For the bystanders, I suppose I should add that Rasheed Hooda and I met in person about — what, 11 years ago? Then I saw him on another blogger friend’s blog — in a photo of the two of them! — a mutual friend that I have yet to meet, face to face. He came to cheer me on at my first Toastmasters speech, has lunch with me every couple of years, brings me purple notebooks, and drags me to places like Medium to nudge me out of my writing doldrums.

I pretend to grumble a lot, but really, I’m grinning and he knows it.