ast summer, before I left for South America, I visited some college friends in Washington DC. There's Tara, my old roommate, the Texas correspondent for Scripps-Howard newspapers. There's David, my smoking-till-sunrise buddy, at The Washington Post. And there is Mike and Ramee. At 22 and 23, they were the first of our college friends to get married, and we toasted them good. Getting engaged? Let's throw a party. Need a bachelorette shindig? How bout a party? Wait - have we had a party for the wedding party? I know a great place for a party. It was our last year of school, and if they remember it, they can tell me the stories.
Sometimes people cringe when I mention that my friends got married after college. "Oh that's too young," they say, as if they know these people, as if life has been reduced to a series of appropriate actions at appropriate ages and clearly these folks cannot follow the instructions. Maybe it is too young. How the hell do I know? All I know is that I enjoy spending time with Mike and Ramee, individually and as a couple (and fortunately, they can do both). I look forward to seeing them, and I miss them when I leave, and those other people can pretty much shove it. So anyway, last year, before I left for South America, I was spending an evening (and an early morning) chatting with them on the porch outside their home in Alexandria. Although Mike is currently underemployed at a scientific journal, he is a fiction writer of enviable gifts, and he was the first of my close friends to start a Weblog . With my travels coming up, I had thought of following suit, but I was intimidated by the technology. I don't like it when I get girlie, but sometimes I get girlie, and I recoil from a word like "html" as though it were a used condom. Now here's where my English lit pedigree really shows its colors:
"I just," ugh "don't understand it" ugh "it's all like" ugh "technical and shit."
"Okay," Mike says, "tomorrow morning, I'll set up a website for you. It's easy."
I object. Mike and Ramee counter. I smoke, cock my head, fiddle with burnt matches.
"I'll enjoy doing it," Mike says, and so I cave, gladly.
Mike set up my website. Actually, he even PAID for my website because I was broke that week (I paid him back). He set me up on Blogger, and when that got buggy, he set me up on Movable Type. I email him with problems, and he emails me solutions, and he insists he enjoys this, that it's a fun challenge for him, although I'm beginning to feel like the scared kid on the bike making Dad run alongside me for blocks and blocks.
My point is this. I owe Mike Gentry a debt of gratitude. At another time in my life, I could throw him a party. But now we're older, and I'm broker and far more (how do you say?) homeless, and so I can only say thanks. Thanks thanks thanks. And also, I will share this: If you do a search for "flaming cock dancers," you will find Mike's website at the top of the list (and although it does not link to the related story, called "The Time I Saw Some Guy Set His Wang on Fire," that story does include one Sarah Hepola). As a friend of Mike's told him, "It's a small mountain, but at least you're king of it."

written in Washington, DC
Oh, by the way, I'm in Washington, DC. I'll be returning to NYC briefly this weekend.