A friendship of nearly 30 years is twitching its death throes, and I didn't even know it was mortally wounded.

She told me something significant nearly a year ago, and somehow my reaction to it caused her to believe that I found the subject shameful. It was a very personal matter, and I erred on the side of "Very private, I will discuss as she sees fit, but I'm not going to be so gauche as to bring it up." My reticience was seen as disapproval.

Contact between us had been slacking off, and I finally asked why. She told me that she didn't want someone who apparently believed as I did about said personal matter in her life. The explanation was part of a very formal letter that would have served in diplomatic circles as a formal severing of relations.

She has apparently been brooding about this matter for months. Never once did she say to me, "Do you really believe this?" She said she felt hurt and rejected that I hadn't told her some things regarding medical procedures and that I'd declined her offer to sit with me during one of Hubby's operations. I had figured she had to be as tired of dealing with it as I was and that I'd give her a break from hospital waiting rooms. Obviously I wasn't as clear as I'd hoped that her support was still as essential as ever.

I don't want things to end this way. However, she's apparently been spending this past bit of time excising me from her regard and getting used to doing without me. I don't know if I was just supposed to drift away without ever calling her on the matter or not. The pain of the separation is brand new to me, though, and I don't like it. I don't want to get used to not being without her. I have sent her an email saying that I don't want to give up on this and that I think misunderstanding has occurred, but I don't know what she'll do.

If she doesn't answer, am I just supposed to write off 30 years?

Not if you don't want to, Connie. She may find venting makes her feel better and she might start to thaw. IF she doesn't, a friendship of such long-standing seems worth more than one email to repair it.

Why not just try being her friend? Hey, she may suck to read about, but if she really IS Mary Sue she could probably buy you a pony or something.

Generally, I have found that some of the most intimidatingly cool people I've ever gotten to know have turned out to be big dorks, underneath it all. If you get to know her, the MarySueness may crumble. Though if she's a racist animal-hater, it sounds like you've already hit that point...

Word from Ms. Cassie Pants:

Grandma's hip is broken. All I know is surgery tomorrow. No calls. I am at the hospital and being communications girl. Let Bitches know?

If you really are 30 years in on a friendship, I think one should be able to say "what the hell are you talking about?"

Or at least "You. Me. Coffee. Now."

Emily, I think that under the circumstances, you don't have to do your homework if you don't want to. Let your professors know what's going on. My guess is that they will understand, they may even have gone through something similar.

Gah, Emily. What Burrell said, and she's got the professorial (is that the word) street cred to back it up.

I kind of regret not taking any time off of work when Gram died. I was fairly useless and distracted, even though it wasn't totally out of the blue.

Back from the Pratchett signing.

Yes, Jilli, we did have Where's My Cow signed to Princess Ticky-box.

The amusing part was having Thud signed. You get used to having my name, after 30+ years. Other people, however, being not used to it, think it's neat. He tried to dig out his Pocket PC to show me that he had a picture of the thing I'm named after on it as a screensaver, and when he couldn't find it, he settled for drawing a picture of them on the page. (Amusingly, like many other people who know the constellation, he couldn't quite manage spelling it, but the drawing more than makes up for it.)

Well, it was mostly done anyway, it was just the irritating things like "these are copied from students' hasty notes on groups. Criticize them" and "what is the significance of this exercise?" So I finished it and printed it. No big. Besides, who knows how long this will go on? And I've never quite mastered telling teachers sad (true!) stories without feeling as though I were trying to play them somehow. I don't know why. Same reason I feel strangely guilty when theft detectors in stores go off even though I know I haven't taken anything, I suppose.

I have found that some of the most intimidatingly cool people I've ever gotten to know have turned out to be big dorks

Standing. Right. Here.

::sniff::

I wholly recommend letting family health crises like that (especially ones involving death) distract you as much as they can -- I like to think it prevents lingering.

Standing. Right. Here.

Nah. You're still intimidatingly cool. Cancels out the dork.

Kind of like a less weird and much taller Seth Green or something.