Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness

The great thing about a joint birthday party where the combined ages of the two birthday people is One Hundred is that you can make everyone leave at 8pm because you're tired and you can have the kitchen cleaned up and be ready for bed by 9.

V and I have been sharing a birthday party since before I lived here, when I couldn't host (location) and they couldn't host (activity) so we combined our powers. We did it biggest in 2019 (and gave out colorfully-wrapped individual rolls of toilet paper in a party favor that felt silly at the time and was gonna seem prescient in a couple months). Then we had a couple quiet years with lockdowns and whatnot (including my 40th birthday, which I'm sad I couldn't make a big deal out of), and a couple times we've had two or three guests who've managed to make it at a time of year when the weather sucks and everyone's ill and etc.

So today it was great to have a whole roomful. It was great that I was brave enough to invite people from trans gym. It was great that people V could meet people they have so far only heard us talk about, and seemed delighted with everyone. It was great that it happens to be when a pal I haven't seen since way before covid happened to be in town and can stay with us. It's great a friend braved buses to get here from a faraway part of the conurbation.

It was great that people came in masks, or willing to wear them. It is great that we had people feel able to tell us that they were ill or their roommate had covid or whatever so they had to stay away. Community is possible even under the conditions we need people to agree to. For V especially who doesn't get to get out, it's such access intimacy for people to meet the standards needed to keep them safe. I feel so loved; it's such good access intimacy.