fandomonymous | level++

Some generally positive notes on the last few weeks.

Comet visit came and went, not the best time but we've been talking through what went wrong and why. I actually asserted my negative feelings, and we're working on it, and that feels like a victory worth noting in my self-development.
This was followed by a PartnerBeast evening that also ended with "not the best time, but we've been talking through what went wrong and why, and I actually asserted my negative feelings". This particular one's a doozy, because it's sort of the culmination of years of compromise wearing down on me, but oh yes indeed we are WORKING ON IT. <3
I did wear the they/them pin at the networking thing, and only one person commented on it, and looked confused but didn't give me a hard time. Friend backup had to cancel last minute, unfortunately. Still not out at work entirely; honestly drifting towards "she/her is fine, honestly" lately; god who knows.
Mother's Day also came and went. I bought overpriced flowers last minute, we had reasonable seafood in Rego Park, and my sister actually came and got the check. I will probably see both of them again sometime next week, before my mom finishes her adjunct teaching semester and Really Leaves This Time.
I got some specific positive praise at work! "Client" X (a department in Large Hospital I've been working closely with these last few months, building a big dashboard in Tableau for them) emailed my boss' boss (let's call him BB) about another request. That chain ended up including X saying, in the context of praising another colleague on BB's team, "[Project Manager Y] is working with [Kawa] on a dashboard...she's fantastic as well. Everyone is just so helpful! :)" This was followed by BB himself saying "Yes, [Kawa] has a phenomenal mind and is great at integrating complex concepts. I'm pretty lucky to have such a strong group." Considering how little I interact directly with BB, and how it's been very start-and-stop on X/Y's project, this is pretty warm and fuzzy. <3
Somewhat last second, PartnerBeast got tickets for a Guitar Wolf show in Williamsburg, so we went, and it was fucking fantastic and cathartic, just about everything teenage me would have wanted from a punk show. I got wistful afterwards of the New York of my perceived past (which still had CBGB as a venue, where the crowd would be bigger and younger, where the city wasn't as ravaged by gentrification; yet I was hamstrung by my parents and the life I was living then and untreated depression) but fuck it, Guitar Wolf still came to New York City, I still got to experience them live, and the life I have now in the city that exists now is still real and valid and wondrous.
From loud to quiet, masc to femme, evening to morning (insert your sedoretu jokes here, folks!) - the next morning I worked from home and made Alison pancakes. My pancake skills are improving - using less oil and heat helps, as does actually including the lemon zest and figuring out the right attachment to use on my hand mixer for whipping the aquafaba. They take time, but sometimes having a leisurely breakfast is nice. Mm, pancakes.
The lunch with PB and Alison went wonderfully, better than I could have ever expected; they play off of each other's dynamic really well (~~maybe almost too well~~) and there really wasn't any awkwardness at all. I'm a very, very, very lucky person indeed. <3 <3 <3
The new Essex Street Market is open, and it's very shiny and fancy-looking but does indeed contain much of the magic of the old one. Particularly, Shopsin's is better than ever; now with serve-your-own water and coffee, a bright set of windows, and more counter and kitchen space. Hooray Shopsin's! (And hooray Shopsin's being next door to an offshoot of Chinatown Ice Cream Factory!!!! No ube this time, and I skipped the pandan, but I did have the matcha and Oreo and that was lovely. Also, did you know there's a Flushing offshoot of the same????? OH MY GOD.)
In other food news, tomorrow is Taste of Sunnyside. My +1 (a different one from the earlier professional thing) canceled on me, but whatever, it was fun alone last time and should be so again.
Edited to add: I've gotten a lot better at regular Tagalog practice. I've found this app Day by Day useful for a phone-accessible "Don't break the chain" type habit minder. I only let myself check it off if I've spent a few minutes on Transparent or other language research (focused outside of pure vocabulary). I'm also using Drops, which is all vocab in pretty easy to take chunks and very pretty in that Extremely 21st Century Way. I've collected a whole lot of resources on learning Tagalog, at varying levels of formality and age, a good deal based on one of the Drops team members learning Hungarian. Like her, while I've dabbled in a bunch of languages, Tagalog is grammatically new to me. *Unlike* Hungarian, there's a whole lot of English loanwords, and Taglish is completely acceptable and normalized even on Filipino television, especially in my generation, which is why I'm glad I've also been finding older resources that use it somewhat less. I need to start transitioning from picking up vocabulary to actually crafting sentences, though - something to start focusing on soon.