On Friendship

 I've been busier than ever this year, and particularly the last few months, which means less socializing and almost no traveling. However, I have gotten to catch up with two old friends in the last couple of weeks, Percy and Elizabeth Bennett. I introduced Percy to scrapple at Bob and Edith's late into the night (which is evidently the only time you can get a table there), just like old times, when we used to be friends with our waiter at IHOP and have our own table there.

I showed Elizabeth Bennett a little bit of Philadelphia (not nearly as much as I wished, since it was in the middle of the week and I had to work). But we added to the list of cities we've seen together, which ranges from Boston to Vienna to Budapest to Bratislava. She's one of my favorite traveling partners, mostly because I think that even if we spent twenty-four hours a day together for many years, we still wouldn't run out of things to say.

This is the main reason that I hate change--because although there are always new, delightful friends to make, when I'm away from the old ones my heart hurts pretty bad. That sounds like a cliche, but I mean that literally, it aches in my chest. Well, thank goodness for letters.