Hi Bret... along with the great advice offered, I'd like to ask you to answer the above question. What "destination" do you want to arrive at, and why? Get to the heart of the issue... what kind of guitar player do you want to be and why?
Saying something like "I'd like to be able to play a few songs at parties and not suck" is not deep enough of an answer... why do you want to be able to do that? What is your true goal with playing the guitar? It sounds like right now you have a loosely defined short-term goal, but what is the long term goal? What kind of guitar playing feeds you, gets you amped up about playing guitar? If you could play anything, what would it be, and why?
If you can really give it some thought, and come up with a honest, defined answer, I think we can help.
In the meantime, a couple of simple things:
-pick a song that you like that has an easy guitar part. "Knock Knock Knockin on Heaven's Door" is as simple as it gets... start with stuff like that.
-"fake" songs.... if you're going to play for friends, remember, you can "fake" the tune by not trying to play it exactly as it was recorded... you're just one guitar. Come up with a version of the song that works for just one guitar, and is relatively easy to play.
-find some way to get some jam tracks, a beat box or whatever, and learn scales by just experimenting and soloing. If you are learning scales but never putting them in context, then they won't stick and you'll be bored.
-I DO care if you can play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"... can you? Can you start on any note and figure out the rest just by ear? When you go to hit a note in a solo, do you know how it will sound before you hit it, or are you just following a box pattern hoping that the note will sound good? (a lot of players do). I was jamming to a preset on my DR880 that had a very distinct chord progression, when I suddenly realized it worked perfectly for "Puff the Magic Dragon"... it was fun to "solo" Puff just as an ear-training exercise. This kind of training helps you move towards being able to hear the note in your head, and then play it on the fretboard.
Anyway, that's all just temporary suggestions. When you can answer what kind of guitar player you want to be and why, then you can define a path. There's no wrong answer by the way.