Crunchy board games might be my biggest hobby, both by wall clock hours and square footage.

Mechanics I like include worker placement, deck and engine builders, roll/flip/verb & writes, set collection, and variable player powers. Currently obsessed with Ark Nova.

I love well-crafted words. For fun I mostly read fantasy and spec fic.

My current recommendation is Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch, wherein you’ll learn why I text in all lowercase.

I’ve studied chadō (Japanese tea ceremony) since 2017. I earned my beginner certification from the Urasenke school in 2018 and — after a long, pandemic-induced hiatus — my intermediate is upcoming in 2025.

Good enough at solving to impress casual solvers, not good enough to be dangerously competitive. I don’t construct very often, but you can find some of my crossword puzzles at puz-zel.com.

I’ve enjoyed a wide variety of crafty things: crochet, chainmaille jewelry, needle felting, nail art, artistic journaling, and plenty more. If I haven’t tried it yet, I probably want to.

I enjoy both cooking and fine dining, though I don’t photograph much of what I make or eat. My favs include Japanese food, nutty espresso, dry martinis, and simple things done very, very well.

I have a moderate and ever-growing Nintendo collection and generally enjoy retro games just as much as modern ones. Sometimes I’m more of a completionist, sometimes I’m more of a speedrunner, and sometimes I start playing an MMO and lose hundreds of hours of my life.