My good friend Donkee (sic), who I went to interpreting school with, invited me over for dinner and a massage last night. I met his boyfriend, Shrek (they actually call each other these names, what bloggy convenience), their friend BoiseBoy, and his friend Cho. Fabulousness was had by all.

Donkee and I have known each other since 1994, when we did an interpreting internship together in YakiVegas. Through ups and downs, dying lovers, divorce and career missteps, we have remained friends. Last night reaffirmed this man's wonderful presence in my life.

Dinner conversation was witty and quick, never tense. After the few days of less-than-comforting repartee I've had with others, it was so comfortable to sit around a table with rational, interesting, agenda-less people and talk freely about love, gay politics, and couch surfing.

Couch surfing, I learned, is more than just crashing on a friend's couch when you've been kicked out for not paying your rent. It's a global travel phenomenon. People join the free forum, post a profile, and then match up with others in the cities to which they will travel. Hosts agree to give the traveler a couch to sleep on and the basic toilet/shower facilities, and travelers get a place to crash while traveling. It keeps things cheap, you can meet interesting people, and there are incedibly low incidences of anything going wrong. Travelers can post reviews of hosts, so that the online community can get an idea of the host's hospitality abilities. Apparently it all works really well. BoiseBoy met Cho that way, and has lots of friends all over the world that he stays with. It helps that he works for an airline, but that's a whole other rave.

I massaged Donkee, while we talked. It had been SOOOOOO long since we had really let down our guard together. He has this lovely way of reminding me of things from my past without judging me. We talked about how excited he was for me, and how apparently he had suggested massage to me as a career in the late 1990's. I don't remember this very clearly, but my head was up my ass those days, as I learned to be a robot of the Department of Education, so it's entirely likely he had said something of that nature.

He let me know how happy he was for me, and that he could see a change in me. The last time we saw each other (September), he said, I was tense and wired up and kind of angry. He recalled when I had taken on more administrative work at my school; he was worried about me then, because I had become bitter. His observations about me last night were that I had lost weight, looked younger, and my behavior was much more free and relaxed. He was gleeful when he told me how happy he was to see me doing something that supported my health rather than ate away at it.

We also talked about how my new career would allow me to work as an interpreter again, because I can create a flexible schedule. (He is an interpreter coordinator for a large community college north of where I live.) I said that would be lovely, easing back into the culture and the work.

Lastly, he showed me that I have website software on my Mac and showed me how to use it. I spent the horrendously long wait in the ferry line and on the boat creating the beginnings of my professional website. He and Shrek are Mac FANATICS and have everything I would ever want to try: every model of iPod, three iPhones (sorry I can't afford one right now! He would sell one to me at cost), some horrific number of actual Mac computers, and who knows what else. I can see lots of trading of massage for Mac savvy in the future.

Donkee, I love you. Shrek, you are wise to know what a good man you've got. More fun to come at Casa de Donkee!

And did I mention the mini Dachshund named Rash? I kid you not! Donkee said he always wanted to be able to leave a social situation by saying, "I have to go home now and take care of my Rash." And now, by golly, he can.