Huh,

Of all the things that I wouldn't have thought would help my state of mind nearly as much as it did: Tim called tonight. Didn't want anything, really; just to say hi, to keep in touch, to chat. He and Squeaky are still together, still living with her dad; they actually seem to be really good for each other. I told him how surprised I was; how in the beginning I thought one or both of them was completely insane to be together; and how honestly glad I am to have been wrong about that.

I knew my opinion of them would improve once I was living on my own; now that we're not piled on top of each other like overgrown puppies in a too-small basket, we can get along and not constantly be snapping at each other. It's nice to be in a situation where we can be friends again. I hate to admit it, but I kinda missed Tim. (Squeaky, not so much, but I still consider her a friend; not necessarily a friend I'd like to spend a lot of time with, but someone who, if she was in trouble, I'd be glad to help....as long as it didn't involve, you know, actually LIVING with her for any length of time.)

Tim said he might stop by on Monday, which is fine with me; fine if he does, fine if he doesn't. But hearing from him, talking to him for an hour about nothing of great consequence...it felt good.

In other news, my oldest friend Debbi (of Debbi and Cowgirl fame, of Girls' Nights Out (now sadly abandoned, for lack of transportation and horribly conflicting job schedules), bought a house. Today was her moving-in day, and THIS is when not having a vehicle becomes a real annoyance; I would have GLADLY helped her pack and move and all the rest, but the whole transportation issue (she's moving from one completely-inaccessible area of a highly-underserved-by-public-transit south suburb, to a nearly-as-bad-but-there's-at-least-a-Metra-station-down-the-street area of another underserved south suburb) makes the whole plan fraught with difficulty. I wanted to go out there last Sunday to help her pack, but neither the necessary buses nor the required trains--the only way to get from here to there--run on Sundays. At least where she's moving TO, everything runs on Sundays--albeit on a monstrous, every-two-hours schedule. I could reserve an iGo car, but that's a little bit of a strain on the already-strained budget this month. It really sucks not to be able to see your friends because of transportation. The plus to all this, though, is that by the time I get a chance to see her and her new place, I'll have had the chance to finish her housewarming gift; I'm going to quilt her a set of placemats, and also have some drawings framed. (To explain the drawings would require an entire blog post all its own, but I will attempt to summarize: About twelve years ago, during the winter after JP's death, when Debbi and Cowgirl pretty much kept my spirits up as much as possible, Debbi got tonsillitis. There was a brief period when the doctors were talking about having them removed, and during this time, the three of us created a whole storyline about Debbi's tonsils and what they would do once they were "out". This culminated in a series of three cartoons, which could have been a much longer series, in which the tonsils packed their bags, left a note, and escaped through Debbi's mouth while she slept. Somewhere in the series, they were also chased behind the refrigerator by a gerbil, which...okay, look. Haven't I TOLD you people I have a strange, vivid, and intensely bizarre imagination? I think I've mentioned it. Anyway, The Adventures of Debbi's Tonsils turned up in a box of memorabilia which I was sorting through a week or so ago, and when I mentioned it to Debbi on the phone, her reaction was such that I knew I was going to need to get them framed and give them to her as a housewarming present.)

I'm a little jealous, I'll admit. But only a tiny, tiny bit; mostly, I'm just really happy for Debbi. She deserves a cute little place of her own; she's spent the last ten years in a third-floor walkup apartment in a building full of noisy families and neglectful landlords, and from what she says, the house is adorable. I can't wait to see it.

All this stuff, and my reactions to it, make me think I know what's happening, or at least SOME of what's happening, to make me so depressed; plain and simply, I'm lonely. That's hard for me to admit; I'm a fan of solitude, and usually very good at being my own company, but I think I've pushed it a little too far this time. Part of it is that I have a very hard time making friends--bluntly, I don't have the slightest idea how to do it--and part of it is that I am carrying so much guilt about friendships from the past. I think of all the people who I've lost touch with, and it really brings me down. Walking to work today, I told myself: I've got to let go of some of that guilt. Yes, I made mistakes; there were people I should have called or written to; people to whom I should have been a better friend. There are people who I lost because I was a drug addict; and people I lost because I was depressed and self-absorbed; and people I lost because I was with one man or another, to the exclusion of all else. There are some people I've lost and I don't even know why. All that is very hard to live with, especially for someone who can't seem to forgive her own mistakes; to think that I'm alone largely because of the many things I've done wrong...well, that's a heavy weight to carry. But it's true; in many of the friendships I've lost, I've been the responsible party. And now I seem to have lost the ability to make friends, to let anybody get close enough to decide whether or not they like me. I keep people at arm's length, because I assume nobody would want to be any closer than arms-length to me to begin with. I'm sure it comes off all wrong, but I'm not sure how to be any different; not completely sure I want to be different, really. It's a hell of a quandary.

So the only thing I'm sure I can do is try to keep the friends I have, try not to piss off anyone else who cares enough to still be around, and hope that maybe I'll figure all this stuff out, sooner instead of later....and try not to miss the people who I drove away. That, more than anything, is the part that sucks.