Well! The cat, it would appear, is out of the bag. (Sup Romenesko?) After a more than a year at the party, it’s time for me to hang up my skates, throw in the towel, and step down as the editor of this website. (Even if I never do retire from mixed metaphors.)

So ends an amazing year here at IvyGate, one marked by a bounty of both joyful mockery and only-semi-serious contempt. Plenty of memories were made. One or two stories were broken. At least once I delved into the seedy underworld of secret societies, then needed to be resuscitated with smelling salts. And, at least once, I sparred with a white supremacist in the comments section of a post.

There were oddities, too: Absurd drug busts. Ironic plagiarism. James Franco. Also, this.

All this is to say that it’s been a blast, a privilege, a life-changing experience. Really. And it’s all the more amazing because it started on a whim, with a spur-of-the-moment email to the tips line during my last semester at Cornell. ”Hey, I think I could maybe blog for IvyGate!” — I wrote in my message, along with a snipe about Howie Mandel’s jheri curls. And, somehow, 152 blog posts later, it all worked out. If there were any lesson to be learned here, it would be this: If you want to do something, just fucking do it.

Many thanks to my predecessors, Dan D’Addario and Alex Klein, who gave me a shot at this whole blogging thing to begin with, and many more to my former coeditors, Constance Boozer and Eve Binder. Most of all, though: Thanks to you, for reading and commenting and sending in tips. If you want to keep in touch, feel free to drop me a line via email. You can also continue to find my writing at Salon, where I heckle billionaires and recap Jon Stewart. Finally, please follow me on Twitter so my Klout score will go up. (Haha, jk!) (But, really.)

Either way, I’ll be sticking around just a little bit longer while we get the new team in place. Look for updates through mid-December, at which point we’ll put the blog on hiatus through New Year’s. After that, we’ll roll out the new crew. Get excited.