@birdofillomen – what also can help for aligning vertically between the "f" and the text frame right to it: outline some characters of the text in the first line and some characters in the second line without changing the original text by holding the alt key (Mac OSX) when using the menu command for converting text to path.
A duplicate of the selected text outlined will be generated.
Align with the outlined text and remove the outlined text afterwards.
The original editable text stays intact.
In your case use the character "I" in the first line and the character "m" in the second line.
Group the two outlined characters and move the group a bit to the left.
Use smart guides to align the group with the "f".
In the following screenshot I colored the two characters outlined. Original text underneath stays intact:
Outlined text removed. "f" is centered…
Uwe