I'm Adeli Mom and this is The Slowdown.

I don't think we write about our friends enough or talk about them enough.

There's so much art made for family members and art made for and about lovers.

Lovers who don't deserve poems are getting poems.

Bad lovers are getting good essays.

Barely their lovers are getting songs and stories written about them.

But friends, not so much.

So much of our life depends on our friendships.

Those people you call after the frustrating conversation with the lover or the hard

conversation with the parent.

There needs to be more written in praise of friendships.

If we've met, you know that I think my friends are the bomb.

I have an exceptional bevy of compatriots.

They are smarter, hotter, funnier, and way more talented than me.

And many of them are also artists.

Having someone to talk to about the elation and subsequent plummet of art making is helpful.

We can start out having a cocktail and casually catching up when suddenly the conversation

turns toward the emotionally intense memoir or poem we're writing or the play or TV pilot

we're working on.

And before you know it, more need deep in the big ticket topics that fuel our lives at

every turn.

We're hilarious and tragic all at once.

...