Viva Las Gaygus
Tomorrow night marks the end of an era, in a year when quite a few eras are ending.
We've already seen the end of "Sex and the City" and tomorrow we will watch the final episode of "Friends". ("Frasier" is ending too, but I have had little invested in that show)

Even more than SATC, I have felt like the cast member from "Friends" were real people. Yes, I can differentiate between reality and TV, but the mind can play some powerful tricks on you. The show began my freshman year in college. I remember quite well that first episode, sitting around with all the girls from 3rd floor Carmen, settling in to what was to become a routine that lasted for years. It was around the TV, watching Ross, Rachel and the rest, that I met one of my now best friends. It was all the start of something totally new.

As life went on and some people I know went by the wayside, "Friends" was still on the air. It became a constant in my life during periods of extreme turmoil. Granted, that is one of the reasons people are loyal to shows even during times of poor quality -- I'm looking at you Simpsons. No matter which state I was living in, whom I was seeing, where I was working, every Thursday night at 8 I was greeted by the same purple-walled apartment and the faces of the same six people who stuck by each other through all of life's travails.

Let me pause and say that SATC provided a similar comfort, though I only came to the show in its fourth season and only in it's sixth and final season did I have HBO at home. In fact, despite this johnny-come-lately situation I found myself in, catching up on four seasons at once helped me to see the flow of "Sex and the City", with no nine month lags in the plot. However, for sheer familiarity, there is nothing like a solid 10 year investment. Unlike "Sex and the City", we don't say "I'm SO Monica" or "God, I want someone like Chandler" because they are real people. Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte were all great archetypes of the various sorts of women you would find lounging about in all the hot spots in Manhattan. They represented something or someone; Monica, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe, Ross and Rachel represented only themselves.

"Friends" has been good, it's been middling, it's been downright cringeworthy, and it has been great. Episodes like the one where Rachel and Monica lose their "girl's apartment" to the boys after a trivia contest are just sheer strokes of genius. Personally, I hear the line "What are you going to do? Show me my clothes?" every so often and I can't help but chuckle. I think that everyone who has been in a relationship wants to yell out "We were on a break!". It has been a sitcom with all the melodrama of daytime soap, but it managed to rise above itself and become part of Americana. We all want to find our lobster.

For me, there's no excitement about how the story will end; there's no giant party planned, with meatball subs and coffee, to usher out the end of the show; I don't expect to sit there waiting to see if Joey moves to LA or if Ross and Rachel end up together. "Friends" will end however it will and that will be good enough for me. But there is a deep sadness at saying goodbye to something that has given me so much laughter and made me feel a part of a group for so long and when I sit down next week at 8 pm to watch TV, it will be obvious that something will be missing.

Don't worry about me; I'll be breezy.