Almost mantis time; already budget time.

The student show is tonight (using my mantis icon because I am, in fact, playing a mantis character). I'm the second act in the show, which is great -- I can do my thing and then actually relax, unlike last time when my act was last. Weirdest phenomenon of the last few weeks: the music I used for my last solo performance, TWENTY YEARS AGO, has been playing in my head sometimes. I haven't been listening to it regularly or even semi-regularly but it's clearly seared into my psyche in this context. That song was Mammagamma by Alan Parsons Project; this time it's Lullaby by The Cure. And yes, I still like it very much; when you've liked a song for nigh on 30 years, you don't stop just because of a few rehearsals.

I was sickeningly productive this week in a financial-nerd way. I'd been meaning to work up a condo association budget for months, as our association's finances had fallen into true disrepair (read: no reserves. Yes this violates our by-laws) but it was stacked up behind taxes because one finance-oriented project at a time seemed like Quite Enough. But heisenbug already had so much historical data that making a forward-looking budget really only took a couple of evenings once I started cranking. I backed up everything I could with numbers from internet research, and to my shock nobody is quibbling with any of the line items or the total I'm proposing. I don't mind. As with calibration notes, it's probably better to spend time on a very well-backed proposal than handle the stress of being challenged and having to defend/argue.

Then, second, and started as soon as the condo budget was sent out, I'm setting up YNAB for myself: as in You Need A Budget. I haven't done this before, because having an Actual Budget has tended to make me miserly in the past (I always just did "pay yourself first"), but everything financial is new again this year. May as well try it. I want the envelope tracking system now in order to ensure that I spend enough on my brand-new category of (gulp) Giving, and right now YNAB is the market leader on that even though I don't agree with their entire philosophy. The fun part is deciding how many categories to split things into. I did a version over the weekend that's kind of vanilla (Frequent Stuff, Bills, Non-Monthly, etc) but after a recent conversation with Helios I'm tempted to re-do the whole thing in terms of Maslow's heirarchy of needs. I might do it. It would be hilarious and amazing to see the cost breakdown of how much I spend on Physiology, Safety, Belonging/Love/Social/Esteem, Self-Actualization, Transcendence.