It would be interesting to be in a coma. Wait--that's an oxymoron. Well, it would be interesting once you got out of it. I mean, you were in a coma.

I have these imaginings of conversations with your friends where they're like, "Dude, remember when we went to that show last August?" and you respond, "No, man, I don't think that was me. Maybe you're thinking of somebody else." Then they go, "Oh, yeah, it must have been Sam. Wait, how come you weren't there? Where were you?" And then you get all confused and you say, "I don't know; Jesus, what did I do in August?" At that point it hits you: "Oh yeah, that's when I was in that coma."

I don't know; I just thought that it would be rather amusing to have that exchange.

You know, John Cougar told me to hold on to 16 as long as I could, but so far, I think I prefer 17. Wait, you mean I shouldn't base my life on Johnny-John Cougar-Cougar-Mellencamp-Mellencamp songs? Hm, I've got priorities to change.

Yes, I know that my images are broken. The interweb sucks. I think I'll probably just attempt a massive redesign; Supernouveau could use it. If you've been reading long enough, though, you'll recall that it took me about a month from the time I promised a redesign to the time it happened. It probably won't get up and running until the school year starts. I'm actually a lot busier in the summer than I am during the year.

I see that my hometown ISP person is back and is spending massive amounts of time here (well, a minute the first visit, an hour the second, 10 minutes the third). Who the hell are you? Pfft. I guess lockdown commences again. Seriously, either identify yourself or go away. You're a lot of trouble.

Robot Roll Call! Gypsy! Cambot! Tom Servo! Cro-ooow!

The birthday party was great. A bunch of the people who were supposed to come never showed. Because Chantel was upset about their failure to come, the lake idea was scratched, and we had the bonfire at a friend of a friend's house instead. I made new friends at my own birthday party, and I got hugged about a million times, and it was all very novel.

Chantel and I have this ongoing "emo kid" inside joke; she has declared herself the "headbanger kid" and her boyfriend the "goth kid," and she can't decide if I'm more of an emo kid or a mod kid. She had a huge emo kid theme, and it was absolutely adorable. She made little posters and decorated a gorgeous cake that Trisha's mother made for me (from scratch, no less). Everything was emo themed; we played Bright Eyes in the background. The plastic forks each had one tine broken off, as they were emo forks and were therefore "broken inside." Everything was black and white (Chantel knows I'm obsessed with b/w and stars). The balloons were black stars, and each had a card that read "Hope dangles on a string like slow, spinning redemption." ("Vindicated" is my jam-out radio song of the moment.) Everything was adorable. I loved it; I nearly cried. Nobody's ever done anything that elaborate for me.

I also got hit on something fierce; a friend of a friend decided he'd taken a liking to me. Being as he showed every single sign of being an only-temporarily-adorable manipulator, I kept my distance. Yes, I flirted back a little, but only enough to be polite. Eventually, he must have gotten more aggressive than I thought (I never felt threatened), as Chantel went into serious Mother Hen mode. She took him aside and gave him what must have been a pretty stern talking-to, as he backed off after that. (I imagine the words "If you hurt Mookie, I'll kick your ass" came up. She tells that to any guy who even looks at me, and she's serious; I've seen her hit guys who said the wrong thing about me. She's very protective of me ever since she overheard some guy refer to me as "fuckable." I like to give the benefit of the doubt, and I am a prime target for the Manipulative Type, so I appreciate the guardianship.)

So, anyway, I had four of my closest female friends there and two of my guy friends there, and it was great. The rest of the people were acquaintances who came along or people I met that very day (including the guy who hosted the bonfire--thanks, by the way). Chantel had decided not to tell me the promised guest list because she was afraid I'd be sad when some didn't show. She was a little right; people I had expected weren't there.

God, it was a nice birthday. It's been so long since I've had a decent birthday. Kudos to my friends.

I just got off the phone with Chantel, and apparently, there is a BIG party in the works for tomorrow night.

For all who haven't been paying attention, I will be 17 in approximately one hour.

So, anyway, she and a couple of my other friends (Trish and Andrea, I'm guessing) are apparently throwing a big to-do at the lake, and there will be a fire and marshmallows and blankets and lots and lots of people. The festivities begin at sixish, and I have been instructed to bring towels, matches, and a little cash. I guess it's going to be quite a party. As Chantel puts it, "Your real present is coming, but for now, I'm a broke-ass bum. I feel horrible, but I can't afford your present right now. I have NO money. So, instead, your birthday gift is people." She claims to have people from "every fun night we've had as friends in Brookings."

I'm skerrd (SD slang for scared, obviously). I'm very, very skerrd. I'd like to be excited, but I can't--if I look forward to something, it inevitably goes very wrong. So I've decided to be nervous instead.

I hope all goes well.

So Dooey's been saying mean things again.

