This morning I started a week-long stint dogsitting this little hellion. Sources tell me she is a very sweet Beagle mix named Eve, but I have yet to be convinced. But we've had our first walk, and she's now asleep on the floor with her head on my feet, so maybe we're getting somewhere.

Eve belongs to my friend Angela, who flew to California this morning to begin her pursuit of global domination as an intern for Apple. Eve is the daughter of her childhood dog Marcie, who had several puppies last summer. Eve came to live here, and her sister Peanut went to live with her sister in Florida. I think Eve got all of the beagle characteristics, while Peanut (who is the size of a teacup Chihuahua) got everything else.

I have really enjoyed the flurry of postings from those participating in A Post A Day in May, and now that I am tying up the loose ends of my school year, I want to play too!

And so I give you A Post A Day For the Rest of May. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

The first thing I have to do is talk up how amazingly awesome the thesis presentations were this year. They were going on all day Friday and Saturday, and I sat on the edge of my seat for every single one. This is what a typical thesis defense looks like here:

Each day's presenters set up sections of the graduate gallery with their work. There was an area of seating with a screen and a podium, and after a 10-15 minute presentation, we would all troop into the gallery to hear what the critics had to say. This year the critics were Alicia Cheng, David Reinfurt, and Alice Twemlow, and they each had insightful and constructive things to say.

Up next is setting up for the big show encompassing all of the MFA graduates. It opens tomorrow night at the Rhode Island Convention Center, and I can say from experience that it is mind-blowing to see the work of 400+ artists and designers in one place.

I spent most of my Sunday desperately trying to get some work done, but kept myself entertained by finding excellent podcasts and YouTube videos to stream in a little window on the corner of my monitor. The best one by far was from a BBC Series called The Machine that Made Us, hosted by British television Stephen Fry. In the show Mr. Fry sheds light on the invention of movable type by following the construction of a working replica of Gutenberg's press, as well as travelling across Europe to learn how to cast type and make paper. The series lasts about an hour, and I enjoyed seeing the process in action.

Having spent a lot of my first semester here at RISD studying Mr. Gutenberg's series of innovations (G developed not only a printing press, but a new lead alloy, a formula for ink, as well as an entirely new casting process), I particularly enjoyed watching Fry actually carve his own punch of a blackletter 'e', strike it into a copper matrix, and then cast several pieces of lead type that would eventually be used on the replica press. I spent a lot of time trying to find images of this process for a research book, so I was amazed to have such a detailed video fall in my lap!

The real shock came, however, as I started up the first video... lo and behold! Mr. Fry's is a face I knew well — for uttering the very line quoted in my last blog entry, no less! — as the endearingly clueless Mr. Mybug in BBCs miniseries of Cold Comfort Farm.

It was funny to reconcile the bumbling, hopelessly egocentric Mybug, whose life's amibition is to prove that Branwell Bronte wrote Wuthering Heights, with the charismatic TV host geeking out over movable type.

I woke up this morning with this line stuck in my head. I could recite exactly how it was said, and with the proper accent, but could not remember which movie it came from. This happens to me a lot, although usually with pieces of movie scores instead of actual lines. I will find myself humming the theme to a movie, and once I realize what my subconscious has served up for me, I hunt up the dvd and watch it until I can locate the location in the score where I was humming.

Thankfully, stray movie lines are much easier to type into Google than randomly hummed melodies (although there's something for that, too), and a quickly typed search on my dad's Palm Pilot revealed the answer in one try: the line is from Cold Comfort Farm, declared by the utterly clueless Mr. Myberg as he arrives uninvited to Elfine's wedding.

Today, however, this line is completely appropriate. It IS a marvelous day for a wedding! A truly PHPC wedding, in fact, between two people I have known since one fateful Mo Ranch Junior High Celebration back in middle school. Zack and Beth are getting married this afternoon, and I think the entire church is going to be packed like sardines in the sanctuary to watch the event! I can't wait. :)

Happy Valentine's Day! I did actually print these in our type shop, but then was too busy to put them together and actually mail them to anyone. Its an accordion book with some images from my black and white photography class..

Enjoy! :)

Cover:

Inside (scroll to see it all!) :

What do you think?

Its our new mascot. I think he's rather dashing!

Welcome to the world, Charlotte!

"And when I'm 53, I mean to write a novel as good as Persuasion, but with a modern setting."
- Flora Poste, Cold Comfort Farm

This summer I have begun to make good on a long-held goal of mine: to read the complete works of Jane Austen. I got my hands on a collection of six of her best known novels through my participation in a friend's project last semester. I was told to go to my local Salvation Army and buy a few objects without any premeditated purpose. In my case, I found a red t-shirt with white silkscreened hearts on it, the aforementioned Jane Austen book, and a package of those little yellow plastic corn-on-the-cob skewers. I brought these items back to my friend Meg, where she photographed them as part of a portrait series. I never did get reimbursed, but I wear the t-shirt all the time, and I have kept the book sitting on my coffee table in the hopes that I would pick it up.

