You never make friends the way you did in Fourth Grade.

Bestest, forever friends. Friends who pat your back after the bully has stolen your lunch money. Friends who dare you to lick frozen metal objects and then run to go get help even though it means a grounding for everybody. Friends who share your when-I-grow-up-I�m-moving-to-Paris-to-become-a-jazz-singer dreams.

I�ve come as close as an adult can though.

I�ve got a friend who has listened me gab for the last 7 years about writing my novel. Even after the storyline and genre changed 4 times, at least.

This friend has repeatedly opened up his 500-square-foot apartment to me until 2 a.m., as I madly tapped away at one of his computers on one permutation of the novel after the other.

This friend has taken me with him to Hawai�i, to meet his parents and tool around the island.

This friend has let me drag him to one Renaissance Faire after another, even after I got us lost in Redneckville, TX.

We�ve taken my dog to see the ocean together. Gone to go see more than one cheesy 80s has-been band together. Trolled bars and coffee shops looking for dates together. Spent several lonely New Years together.

We don�t make friends the way we did when we were little.

You have to be too vulnerable, too trusting to be that open, too young. It takes too much work to see one another as often as it takes to build those kinds of platonic bonds.

So when it happens in adulthood that you do make such a friend, you've got to hang onto them. Even as your life starts to take drastic changes.

My friend and I have been pals for years. And now, it�s time for me to pop the question:

Greg, will you help marry me?

For better or for worse, will you read at my wedding? Come to church, not once, but twice in a year? (For the rehearsal and the actual occasion.) Come to the rehearsal dinner where my Great Aunt Glady is sure to show & tell about her new teeth before the salad even hits the table. (She�s really proud of them�) Wear a suit & tie with a corsage stuck to your chest for an hour and a half?

I, in sickness and in health, vow to not take you for granted, come to your wedding when it�s time, read and review your novel copy as often as it takes, and keep your spot on the couch open forever and ever. Amen.

Oh, did I mention there�s free booze involved?

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