My 50th birthday party: an erotic will-writing workshop

Last month I turned fifty in a room full of queers, freaks, witches, ex-lovers, and death nerds. There was a skull on the altar, fruit on the bar, and a lawyer on a leash. We knelt for gummy worms like communion wafers and got spanked for every item on our estate planning checklist.

And yes, when I say lawyer on a leash, I mean that literally. We’ll get there. Just trust me.

It was part celebration, part ritual, part legal education, and part immersive theatre. A full-bodied, full-hearted invitation to reckon with death in the most alive way possible.

How an Offhand Joke Became a Full-Blown Death Ritual Rave

This winter, my friend Roxie Jane spoke a dream out loud: "I was just working on my will, and it was a surprisingly sensual experience," she told me. "Thinking about what will happen to my body during and after death? It was kind of hot. It made me want to lead... I don't know, something like an erotic will-writing workshop or something."

"Amazing," I said, because I've always been pretty good at knowing a great idea when I see it. "You should do it, and I want in! And you should get my hot lawyer friend to be there, too. It would be fun!"

We laughed at the idea and set it aside.

Then, a couple months later I realized: oh shit. I'm turning 50 in May. The last time I threw a balls-out big birthday party was 40, so I knew I had to do something. If I didn't, I would be disappointed in myself. I’ve built a career talking about weddings for weirdos and writing books about surviving emotional shitshows. Y'all know I can throw a good party.

But what to do!? I knew I didn't want to throw another middle-aged gathering where we stand around with beverages, talking in groups about mortgages and the impending apocalypse. I don't drink, and I don't want to GO to another one of those parties, let alone THROW another one of those parties. I wanted to do something both interesting and valuable.

Ooh, I thought to myself. What if I hosted Roxie's erotic will-writing workshop as my memento mori-themed birthday party? But there also needed to be dancing, because I'm a dancer. Plus, it WAS a birthday party and it should be fun and dancing keeps it fun.

I mean, if I’m going to throw a party for my 50th, I might as well offer something useful. Something lasting. A gift disguised as a joke disguised as a ritual disguised as a celebration. And that gift was this: a space where people could start writing their wills, while being lovingly bullied by a death doula dominatrix in a feathered veil.

So, I called Roxie Jane, she of the hot idea. Then I called Scott, my old friend and hot lawyer. And I then called Emily, my old friend and hot DJ, who I’ve danced with for years and who knew exactly how to score this sort of sacred chaos. Everyone hot agreed to the date, and so the party was confirmed.

Owning My Inner Performance Artist (and the Party That Made It Obvious)

I’ve thrown a lot of parties in my life. I’ve hosted wedding expos and author events, led workshops and meetups. But this was different. This time, I wasn’t just the host... I was part of the art.

This party marked me finally sidestepping the truth, and just saying it aloud: this was a piece of performance art. When I invited friends, I informed them that the event would be part performance art.

...GASP! I can't believe I actually said it outloud!! I used to make fun of performance art! I used to openly mock performance artists, but it's time to finally own it: among other things, I am a performance artist. None of my friends were shocked by the announcement: of course Ariel's a performance artist, duh. Apparently I'm the last one to know.

(When I say performance art, I don’t mean museum weirdness or sitting in a box for 12 hours. I mean that the whole event was designed — visually, emotionally, musically — as an immersive experience with a clear arc, a point of view, and a spiritual payoff.)

How to Throw a Birthday Party That Makes People Plan Their Deaths

I found a solid venue at OmCulture, a Seattle space known for yoga classes, ecstatic dance, and children's birthday parties. I booked it for a Sunday afternoon... a cheap time, a time when most folks don't have stuff already going on.

Then I brought in a couple helpers: my friend David Andrew and his boyfriend Carlos. I realized I needed some day-of help with the fruit & sparkly water table, and help passing out the will writing worksheets. When the boys asked me what they should wear, I joked that they should wear their leather harnesses... but then realized that was perfect. They ended up looking like sleek gay panthers.

Every beat of the experience was intentional. There was a script, with musical cues and scoring. My life was the medium, and the message was: Memento Mori, motherfuckers.

We all say we want to live more fully. But most of us are spending an extraordinary amount of energy trying to outrun the one thing that’s absolutely guaranteed: our deaths. It’s wild how much work we put into denial. All the wellness plans and anti-aging serums and SPF 50 and cognitive dissonance. All the vague mantras about “living in the moment” that conveniently forget the moment is passing. Always.

The invite list reflected the vibe perfectly: nonbinary Gen Z college students, midlife queer parents, late-50s Gen X hoteliers, pre-tired tech workers, and old ravers like me who are still dancing. The age range spanned over three decades. Some came curious, some came cautious, but everyone came ready to reckon with something real.