And there — with the exception of a brief trip in a moving box — it sat, unopened, until a few weeks ago. I have started work on a freelance book design project, and have seized upon Jane Austen as a welcome antidote to almost 300 pages of gleefully detailed accounts of the famine, social unrest, and labor camp system of Stalin-era Russia.

So far I have finished Pride & Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion. Sheer will kept me reading through the first few chapters of Pride & Prejudice, but it got more enjoyable once I managed to stop hearing Jennifer Ehle's voice in my head. For that reason I have enjoyed Persuasion the most simple because I could enjoy it with a clean palette. We'll see how the others go.

The excitement of the Deathly Hallows is behind me, although I can tell you that most of the weekend was spent glued to my couch reading (and re-reading). I guess I was anticipating a very intense book, something like all the final chapters of all the other books combined into one whopping grand finale. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were quiet stretches mingled in amongst the action. And sometimes one of the characters would do something so perfectly right, so quintessentially them, that I found myself laughing even when what was happening was unquestionably sad.

In these moments I was most conscious of how brilliant Jo Rowling was (is!) at creating this world for us to enjoy. And only after knowing how it ends can I appreciate the mastery of control she maintained — layers upon layers of detail, over ten years, across seven books — so that a single fragment of any book could be recalled and influence how it all turns out.

Some of my predictions came true, and some of them didn't. I also felt like the book's epilogue opened up the door for continuation of the story, or at the very least provided fodder for a lifetime of bad Potter fanfic. Rowling has hinted at writing an Encyclopedia as a companion to the Hogwarts world, where she would tell us all of that background information that hasn't been revealed. In the meantime she has also been much more forthcoming in her interviews since the final book was published, so I can only hope some of my lingering questions will be answered there.

The benefits of living across the street from a really wonderful independent bookstore (two wonderful independent bookstores, actually!) is that you can stroll across the street in your pajamas at five to midnight, pick up your brand spankin' new copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and be home by a quarter after. There were easily over a hundred people crammed into the place, attempting to sort themselves into some sort of order while we waited in line. It didn't take long - as I made it to the back of the store I heard a loud cheering and saw several carts of tagged preorders being wheeled out. I got #154:

Is it strange that I am a little afraid to open it? I had all these plans of spending an indulgent night reading the thing from cover to cover, but I'm also not wanting it to end. Regardless of when I start, I don't plan to resurface until at least Sunday.

Since I have only handful of hours left, I feel like I should record my predictions for tomorrow's book, albeit in shamefully borrowed format. I preordered by book several weeks ago, and will be picking it up at the store's midnight release party. I can't wait! I think I'm going to need a steaming cup of coffee and a box of Kleenex with me the entire time.

Who will die? I think Voldemort will die, and Snape, and sadly, Hagrid*. I'm up in the air about Harry. I suspect that a lot of the book will deal with that grey area in between the living and the dead inhabited by spirits and ghosts and all those headmaster portraits that still seem very much alive. Perhaps Harry, in his search for Voldemort and his family, will even spend time in both realms. Dumbledore said on a number of occasions that there were worse things in the world than death, and that Harry was superior to Voldemort in his ability to love. Can Harry defeat Voldemort by sparing him somehow?

Will Harry return to Hogwarts?
Yes! Perhaps not as a normal student, but its too much of a magical stronghold for him not to go back.

To what does "Deathly Hallows" refer?
The argument has been made that hallows are the Horcruxes, especially since one of the non-English book titles translates as Relics of Death. I hope the place behind the veil where Sirius disappeared in Book 5. I'd like to see whats back there. We also still have to learn whats so important about Harry having Lily's eyes that Rowling mentions it in almost every book so far, and I think it has something to do with this.

Is Snape good/bad/neither?
Snape is seriously messed up, and would benefit from being put out of his miserable existence in this book. But I don't think he betrayed Dumbledore in the way we were led to believe. I've heard theories that he's a sort of free agent who is working towards his own ends while playing both sides, which wouldn't surprise me.

* A wild conspiracy theory I read earlier today: The case has been made—along with drawing comparisons between the entire series and Egyptian mythology of Horus—that Harry's journey is a metaphor for the alchemy of the Philosophers stone with its three elements represented by black, white and red. He's already seen two of his most influential father-figures (Sirius Black and then Albus, latin for white, Dumbledore) fall defending him, and in order for him to reach his own immortality/enlightenment/destiny he must also lose red: Rubeus Hagrid. I stil don't know if that means Harry lives or dies, but its a fascinating theory. Interestingly, if you look at Mary Gran Pre's illustration on the back of the US hardcover, you'll see a snake that is equal parts black, white, and red.

