adulthood!

• My parents are selling their house in almost-the-suburbs, with an estimated moving out date of May. This is mostly a relief. I will be at that house occasionally in the next few months for the chance to swipe lots of their stuff (mostly kitchenware, but some other things too.)
  
• I'm doing my own taxes this year, and uh, owe nontrivially and can't find easy deductions. Haha whoops. It cuts into my desire to save lots this year, but thankfully I *can* afford it, so hey, it's what it is. This whole system is more baroque than it ought to be but whatever, live and learn, time to lower my withholdings for next year, and one less thing for my parents to control in my life.
  
• Work is better than it was but I still feel like I'm catching up, ugh. I ended up punting on one project, and that is increasingly looking like the right decision, though it was emotionally hard to do.
  
• I'm dealing with a minor illness at the moment, which is solvable but annoying. Shoutout to CityMD Jackson Heights for quick and compassionate service, though I was too chicken to pick the 'Other' gender marker on the self-check in, bleh. Also shoutout to the momo cart across the street for cheap beef momos and balep, a thick-pancake-y bread that was just right comfort food after going to a doctor's office for said thing.
  
• PartnerBeast stuff was rough but is getting better[0], other partners are great <3 <3 <3, poly is hard but we all keep managing.
  
• Game night is continuing; the MonsterHearts finale was itself and I got most of what I wanted out of it, then a Fiasco one shot that no one had the spoons for but was okay. I'm going to one in half an hour without the PartnerBeast or the other friend/play-partners-from-elsewhere going so uh we'll see what that looks like. I'm still enjoying this hobby, my enthusiasm waxes and wanes, and a part of me wants to find a different group while the rest is comfortable with this one. Who knows.
  
• Dance class is decently good but weekly isn't sustainable, and I'm looking forward to getting my time back. I do want to integrate music and possibly performance into my life a bit, but I'm going to keep that low priority for the time being.
  
• I'm low key playing Stardew Valley again and spent too much of the last long weekend on a trial of The Sims 4. (Sims games are a terrible loop for me, the way Civilization one-more-turn syndrome can be for others.) Both of those are pretty nice, but I'm definitely not taking video games as a hobby seriously the way I used to, which is Interesting (tm).
  
• Cooking has been going great, it's such a satisfying hobby with such good results. Due to the tax thing and some other stuff, I've decided to try halting a service I used to use where I could get, functionally, cheap-ish takeout for work lunch. I can un-halt the service if trying to bring lunch more often costs too many spoons, but I'm hopeful it won't be so bad. That's one of the big priorities moving forward, sure.
  
• The other is language learning - I picked up a Tagalog workbook when I picked up Connect, and have slowly started working through it. Tagalog is a strange language but it's enjoyable to use my brain in this particular way again. I've also got a small but steady Duolingo Mandarin habit going, and the languages are different enough (and my levels of understanding are different enough, and the methods of learning are different enough, and I space things out between working on each enough) that so far there haven't been many weird conflicts.
  
• Speaking of Connect, it wasn't an absolute tour de force but it was a fun thriller with an ending I don't love but don't not love? Some of its predictions of the future are uncomfortable, which I think I mentioned; its actual plot is decently fine; its characters are uneven in my appreciation. I dunno. Mixed recommend.
  

[0] Yeah, I say this a lot. Every time, I mean it; and every time, it happens again. Maybe that's just what it takes to keep up a consistent long term relationship; maybe that's a sign I'm not getting out of it what I need and should end it; god who knows. This is a thing I'm hashing through in therapy, have been for a while, and the circles will keep dancing until situations change.