so this is the first verse

So ignoring the fact that it's a little creepy that I'm as excited about this as I would be my own new puppy, here is a picture of Andy's new dog, Jack.





Isn't he adorable? He's eight weeks old.

It's also a little odd (in a good way) that I've had so much input in the dog-getting. When he got it, what his name is, etc. But I should be used to this whole "including each other in the future and key decisions in an abstract way" thing by now.

His name was Turk (black with a little bit of white in him) for much of yesterday, but the final name is Jack. It's the name of Dr. Cox's son on Scrubs, so there's still a Scrubs connection, but Jack is short for Jacko, which obviously refers to Michael Jackson, because of the song "Black or White" (or, the more politically incorrect version, because he is both black and white).

I cannot wait to go to Wichita in April and get to play with him!

SPRING BREAK IN 5. YESSSSSS.

I cannot express enough how much last night and today thus far has made up for my recent bad mood.

1. Finally getting to talk to Andy and Amanda last night online. Thank goodness.
2. Watching Cry Wolf. So bad. So unscary. So predictable. Such a well-spent afternoon.
3. Ben & Jerry's and Over The Hedge with Amy. Pretty cute movie, good ice cream, and excellent company.
4. My rediscovery of Sex and the City. Carrie Bradshaw, I love you.
5. It finally hit me that in about two and a half weeks I will be seeing Jack's Mannequin. HOLY CRAP. I've been listening to so much JM and SC (mostly JM, who am I kidding) recently that I've completely fallen in love with Andrew McMahon again. And I cannot WAIT to see him. With one of my favorite people. YESSSSSS.
6. The plan to stay in tonight and watch a legit horror movie. In my basement. With the lights off. By myself. Hell yeah.
7. Kansas next weekend :)

And most importantly, the Lollapalooza schedule came out! Although they didn't add OK Go (and I really really really wanted them to), I could not be more excited. I was literally bouncing in the kitchen this morning as I ate breakfast and read the article in the Trib.

( excitement and dilemmas. )

Any recommendations or suggestions are welcome. I can't wait.

Yay for spending my lunch break at work doing that :)

phil gates, jim halpert, jack's mannequin, and dr. john dorian saved my sanity last night.

i need something to save my sanity tonight.
(besides amy szerlong and the latest dreamworks animated movie, that is.)

haven't really posted anything in quite a while, but here are my pictures from lollapalooza. there are 300+ because i'm pretty much a camera whore.

i'll write more about it once i get home from florida!!

http://www.photoworks.com/share/shareLanding.jsp?shareCode=AFD8023BD68&cb=PW
then click slide show or whatever.

wooooo. i have far too much energy for being up at 6:24 am.

ugh i'm dying.
and my parents are here too, therefore are freaking out about my sickness.
i can't seem to wake up on time.
my eyes hurt, my head is throbbing, i have no appetite, and i can't breathe out of my nose.

ughhhhhhhh.
i want to miss class this week but i already missed three different classes last thursday and friday and i really can't afford to do it again, unless i am really sick.

yay parents weekend!!

so here i am in rochester, starting my third movie of the night. what a wonderful break this is! but how fabulous it is going to be to go back to williams. everyone was right - leaving is a good vacation, but i now fully appreciate how truly wonderful williams is.

let's see. recap from last entry.

week was boring. classes are hard, i'm behind on work, i felt sick so i ditched anthro on thursday to sleep all afternoon and woke up 100% better. i had some good conversations with erin about random stuff, which is good. i had another horn lesson, which went okay. stuff is starting to fall into place, but i still feel confused and lost and lonely.

friday after music theory, samra and i drove out to rochester with her dad and brother. we watched "mean girls" in the backseat, which is one of the funniest experiences of my life. friday night i just collapsed in front of the television and chilled out. saturday, grandma and i did some hardcore shopping (yay for h&m!!!) and then i watched three movies. and today, i took a three-hour nap, am watching my third movie of the day, and did a bit more shopping at target.

i'm so excited to get back to williams. the break from late-night studying and being surrounded by drunken people and constant company has been good for me, but i miss people. it has sunk in how williams is my home now. i still feel like a lot of my friendships aren't solid, and i still am clueless as to how to manage my time, but i miss our stocked refrigerator and all the music on my computer and laughing with samra in music theory and eating chex+candycorn at 2:00 in the morning and going out to the snack bar with amy late at night and deep conversations with erin and drunken noah antics. my boy situation is still very unclear, my homework is out of control, and my sleep patterns are still totally screwed up. but i'm homesick now for my new home. which is a truly fabulous feeling.

my friend liz had the best away message ever a couple days ago, and it fits the way i feel perfectly:
to do: get control of my life.
no wonder i've been watching tons of makeover shows and makeover movies. (miss congeniality, pretty woman, TONS of "what not to wear" . . . .)
but i'm lovin' life right now.

TODAY ROCKED.