Well, my semester is over, process books are done, goodbyes have been said. Now I'm home in Dallas for a blissful two weeks of doing whatever I want. So far that has meant reading magazines, getting a pedicure, catching up on blogs, and eating an awesome amount of food. Oh, and getting 10+ hours of sleep a night, as well as an afternoon nap.

Its been abnormally rainy and cool here for June, and I went out yesterday morning and took the first of what I am sure will be a ton of pictures:

It is a beautiful and sunny Easter Sunday here in Providence, but I am sitting here quite homesick for the beautiful and sunny Easter festivities that are going on in Dallas. I listened to services from PHPC over the internet this morning, wishing I had flown home and could be sitting there listening to Blair and Elizabeth in person. My family is gathering for a large dinner at The Homestead right now, and for once it is truly cold enough for my dad to build a fire without having to turn the air conditioning on! My aunt Ann and cousins Emma and Hannah are in town, and my soon-to-be uncle Jim's children are also joining us for the first time, and I wish I could be spending this afternoon with them.

Listening to Dr Monie talk this morning about joy and rebirth, it struck me that I have often measured the time in my life by Easters (and my birthday, which often falls in or near Lent) instead of by the calendar year. It is the New Years Day of the religious world, and while I have not been a part of that world lately, somehow that part has stuck.

This has been a year of great highs and great lows for me. It saw a change in jobs, in cities, and the start of a challenging new graduate program. I watched my oldest friend walk down the aisle and start an exciting phase in her life, but also saw the end of my own long-term relationship. I sat with my friends as one of our own buried her father, and yet learned that night she was expecting her first child. I have a collection of friends, both new and old, who have been there for me in the last few months, and who have been inexplicably patient with me despite my repeated failures to return emails and phone calls. I have worked harder, slept less, and pushed myself more in the last seven months of my life than at any other time, but I have been rewarded with a confidence, an awareness, and a body of work I never thought I could achieve.

It has truly been an amazing year, both in the commonly intended meaning of the word, "astounding, astonishing, wonderful, great beyond expectation," but also the rarely used, darker connotations of "causing distraction, consternation, confusion, dismay; stupefying, terrifying, dreadful."

I don't think I can survive many years like this in a row, but I'm very thankful for the one I've had. :)

And, since I have been reminiscing about Easter and church today, I feel I should briefly resurrect (pun intented) an old habit of ending my blog entries like this:

Ruach, Namaste, Love,
Katy.

The Chinese New Year, that is. 2007 is the year of the Pig, and you can get your horoscope in all sorts of places on the Internets today.

Anyone familiar with my own special blend of stubborness (ahem, Dad) will not be surprised that I was born in the year of the Goat:

Excellent!

Yesterday afternoon, while sitting down to finish up a book I've been reading, I happened to glance outside. What should I see, but a squirrel carrying an entire slice of pepperoni pizza up the side of my neighbor's tree??

I just don't know that Tufte can compete with that.

Well, in a shocking turn of events, we got almost zilch for snow last night. It turned to rain by mid-morning, and maybe an inch of slush accumulated on the ground, all of which is supposedly going to freeze into one solid block of ice overnight. Fun!

This Valentine's Day I spent the day with my new boyfriend, TurboTax, and I have dinner plans with my good friend FAFSA. I have funny associations in my head between this day and blizzards, since the two always seemed to coincide the last few years I was in Virginia.. Since FAFSAs are due to RISD by Feb 15, I guess it'll be a trifecta of taxes, valentines, and blizzards for the next two years!

It seems we're going to finally get our first real snowfall of the year tonight, and Providencians are unusually frantic about it. Cancelled events, crowded grocery stores, and breathless weather predictions from the local media:

NEAR-BLIZZARD CONDITIONS WILL BE POSSIBLE WEDNESDAY EVENING AS THE WINDS INCREASE AND HEAVY SNOW BANDING POSSIBLY DEVELOPS. THE SNOW WILL END BY LATER WEDNESDAY NIGHT. BOTH THE MORNING AND EVENING COMMUTES ON WEDNESDAY ARE EXPECTED TO BE TREACHEROUS.

You'd think we were getting three feet of snow, when all thats predicted is 2-5! My mom was in town this past weekend, so its a good thing she left Monday so that her travel wasn't affected by the incoming storm. Forecasters predicted last week would be the coldest of the entire year, with highs barely topping the 20s. I was impressed at how easily she adapted to the New England chill, especially after getting some particularly awesome shearling boots. Good work, mom!

