Good morning! It’s my birthday, and I’m 55! Anand’s birthday gift to me was a) making my tea (I did have to talk him through the steps, but it was still nice lying on the couch while I did it), and b) scheduling a weekly game time for him and me.
The latter is actually a really great gift, and I’m kind of impressed he thought of it. I didn’t want to raise a son who didn’t know how to give gifts, or didn’t think of doing so (emotional labor is important labor), and I’ve sometimes despaired a bit of that, so this feels like a parenting win, which is also a nice birthday gift. 
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I usually open up my wall to comments on my birthday, but I’m going to try something different today. I’ve been wildly frustrated by how much FB has been throttling posts lately, making it very difficult to get organic reach. So let’s see if this works — I think it likes sharing birthday stuff, AND people like leaving birthday wishes, AND more comments make the FB algorithms make the posts more visible.
SO, if you’d like to wish me happy birthday (and I love reading birthday greetings!), the comments to this post are the place to do it. AND, in the first comment, I’m going to link to my non-profit — for my birthday, I’d very much love new members to the SLF (membership starts at $2 / month), and/or donations.
We’re in the midst of a membership drive (up to 32 new members, so about a third of a way to our goal, but more than halfway though the drive, eep!), and in somewhat dire need of new members. If you’d like to support writers and speculative literature in general, or just want to give me a present, please take a look!
See the first comment for a link!
Thanks for considering!
love,
me
(P.S. — Do you think I said birthday enough to catch the algorithm’s attention? BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY!)
(P.P.S. — people have started sending me birthday DM’s, and honestly, it gets overwhelming having those come in mixed in with regular (sometimes time-sensitive) work-related messages, so if folks could refrain from that going forward, it’d ease my mind. All the different communication channels are melting my brain.)
