But it's something I preach all the time - proximity matters.

The changes in the city and the pandemic fucked me for this one. A critical mass of my conveniently local friends moved either moderately inconveniently far away (driveable for dinner or brunch plans, but a pain in the ass) or hope-they-have-a-guest-room far away. Combine that with the kids graduating high school and parent friends thus going empty nester, and we don't get out much these days.

I do have one good friend who's just slightly inconveniently far away, but our socializing has to work around her chemo schedule, and we have parent friends two and a half blocks away (their kid, like ours, is still in the house and going to the local community college) who we hang out with from time to time, so it's not complete isolation, but it's a lot more isolation than I had going into 2020 (ah, back when we were the ones planning to move!), I tell you what.

Timelies all!

Tired. This was not helped by having a number of nights in a row where I woke up coughing several times. I end up being wobbly in the morning. (Thing I learned: Sit down when putting on slippers in the morning. Subsequent thing I learned: If you are falling, do not grab the partially broken earring rack that isn't attached to the wall. Someday I will find where all those little post earrings went...)

Yeah the thing I learned when traveling all the time is that having an event you go to regularly is the best. Dancing but also for me the past many months my trivia team (which is not something planned but organically grew), a few other things. You meet people again and again and can become friends or just friendly acquaintances that you see regularly.