I'm in New Jersey 1) on vacation and 2) because I just attended my cousin Meaghan's wedding. She's the first of our generation to get married, and everyone says I'm next. Even Lexi, who has a long-term boyfriend, says I am, despite my having no boyfriend to speak of. Apparently, I give off an air of fertility and marriability.

From the wedding, we went to our trailer at Tall Timbers in Sussex, NJ. I am typing this from the screen porch of said trailer. I wish you Betas would come out here to chill. We have a fire pit with nice benches, a lake, a pool, bears...Everything you could want at a campground.

Later this week, I will drive to CT for a night of partying with my sister and a dentist appointment before heading on to the Cape to party with friends and friends of friends. Should be interesting to see what sort of shape the house is in by the time I get there, since it's a bunch of rambunctious boys staying there. Warm, clear water and good people, here I come.

After the Cape, I'm on to Boston (first time since my psychedelic day with Jake!) to say goodbye to Jacob until I head to San Fran in November!

All in all, my car started this vacation with 178 miles on it. My goal is to break 1,000 before the end of the trip. I may need to take some back roads and detours in order to make that happen, but it'll be worth it in order to refer to this as my "1,000-mile vacation."

More on my vacation soon.

P.S. I thought of a great slogan for Jersey while driving in effing ovals for hours - because you can't drive in circles when there're concrete barriers everywhere and no U-turns: "New Jersey: You'd Better Fuckin' Know Where You're Going." Don't come here unless you have to. Or unless Sarah invites you to her trailer. Ha. You're coming, sucker.

Back before there was such a thing as blogs, I began reading strangers' journals at Diaryland.com. It was a lot less creepy than it sounds. About six months in, I finally decided to start my own, which I've maintained - locked - for the last 7.5 years.

The journal include little thoughts I scribbled on pieces of paper during the school day, standard entries, full IM/email conversations and more. It's an invaluable resource for when I do want to take a step back and figure out whether I'm still on the right track. There are also a lot of interesting or funny bits and pieces (including stories about or conversations with most of you guys, probably), and I am going to begin to share them here. So, here is a line I still agree with but don't necessarily always effect:

January 11, 2001 • 9:57 p.m. • Age 15
Nothing means anything if you don't make it mean something. There are no bad situations that weren't made by you. You let yourself get in a bad mood.

I just logged into the system that tracks all sorts of stuff about how people access the site and what they do there and where they click through to, and I discovered that if you search for allergic reaction beer face or faces of blood photos, you may come across my diabetes site. More importantly, I discovered that sometimes people have facial reactions to beer and enjoy seeing photos of bloody faces.