my partner made pancakes and i ate the first one standing beside the stove, still warm enough that the butter disappeared before i finished spreading it. i was hungry in an uncomplicated way for once, no coffee already filling the space where breakfast should go. we took a walk afterwards and the cold got into my hands almost immediately, so i put them in my partner's coat pockets instead of my own. this made walking mildly impractical but considerably nicer. by the bookstore my fingers had warmed up and my legs felt pleasantly used. i bought nothing, which is irrelevant to the body part except that i didn't have to carry four books home against my ribs.

the players spent half our session trying to rescue a shopkeeper i invented because they wanted somewhere to buy rope. i had prepared a complicated political dispute elsewhere, naturally, and now i know the shopkeeper's aunt's occupation while my carefully written officials remain entirely unvisited. i'm not annoyed, mostly amused by how quickly a shared story stops belonging to the person who brought the notes. i keep wondering which tiny detail made him worth saving. probably the fact that i gave him a name and then forgot it, which everyone found endearing. there's a lesson about planning available here, but tonight i'd rather work out what his aunt thinks of all these strangers in her kitchen.

one of the teenagers at the library game asked whether their friend could come next time because they'd told them it was a place where you didn't have to be good at talking. i nearly responded with a whole speech about inclusion, which would have been an impressively poor demonstration of the principle. i just said yes and explained the booking. felt ridiculously happy afterwards, then nervous that i'd somehow have to reproduce exactly the same afternoon forever. my partner was pleased for me and let the pleased part last longer than i did. i keep remembering the kid saying they'd told a friend. they wanted somebody else to have the thing they'd found here.