The Death Doula, the Gummy Communion, and the Soft Launch of the Afterlife

Mystress Geo (aka Roxie Jane) stood at the front of the room and delivered a 20-minute devotional to death that was so hot, it seemed like half the room wanted to cry and the other half wanted to kiss her. She told us about Haribo gummy snakes as her chosen last breath sacrament. She told us about the legacy of being re-mothered by chosen aunties after a friend's death. She told us about washing bodies and throwing epic celebrations and putting desire on paper as an act of love.

Then she instructed everyone to get on their knees to accept a form of sacred communion: gummy worms. ("Just sugar," I reassured folks. "Not cannabis.") I walked around, passing them out from a silver bowl with little tongs, instructing folks not to chew them yet.

Then everyone lay down on pillows and mats, sugar melting on their tongues, and Roxie talked us through a guided death meditation. Emily played quietly shamanic music and we let ourselves imagine it: the soft light. The chosen witnesses. The right songs. The feeling of someone placing a cool hand on your forehead. Not as a horror, but as a sacrament. Not as a punishment, but as a pleasure.

The Spank-By-Spank Breakdown of Death Prep Done Right

I gathered with the boys in their harnesses to prepare the will worksheets we would be passing out, and looked out at all my beloveds meditating on the floor, imagining their own deaths. I know that some of them are dealing with terminally ill family members, so it's not theoretical. It was remarkable to see how much everyone truly dropped into the 10-minute meditation... I could see it.

Roxie let the silence after the meditation stretch for a while. Then slowly, people began to sit up... eyes blinking open, cheeks damp. And that’s when the worksheets came out. Rolled in ribbons, with skull-and-flower-adorned disco balls swinging gently like they knew the secret.

The worksheet section of the party was practical and hilarious and a little uncomfortable.

Passwords.
Inheritances.
The burn pile.
(What gets burned, and who burns it?)

Every time we checked off a task, Geo would shout SPANK! and deliver a sharp smack to my ass. This was estate planning with glitter and consent culture. This was logistics as liturgy.

Yes, the Lawyer Was Actually on a Leash

And then, just when it couldn’t get any more surreal, we unleashed the lawyer.

"I'd like to thank Mystress Geo for her guidance," I told my guests. "While she's a death doula, she's not qualified to give legal advice. So now it's time to UNLEASH THE LAWYER!"

Emily put on NiN's "Fuck You Like An Animal."

Scott entered the room, collared and leashed. His wife Michelle (six feet tall in heels and full femme power) led him in, circled the room once, then unclipped his leash with a kiss on the forehead.

And just like that, the leash was off, and the lawyer addressed the crowd with a polite, “Hi, I’m a practicing attorney in the state of Washington. I’m here to answer your legal questions about wills and advance directives.”

You could hear the click of a thousand mental gears shifting. And that’s when it landed for me: this wasn’t just a celebration. It was a séance. A satire. A ceremony. It was performance art in the truest sense, inviting the audience to become participants, inviting the legal system to become a playground, inviting death to sit at the head of the table and pass the La Croix.

After a slew of legitimately interesting legal Q&A (where should you store your will? THE FREEZER!), we all got up and danced.

Of course we danced. Sweat offerings on the altar of embodiment. No talking on the dance floor. No phones. Just pulsing bodies and strobing joy and the sacred weirdness of being alive for one more hour, one more song, one more breath.

After the party, I drove home in my silly midlife crisis Miata with the bumper sticker that reads I HEART AGING & DYING. The front seat filled with flowers and skulls and disco balls and life and death and all the beauty and horror and grace and grief that being human entails.

Your Turn: Make Death Weird, Beautiful, and Yours

So, that was my 50th birthday party... but if you've read this far, maybe it’s also your invitation. Not to recreate the whole circus (I mean, unless you want to! By all means let me know if you'd like to see the worksheets!) but to consider this: What do you want your last breath to feel like? Who do you trust to carry out your wishes? What will your death party look like, and who gets your sex journal?

Write it down. Make it real. Let it be a little absurd.

There is so much freedom waiting for you on the other side of pretending you won’t die. Let death be hot. Let aging be art. Let your legacy taste like gummy worms and sound like Nine Inch Nails.

I mean, you only turn fifty once... but you’ll die exactly once too! Plan accordingly. Party accordingly.

P.S. If reading this stirred something in you (a nudge, a little inner pulse) you might also want to peek at my experimental book project This Time Next Year You’ll Be Glad You Started. The doors are quietly closing soon, because… well, everything ends eventually.