Don't worry, I still love you, Tom. I won't call you a pansycrat. Even if you are whipped by your constituency, I understand. How the hell else are you going to get reelected in a state as backwards as South Dakota?

Perhaps the rest of the country will hate you, but they don't really get it. You understand, don't you, Tom? You can see that you must do ANYTHING in your power to prevent John Thune from getting elected.

Thune is the most horrid man I've ever had the misfortune to meet. Thune has a fake smile and a fake nonaccent and a fake hairline (I suspect). Thune is evil personified; I'm pretty sure Satan's voting Thune this year. He must be stopped.

You know this, Tom. You also know that for some godforsaken reason, Thune resonates here. These gun-toting, prairie-dog-hating hicks with sub-monkey levels of intelligence adore him. Your constituency is a fickle one. If you let it, your votership will turn on you like Reagan did on morals during Iran-Contra. Yes, Tom, I know that that simile was forced and not-so-good, but I like slamming Reagan.

He's dead, but he still sucks.

Tom, man, I feel like I know you. We've met four or five times. You're shorter than one would expect. You're nice, and you smiled at me every time, and you always paid attention to what I had to say.

So what if you're a nancy-boy liberal?

Here's to Tom Daschle and his attempts to not completely screw himself over in the 2004 elections.

Ok, in the past week, I have:
- worked a lot
- had my boss tell me that I am "sickeningly efficient"
- realized that I'm too good at my job--they run out of things for me to do, so I work fewer hours and consequently get less money
- helped a friend find a new apartment
- donated furniture to said friend for said apartment
- helped said friend get a library card
- listened to said friend's girlfriend woes
- helped SF jobhunt
- hunted for a second job for myself
- helped SF buy his girlfriend a birthday gift
- been relentlessly romantically pursued by another friend
- held no interest in my pursuer
- told pursuer so
- had pursuer ignore my refusal
- spent far too much time listening to pursuer tell me why I should like him back
- seen my friend Jason just long enough for him to scream "Hi, Allison!" out his car window
- raced my friend David down Sixth Street at midnight
- gotten my ass kicked in said race
- jumped in a lake fully clothed
- on two separate occasions
- gotten my ass kicked in a splash fight with a 7-year-old boy I didn't know
- bought my best friend a kickass birthday gift
- relentlessly reminded people of the number of shopping days left until my birthday (ten)
- attempted to plan some type of party for my 17th
- seen a parade
- gone on a college visit

In the past week, I have not:
- gotten paid
- bought anything
- been impressed by a college
- done laundry
- cleaned my room
- cleaned out my car
- managed to come home from the lake dry
- figured out what I'm doing for my birthday
- posted here
- gotten anything useful done whatsoever

My life is one big packet of busywork.

Today I put on maroon suede slouch boots and a crimson leather trenchcoat and pranced around.

Then I switched to a brown-and-white polkadot dress and rollerskates and I rollerskated around and around Goodwill.

Wait, doesn't everybody do that?

So...

He said: "I like you."
I said: "I'm sorry."

I wish to God there was a joke there.

Once there was a boy who flew to the moon. It was an independent venture; American, European, Russian, and Chinese space agencies refused to acknowledge his achievement. None of them had aided in the construction of his spaceship and equipment, and none had provided him any training. Undaunted, the boy had a grand time on the moon, playing enthusiastically with the moonmen and delighting in the effects of a planet with 1/6 of Earth's gravity. He drank up the moonwater and devoured mooncandy. He stayed on the moon a long while, as he was quite a small boy and had not considered the possibility of a return trip. After successfully enslaving the moonmen, the boy had them write "BRING ME HOME, PLEASE" in giant letters on the moon's surface. NASA noticed the plea first, but could not get government clearance to aid the boy. The European Space Agency ignored the boy's request as well. The Russians and the Chinese simply could not be bothered. The boy gave up, and he went back to eating mooncandy and drinking moonwater. The moonmen worshipped the boy as a god, and he had everything he wanted. Eventually, though, the boy ate up all the mooncandy and sucked down the last of the already sparse moonwater. The moonmen began to starve and thirst to death en masse, and soon the boy was alone. This was approximately a year after he had first arrived, and in that time, the moonmen had managed to modify his spacecraft enough to allow him to head back to Earth.

However, moonmen are not rocket scientists, and the boy and his spaceship burned up upon reentry.

The moral of the story is this: don't go to the moon. It sucks.

By the way, Person who Keeps Finding Supernouveau by Googling 'Pancreas Sucking Wombat': what the fuck?

I hate to do this, but after spending the last four days at nerd camp and keeping my mouth shut about such things, I feel I have at least a bit of bragging rights.

And the final results are:

PSAT: 224
SAT: 1460
ACT: 34

Drumroll, please...

SAT II (Writing): 800

And those, my friends, are the benefits of testing well.