i couldn't look people in the eye and the person at the cigarette shop was kind even though i looked past her when i talked to her.

i got a week's worth of smokes, a pocket atlas of the united states, mexico and southern canada, a dollar's worth of lighters: two with half-naked women on them, one with a picture of the grand canyon.

i am feeling a strange loose kind of anxiety. i think this is mostly because i haven't seen my car for a week, i haven't needed to use it staying home sick. i think i will take another small walk tomorrow, this time to locate my car. i need to know if it's missing before i go to work on monday morning. i am not worried that it's been stolen so much as towed by the people who own the garage.

this is me being illogical, worrying about things for little reason. i think i am worrying because i have been couped up in my apt so much this week.

this week i have talked to a lot of people on the phone to try and stave off loneliness and anxious illogical-ness. i have talked to anna and jon and abigail and marcel and lee and my mom and cassie and jason and my dad and i think todd called me this week, but i am pretty sure that might have been last week, but i can't tell anymore because days are blurring together like ink on a page submerged in water.

that's a lot of people for me to talk to in a week. usually, if i talk to one or two people in a week, i feel like miss popular.

i'm so glad that by the end of the year, i will be living around people again. with people. i will have friends. i will be able to hug someone.

they will hug me back.

but i will spend thanksgiving alone. and hanukah too.

i wasn't looking forward to hanukah so much this year as i was christmas. for the first time, i was going to be part of someone's christmas, i was going to help dress the tree.

i was looking forward to singing songs even.

this christmas will be like all the other ones now.

but worse.

the next two months are going to be very hard.

the thing i have to remind myself, the thing that will be hardest to make myself to believe: it is not my fault.

my mom promised she will call me many many times on thanksgiving weekend.

my mom's the greatest. i could hear tears in her voice when she heard i was going to be alone.