*Maria Full Of Grace was really good yet really depressing.
*I read the syllabus wrong, so I actually had very little homework to do tonight, despite earlier projections.
*free candycorn from Hannah = awesome.
*Erin and I have decided to get married because we really are soulmates.
*yummy yummy cake at Dodd tonight.
*okay stats test and music theory keyboard exam.
*I have two packages to pick up tomorrow!
*Addison is the coolest EVER.
*getting my absentee ballot in the mail and voting. oh yeah.
*hyper hyper online conversation with Phil.
*finally getting a hold of Tom on the phone.
*lovely afternoon nap.
*they are tearing down Baxter tomorrow . . . not really happy, but just kinda cool.
*it's almost the weekend, baby!!

AND the most important: at 2:00 in the morning, as it is now, I finally beat the Expert level of Minesweeper. I have been waiting since, like, age 9 for that.

I am so cool.

so i talked about my pictures in the last post without uploading some new ones.

so now there are new ones in it.

yay!

http://photos.yahoo.com/luckystar563

it's midnight here in New York, and I'm watching VH1's most awesomely bad songs ever. how cool am I?

the drive out was actually not bad at all. except for a really jammed finger caused by a failed double hug with Matt and Nikita last night, I was very comfortable crammed in a very tiny space in our van. the whole ride was spent either sleeping or listening to either Moulin Rouge (thanks Cai!!), Garden State, Ashlee Simpson, or Something Corporate. yeah, I'm way random like that. and I have had "Your Song" stuck in my head since arriving here tonight.

last night was fun with Matt and Nikita, just collapsing on the couch, watching VH1 and the Ill Puppets DVDs. and Chrissy came by for a couple minutes to say goodbye. and Chipotle and Best Buy crawling with Caitlin and Kaazim was so much fun! I guess it was one of the best last days I could have asked for. ooh, and I watched The Sixth Sense for the first time in forever.

all the goodbyes are so surreal. it's almost as if I understand the fact that I won't be seeing these people anymore, but I don't . . . quite. it's weird, man.

I hate being so inarticulate. sorry.

tomorrow around 1:00ish we will arrive in gorgeous Williamstown, MA and get some errands done, like establishing a bank account and doing some last minute shopping at the Wal-Mart and, if time permits, taking in a showing of Napoleon Dynamite at Images Cinema.

I'm getting really scared about everything, but I can't even being to express how excited I am, and how lonnnnnng tomorrow is going to last.

love you all.

well, kids, I'm out.

thanks to everybody for a really fun last couple days here in LF, and thanks to everybody for the sweet goodbyes.

e-mail is katherine.s.quinn@williams.edu
screenname is smiles0671
I have my address for anybody who wants it; just e-mail me, I just don't want to post it - plus I don't have it memorized right now.

the van departs at 8 am tomorrow. I'll have computer access tomorrow night from my grandparents' house in Rochester, NY, so e-mail me if you want to. Monday night will be spent at a Williamstown motel, and then Tuesday night will be my first night in the dorm room. I can't wait!!!

love you all, and PLEASE keep in touch!!

so tonight is the last night for me to see so many people before I leave. so if you're going to/are in One Acts tonight, make sure to seek me out so I can say goodbye!!

all my clothes are finally packed up, which is . . . bizarre. and my room is slowly getting emptier and emptier, which is also bizarre.

last night was Trudie's last night, and we had a lot of fun and didn't get too sad, even when we said goodbye to each other.

two more nights before I leave.
four more nights before I am officially in college.
I can't wait!

so I got a 3:30 am (drunken? maybe) phone call from Andy yesterday.
wow I miss him.
I was kinda incoherent from being woken up, so it was a very short conversation, but so good to talk to him anyway.
unfortunately, I was unable to get back to sleep until after 4:15.
so now I am very sleep deprived.

a week from right now, I will be moving in to Sage Hall C405.
craziness . . . that doesn't seem real.

I have so much packing to do and so many people to see in five days that I know I can't fit it in. and I know that means that what's going to give is the seeing of people.

but at least I have One Acts to say goodbye to lots of my friends. and Tru's and my appearance at the school on Thursday, too.

the goodbyes have gotten easier, definitely. saying goodbye to Scott last night after dinner and a movie was sad, but it all seems so unreal that I'm not going to see him for three months. like, I'm having a really hard time believing that this all is finally happening.

so when I said before that everybody should e-mail me so that I can figure out my Williams address book, I wasn't kidding.

katherine.s.quinn@williams.edu

off to the beach to read Perks of Being a Wallflower for a couple of hours.

so volleyball at the beach was kinda a bust. I did get to talk to Alexa for a good long while, which was wonderful. I wish both of us had made more of an effort to see each other this summer, but it was great to catch up. it was good to say goodbye to Karl and Andres in person as well. wow, the goodbyes just keep coming and coming. they don't seem real anymore - maybe just because they're to people that aren't my best friends. or maybe it's because of that epiphany I had a couple days ago. either way, it's becoming easier and easier.

