How about... "Have a freaking terrible summer?"

Many things accompany the end of any school year. Cleaning out lockers, taking finals, making plans for summer, making out with random strangers in the hallways... but one of the most anticipated is signing yearbooks. I, personally, have a love/hate relationship with yearbook signings. My hand sometimes works faster than my mind, and I write the strangest, most unnecessary things to people. But everything I write is true. So many people had an impact on me this year, and I don't think they realize it. So I tell them in a $68 book. My thoughts are worth that entire $68, if not one dollar more.

Take Swenson, for example. I was staring at a blank page in his yearbook, trying to figure out what to say and what not to say. Having had him as a teacher and adviser for three years, he feels like family. I wanted to write about how special it was to have newspaper be a family with him like our father, but then I felt like that sounded as if we were in a cult of some sort. Then, as Berlyn suggested, it could be like he was a jolly uncle. But the word jolly makes me think of Santa Claus, which could seem like I was calling him chubby, which I could rectify by saying "big-boned," but that sounds inappropriate. Everything that popped into my strange brain swirling with weird thoughts was just NOT GOOD ENOUGH. So I rambled, but gave at least five seconds of thought to every word I translated onto the page.

Repeat this process thirty times, and there is the summary of my yearbook signing experience.

Of course, I have not written in some of my very best friends' yearbooks. Michelle, Tasha, Brianne and Berlyn have not had me sign theirs yet, simply because there was not enough time. Neither has Steffi. However, Berlyn and I made a joint decision (besides the one where we will get pregnant at the same time) to write our "yearbook" messages here instead. So here I go.

Berlyn,

I've changed quite a bit this year, and I owe much of that to you. I've known you for years, but we had never really talked much until this year. I really, really wish we had become friends sooner. How did the world survive without Kimberlyn for 18 years? I have no idea. Remember when Cuba was on fire? Something had to spontaneously react to our awesomeness, don't you think? I do. Gosh, you amaze me. Every strange thing that spills out of my mouth seems to make sense to you when it just earns a disconcerting look from most everybody else. I love that we both have the need to have everyone love us. I love our talks about dinosaurs crossing busy traffic on freeways, similarities between blood and barbecue sauce, being talked to by your mom about gays and lesbians, our Cowgirls experience with Fantasy Friday, holding hands with you in the hall out of instinct, freaking the eff out over the anticipation of Jiffy Pop actually popping, muttering "I like you..." after we do something "out of the ordinary" (it's in quotes because we are never ordinary) and so, SO much more. And even though I will miss you when you go off to California more than I could ever express, our physical separation is, in reality, good for all of society. If two people as awesome and awkward as us were together all the time, people would drop dead from us constantly radiating Batman. They don't have to suffer that fate now, those lucky motherfuckers. And hey, we both have webcams now, so when we have a break from making our porn videos with unsuspecting hot strangers, we can talk from our computer screens. (That is, if they don't shatter from the combination of our beauty.)

I love you so much, Berlyn. Kimberlyn is one of the best things to come into my life in the past few years. We have to stay in touch, because if you start to forget about me you will just be N.

- Kimberly