fromage, fort, farm hand, mottainai, chasing shadows, and probably many others but it's harder to keep track of.
i also made games! i finished up crashtalk, which is probably still my favorite and i really should pester crossword streamers to play it because i think it would be a showstopper of a stream game. i made an update to codex minimus, jumping back into the one behemoth of a switch statement that is that game's scoring and coming out alive. i made a small game called you have a shield which is not much but it is a game that i fully lied about making for a high school project and it feels like a full-circle moment being medicated for my adhd and actually being able to make the things that i want to make. i also continued to work on things that may or may not come out which is also fun and i'm slowly finding a balance between loving the craft for its own sake and still pushing myself to do the boring stuff to turn half-finished games into things i can release and receive praise for.
in the process of making games and stuff i got weirdly way better at art, i think? at the very least at dropping my inhibitions and just *drawing* when i need to make stuff. every so often i drop something that i look at and am like "whoa that's like a thing. that looks good." which is odd
i did more puzzle hunts! i also made a few puzzles. i contributed to a puzzle that will be in paradox puzzlehunt 2! it's fun to make things with my friends. 17TH SHARD FINISHED MYSTERY HUNT!!! i'm genuinely so proud to be on this team and it's so cool watching us all grow. i love being on a team and "competing", i suppose (inasmuch as mystery hunt is a competition). it definitely feels better for the soul than like, high school soccer or whatever
i switched hockey teams on account of stuff (if you know you know and if you don't, it's not a fun reason so let's just leave the parentheses now). the victoire won the cup!!!! the canadiens did not but are going to next year because they're all like 24 and on $8m deals which is apparently a steal now in the nhl. the new york jets still suck ass but when they stop doing that i'm going to be insufferable. ghana are kind of evil this world cup but every time i watch them i'm transported back to my 10 year old self watching them beat the usa and so i have lots of complex feelings but for now still root for them.
even separately from the transitioning of it all, i'm taking better care of my body! i like exercise sometimes (which is way more than i did in the past). i finally started taking lactaid with dairy even though i have like lowkey known i was lactose intolerant for many years now and shocker! it works! i did many other things like that that feel obvious but have been a challenge on account of the various afflictions. i'm being kind to myself about it but also trying to keep the progress going.
i run puzzled pint in rochester now! i love sharing puzzles with people and going out into my community and feeling like i'm giving to it. rochester is feeling more and more like home which kind of snuck up on me. i want to discover even more of it.
i continue to like being alive alot, often to a degree that is annoying, and i don't plan to stop.
i continue to like myself alot, often to a degree that is annoying, and i don't plan to stop.

i appreciate everyone who's here in my life so much, whether you are a dear lifelong friend or a person i've never talked to who happened to click on a crosscord link. enjoy the puzzle :)