just watched House of Sand and Fog and cried for about the last half hour of the film. it was really, really good. such amazing acting! I can't believe I put off watching it since . . . well, back since it was in theaters!

tonight is Amy's birthday celebration, which will be very fun. then I'll return home and watch either Taking Lives or Igby Goes Down. can't decide yet.

all my CDs are organized from the different piles around my room and put into my CD binder. step 1 of 58934676 in getting ready to leave, but hey, I'm getting there. next up: go through all my mixes, decide which ones I absolutely need to take (with the rare exception of one of my own, mostly CDs from other people) and put the songs on the other ones on the computer before it gets dismantled on Sunday night.

things I love:
*late night, really hyper phone calls to Phil
*Sex and the City
*the fact that I really am okay with the goodbyes I'm dealing with
*a phone message from Tom
*e-mail from Andy
*my new pajama pants
*this song
*hanging out with Chrissy
*knowing that I'm going to be home to go see One Acts

tonight was fun. ("no, we're just friends. I don't put my dick in you." <--- best Sex and the City quote ever.)

I have four movies rented right now from three different places, and they're all due back within two or three days, and I haven't watched any of them.

House of Sand and Fog
The Eye
Igby Goes Down
Taking Lives

I'm about to put in Taking Lives and see if it's as bad as some of the reviews said.

Indie rock! You're my most favourite type of
music... Your music channels lots of emotion.
On the top it seems simple, but underneath
there's always a deep meaning... As your name
you're independent from most of music! Stay
that way! Good on you! There's so much
variation in your style...from deep and
thoughtful like The Stills, to happy go lucky
like Belle & Sebastian, to dancy and catchy
Franz Ferdinand, and back to boogie down Hot
Hot Heat and The Rapture...


What genre of rock are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

so I finally realized that all these goodbyes, the ones I keep coming home and crying about (or, in the case of last night, crying before I even leave) are not final. I mean, the fact that I'm upset about them means that (at least) I will try doubly hard to stay in touch and make sure to call and write and e-mail and stay up superlate to talk online. this isn't A Final Goodbye; I will see these people again. they're not dying and aren't isolated from phones and computers or plane rides home. I am so excited to hear from everybody who has (or will very soon) taken up residence in a dorm hall and who has gone to their first college party and has attended their first class and met who will soon become a best friend.

I've realized that just because my friends (and me too, in 11 days) will be adding lots of people to their e-mail address book and their cell phone and their list of wonderful friendships, that doesn't mean that I will be deleted or lost.

I have eleven days in Lake Forest before I am going off on this giant, exciting, scary trip to a tiny little town in the very corner of Massachusetts. and I would so much rather enjoy every waking (and sleeping) moment of it than mope around, wishing Phil+Tom+Andy were back here. because we'll all (even Phil) be back here eventually, and I can't wait to hear all the stories and experiences and get reimmersed in everybody's lives.

Not like I'm ever really going to leave them to begin with.

i hate being so emotional.
tonight was wonderful, but all i can think of is the sadness.
and the thing is, i know that we're going to stay in touch. i mean, this is our third goodbye, and we're still wonderful friends. but somehow, this just seems different. we've gotten to be so close this summer.
ugh.
whatever, i hate how i have so much to say yet how much i don't want to write it.

i need to watch legally blonde or amelie or something and then get some sleep.

so yeah, tonight was really sad.
luckily i didn't cry in front of anybody.
tomorrow's going to be bad too.

in better news, only four hours of work ever at american eagle left! i said goodbye to lindsey, nicole, and sam today, which was sadder than i expected.

goodbyes are damn hard.

anyway . . . yeah. i don't really feel like writing much else.

i haven't updated in a while.
i guess every night when i come home, i'd rather pop in a movie than write about it.

i'm annoying everybody with how much i talk about garden state. but it's such a fantastic movie. i saw it wednesday, thursday, and friday. so completely wonderful.

i'm getting really upset about the imminent departures of tom and andy - within two days of each other, too. grrrr. monday night will be hanging out with tom, and tuesday afternoon/night is dinner, garden state, the ring, and probably just hanging out with andy. there will be many tears over the next couple days, i can guarantee that.

that's basically all i can think about right now, and i really don't feel like diving into my emotions about it. i just kinda want to pretend it's not really going to happen. dangerous, i know, but otherwise i'd be moping around all the time.

matt tolson and i saw napoleon dynamite last night, which was very funny but very random. i liked it though. "girls only want boyfriends who have great skills. You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills . . . ." then we went back to matt's house and played the snowboarding video game. i royally sucked, but it was fun.

countdown to williams: 14 frickin' days. i'm sooooo excited.

that's all for now. i'm not in a very talkative mood at all.

edit. it was only a matter of time. new garden state layout. uninspired and pretty lame, but i like it because it's simple and reminds me of the movie.