Philosoship of a Friendophy.

Some books are like old friends; you can go back to them, and pick up just where you left off, and the story doesn't change in the passage of time. Like good friends, you can see yourself in the reflection of the book; the best stories, of course, are the ones that touch deep within you, where the empathy lies. And the most obvious parallel between a book and an old friend is, you can easily find both, no matter how much time has passed.

I recently re-read a book that thoroughly delighted me when I first read it, well over a decade ago: It's title is BUNNY BUNNY and it's written by Alan Zweibel, and it's about his delightful relationship with Gilda Radner.

Their relationship was uncomplicated in the long run. It started out as two terrified people, coming together to get through the early stages of their work at SNL. Eventually, the love became deep, and intimate, on every level but the physical. Through career ups and downs, multiple marriages, and the cancer that finally claimed her, their relationship remained strong, virtually unchanged from the first days until the end; intimate in every way, but the physical.

One of my favorite moments of the book is when Zweibel is donating blood to Gilda, and the nurse asks him if he would like to write a note to Gilda, because she liked to know who was donating the blood. Zweibel wrote: "Dear Gilda: I knew I would get some of my fluids into you one way or another."

I laughed and cried simultaneously the first time I read it.

I think I'm being honest when I say that I don't have too many friends; I have acquaintances, certainly, but very few relationships that involve that kind of trust and affection that creates the kind of intimacy that exists between the two people in that lovely book. And the really fascinating part of it is that if I was asked to isolate the moment that those relationships began, I wouldn't be able to do it.

How does a bond become so strong without my actually noticing?

Okay, frankly, I don't care. I am grateful for the relationships.

Because, those relationships, those friendships both recent and age-old, are the blanket that keeps me warm in a world that can be quite cold.

And if they go, it's like a circle of Hell that Dante never considered, for it would have been too horrible to contemplate.