New instance, new introduction! I've been in the Fediverse since March 2022, but this is only my second instance.
I was born in the US and immigrated to Canada in 1997. I lived in Edmonton, Alberta for 28 years before moving to Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2024. I'm so Canadian these days that I regularly forget I wasn't born here, but technically I'm an immigrant and a naturalized citizen. In total I've lived at least briefly in either six or seven countries, depending on how you count, and I feel like all of them have shaped me.
By trade I'm an academic (a social scientist), early-retired as of 2025, though I still have one last grad student and still do research with the research group I led when I was still a professor. We're now scattered to the four winds in different parts of the planet, but we still meet once every two weeks over Zoom and still write papers together.
My partner (known here as "Partner") and I live in a quirky little house designed by a local architect with a postage-stamp backyard just outside of downtown Halifax. We're queer. We have two cats, littermates, who are also middle-aged ladies now just like their human mums.
Our household is careful about COVID in the sense that both of the human residents wear respirators (these days I'm mostly wearing ZimiAir masks with the occasional FloMask) in indoor spaces outside of our home. And yes, this is what the line "Pretty bent by the anti-reality turn our world has taken since early 2022 but not (yet) broken" in my bio refers to, which pretty much sums up both why I'm careful about COVID and how I feel about it now.
Neither Partner nor I owns a car, so we tend to walk most everywhere, and cycle or take transit whenever walking isn't the best idea (with car-share as an additional option). I loooove bikes, though, even though it's not my primary form of transportation, and enjoy geeking out about them (especially "weird" bikes).
I'm multilingual (for my previous work and also because I've just always been into languages). I speak English natively, German and Dutch near-natively, and reasonable Italian. I'm currently working on my French; it's coming along.
My hobbies are currently in flux (note recent-ish retirement and move!), but in a nutshell: I'm in charge of our household's small garden and the daily cooking, and I love good food and drink of all kinds. I both read and write fiction, and also enjoy stories about fictional people on film and TV much more than sensible people do (though "fandom" has always been complicated for me, so I rarely do more than dip my toe in). I participate in several online communities, including this one. I love hiking and riding my bikes in beautiful places.
I used to travel a truly ridiculous amount, mostly for work but not only. These days I'm sticking closer to home (whatever reason you're assuming for that was likely part of the decision), though Partner and I are slowly trying to see more of the region we now live in. This summer we'll be going to France, but only flying an hour to get there (to the archipelago of Saint-Pierre et Miquelon)!
I think that's it for now! Maaaaan, am I going to enjoy the extra characters on this new instance, haha.