Looking out for me since 1999...

8 October 2025: I had a long overdue catch-up session with my dear friend Gretchen today. This was ostensibly to discuss me taking over for her as an assistant editor at Studies in American Humor. 

This is a few year after I took over for her as a contributing editor there. 

And over a decade since she helped me publish an article in a special issue she edited. 

And over 26 years after I met her in the very first graduate class I took back in 1999. 

She was much further along in her graduate work then--already a Ph.D. student, almost done with her coursework. I was 22 and...terrified? 

She was kind to me and looked out for me and has been there for me ever since. A friendship like that is a gift like none other.