2024 in review

(Published 20 January 2025)

What a whirlwind of a year. When I look back at 2024, I don’t know how fondly I will remember it. We experienced death and general global unrest at volumes we have never had to face, and that has taken its toll.

However, that’s not to say we didn’t experience joys. We were lucky enough to go on a few trips, enjoy some magnificent eats and drinks, experience art in many forms, and spend time with those we love. These are the things I hold most dear and what will sustain me in 2025.

Please join me on a little tour of the fondest of those memories from the past year in this little review.

Skip to:

I (mostly) left social media
Patrick, my husband
Freddie, my love
The Paris report
Top 10 of 2024
My best of 2024

Big thanks to Derek Sivers for the /now page idea, and to my dearest Jeremiah Lee for both introducing me to it and for the inspiration for this 2024 recap format.

Kyle sitting alone at a large table in the middle of an empty restaurant

That’s right. Your favorite chronically online person has completely removed himself from all social platforms owned by toxic humans. I won’t lie, it was tough to click that “delete” button, but I know in the long term it will feel like the right thing.

While the visual creative in me feels the loss of Instagram, I am eagerly awaiting the launch of a comparable product in the Fediverse. In the meantime, I have been rediscovering my love of microblogging on Bluesky (add me at @khemingway.bsky.social) and remain on LinkedIn.

Patrick, my husband

Patrick sitting at the bar at Arbane in Paris

Patrick had a lovely year. He organized and successfully pulled off his company’s first post-pandemic, in-person conference and is deep in the throes of planning its sequel. He auditioned for and got cast in his first post-pandemic play (Thomas Nostradamus in Something Rotten!) and has already begun rehearsals for the March 2025 production. He turned 38 in Paris on a boat in the middle of the Seine.

We both continue to work full time remotely at our condo and have yet to set the house on fire because of it.

Freddie, my love

We successfully completed another year of puppy parenthood. Freddie Mercury has napped, gotten a new Prozac prescription, and thrived. We can’t remember life before him and can’t imagine life without him.

Freddie has even warmed up to Patrick, offering nightly snuggles (in exchange for treatos) on the sofa as we make our way through our various programs.

Top 10 memories from 2024

Paris

In September, Patrick and I went to Paris for ten days, our first time back since 2018. It was, without exaggeration, the best vacation either of us has ever been on. We soaked in enough ☝️ culture, wine, food, gin, music, fashion, and architecture to get us through to the next time our passports get stamped. I could go on, but I already wrote a whole wrap-up about it here.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

This year, we really amped up our participation as members at our favorite museum in Boston. We attended several Sunday concerts in Calderwood Hall, never missed a member exhibition opening, spent the best Saturday morning of the year seeing the debut of the annual display of the ☝️ nasturtiums in the courtyard, and—most importantly—deepened our friendships with the amazing staff there. We can’t wait to see what 2025 brings at the museum.

Birds dressed like twice-divorced Upper East-Siders

Chicago

Over Memorial Day weekend, and with the ravenous desire to see the out-of-town tryout of Death Becomes Her: The Musical, Patrick and I made our way to Chicago. Tying in with my birthday, we ate and drank at some of our favorite spots throughout the city (Cherry Circle Room, Obélix, The Berkshire Room, Broken Shaker, Redhead Piano Bar, and Portillo’s) and wish we had skipped the children and the rampant humidity at the Field Museum (though I did adore the ☝️ birds dressed as twice-divorced women who cleaned out their exes).

Boston Pride

This year, for the first time since before the pandemic struck, we were able to attend ☝️ Boston’s Pride festivities. We began with a lovely little brunch pregame on a friend’s gorgeous roof deck, followed by parade-watching, brunching, and block-partying. Running into so many friends from the community who were all out to celebrate together was a really fantastic feeling.

My cousin Jesse and I at Cocktail Mary in Portland

Portland, Maine

I was lucky enough to travel to delicious Portland, Maine twice this year, once with my dear friend Tom (and the well-if-he-must-he-must presence of my dear cousin, Jesse), and once with Patrick and our friends PJ and Dana. Eats (Via Vecchia, Bread and Friends, Sur Lie, Eventide Oyster Co.), drinks (Portland Hunt and Alpine Club, Blyth and Burrows, ☝️ Cocktail Mary, Après, Tomaso’s Canteen), and shopping (Portland Trading Co., Viand Mercantile, Folly 101) were all top notch. I even picked up a new tattoo to commemorate the trip.

New York City

However many times I make it to New York in a year, I never feel as though I’ve gone enough. This year was no exception. Highlights include too many bottles of Vermentino at Briciola before a matinee, a seafood-forward brunch inside a yacht at Lure Fishbar, getting caught on camera for an Australian travel show at ☝️ Marie’s Crisis, Gramercy Park-adjacent Frosties from Wendy’s, and so many more. I can’t wait to return.

Sandpoint, Idaho

Unfortunately, the death of a friend’s mother was the reason for this, my first (only?) trip to Idaho. Though, regardless of the circumstances, the chance to get to see where your friends grew up is always one you should say yes to. We gave Peggy a proper sendoff ☝️ that couldn’t have been more appropriate for her, surrounded by the natural beauty of the northwest she loved.

Ogunquit, Maine

We try to visit our dear Ogunquit, Maine, at least once a year. I have been going there since I was a child, and among other things, it’s where Patrick and I got engaged. This time, it was our chance to introduce Freddie Mercury to our favorite little spot. Shockingly, our big city dog did not take well to nature, and his morning trip to dip his feet in the ocean ☝️ left much to be desired.

Newport

I had a lovely off-season Newport getaway with my friend Will, where we spent three days living our Gilded Age fantasies. We toured several ☝️ summer cottages, discovered the beautiful Newport Art Museum, made friends with a pair of twins at Clarke Cooke House, and crashed a middle school PTO fundraiser we mistook as a bar.

Kyle, Meghan, and Hailey at Eastern Standard

And finally, Boston

A lot of time was spent around our favorite cultural haunts (the aforementioned Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, ICA Boston, Symphony Hall, SpeakEasy Stage Company, North Shore Music Theatre) restaurants and bars (☝️ Eastern Standard Kitchen and Drinks, Petit Robert Bistro, Rochambeau, Bully Boy Distillers, the Harp and Bard, Bar Mezzana), and queer watering holes (dbar, Blend, Trophy Room).

All of that time was spent with those near and dear to us whom we love, both the oldest friends and new ones we’ve made throughout the year.

My best of 2024

Top books 📖

Maurice by E.M. Forster

Worn: A People's History of Clothing by Sofi Thanhauser

Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner by Natalie Dykstra

The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing

CAPS LOCK: How capitalism took hold of graphic design and how to escape from it by Ruben Pater

☝️ French Exit by Patrick deWitt

Top theater 🎭

☝️ Sunset Blvd., St. James Theater, New York
(Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, book and Lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton, directed by Jamie Lloyd)

Death Becomes Her: The Musical, Cadillac Palace Theater, Chicago
(Music and lyrics by Julia Mattison and Noel Carey, book by Marco Pennette, directed by Christopher Gattelli)

Oh, Mary!, Lyceum Theater, New York
(By Cole Escola, directed by Sam Pinkleton)

The Queen of Versailles, Emerson Colonial Theater, Boston
(Music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, book by Lindsey Ferrentino, directed by Michael Arden)

& Juliet, Citizens Bank Opera House, Boston
(Music and lyrics by Max Martin and others, arranged by Bill Sherman, book by David West Read, directed by Luke Sheppard)

A Little Night Music, Ogunquit Playhouse, Ogunquit
(Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by Hugh Wheeler, directed by Hunter Foster)