This week is a break for me - Wintersession classes ended today, and spring semester gets underway next Monday - and I am spending it finishing up a project at my new workstudy job. By the end of today I will have personally touched every single public (and not so public) page of www.risd.edu as part of a school-wide documentation effort. Not the most glamorous of vacation activities, but it pays the bills. :)

Trying to push past my reluctance to post these days with a little meme I picked up from Allsorts. Basically you list some strange things about yourself for the purpose of general public amusement. I'll go for five:

1. I can only eat M&Ms once they are sorted by color. Then I eat one of each color in a round robin style, making sure that the number of each color remains in balance with the others.
2. When I was a kid I had a twin fascination with archeology and dentistry. I would practice my future career(s) by scavenging rocks from the backyard and then delicately cleaning them in my room.
3. I was also a champion maker of mud pies. Except I added yellow and green leaves, red berries, and grass from the backyard and called it mud taco salad.
4. People regularly referred to me as Skippy in elementary school because I was always skipping down the hallways.
5. My current favorite snack: my tiniest Nigella Lawson measuring cup filled with a combination of pine nuts and semisweet chocolate chips.

I'm taking advantage of a rare lull in the activity here to give my blog some much-needed attention. I finished up my classes at around 6 this afternoon, and I have spent the entire evening doing everything non-school related. All right, I did cheat and do some reading for my seminar class (an essay called Think/Classify by Georges Perec - I am supposed to be reading another book by Perec for a book club this weekend, but thats doubtful), but for the most part its been an evening of homemade fajitas, tv, laundry, and a cold Killians Irish Red.

I've been working on lots of interesting stuff lately. Mixing neutral primary, secondary, and tertiary colors with gouache and then matching them on my inkjet printer - I am a co-owner of a fancy new wide format Canon printer that uses a cool eight-ink system. Designing a book cover for a fictional Department of Labor document. Creating a photographic tour of my studio (which is up on flickr, in rough form). 10 1x2 inch slides with compositions inspired from the movie Il Conformista.

Just this morning I finished a project known across campus as The 500 - 500 one-inch thumbnail sketches in a week, all based on a small wooden cube and an s-hook, rendered in black ink. Once my camera is charged back up, I definitely want to document that one - its truly an exercise in process and pushing past creative block, especially when you get to your 200th drawing and think you have no more ideas left.

I'm very rarely away from my work these days. I'm in studio or class by 8:30, and I mostly get home after midnight, even on weekends. I have dreams of typography, of the 500, and of concept sketches for Form+Communication assignments. In addition to my studio at RISD, I have a tabletop photography setup in my basement, and anything in between is fair game when it comes to photography projects. (Just the other night I had Adam working as my assistant as I tried to photograph water beading up on my car's windshield.) My main academic building has an art supply store, a commissary (like Entropy @ CMU), and a coffee shop all on the main floor, which means I don't really ever have to leave it!

This morning I went to a lecture on freelance writing and the design media. I was interested in it primarily because Grace Bonney - she's the force behind design*sponge, in addition to doing freelance design writing for magazines - was on the panel. I sat in the back finishing my 500, but enjoyed it nonetheless.

When I worked at Network Solutions, I would sometimes have entire dreams where I wrote html on a color-coded screen. Last night, I had a dream where I traced a Futura Medium Condensed capital 'A' several times onto tracing paper and created compositions out of it. The transition is complete.

It is because of her that perfectly nice photos like this are just not good enough:

Improved:

Most of the time I am firmly in the subtle photographic enhancement camp, but in this case I did actually replace my closed eyes with new and improved (and open) ones from another picture. And I removed that dude sitting behind us. Its still not as bad as being photoshopped out of a family portrait so that my brother could have head shots for his college applications.

The moving company came in today and packed up all of our stuff. It's anticlimactic, really. You spend all this time frantically getting ready, and then spend eight hours sitting around doing relatively nothing while other people pack your stuff. Eight hours and 90 boxes later, we were all set.

Tomorrow another wave of movers will invade our home and put all of our stuff into the moving truck. Then we'll hop a ride to Baltimore with a friend, stay overnight in an airport hotel, and then jet down to Dallas for Laura and Scott's wedding. We'll then jet up to Philly for the formerly-secret-but-now-revealed birthday party for Elizabeth. Then we'll hop a train up to Providence and, God willing, be reunited with perfectly intact cars and belongings. Who knew we were such jet setters?

In preparation for this move, I have been collecting and archiving a lot of photo CDs that found their way into the nooks and crannies of my home. I will to post a few of my favorites over the next few days!

Today is my last day at the office. Its been sad and surreal this past week - cleaning out my desk, saying goodbye, handing off projects and documentation. I'm going to miss my team, most especially, but also those day-to-day interactions with everyone. When you've spent every day with the same people for four years, even saying good morning to the front desk guy can take on poignancy when you realize its the last time you'll ever do it. On Wednesday the Web team took me out to lunch as a goodbye present, and at the end of the day we all went outside to take one last picture together. It felt like the end of summer camp!

My mom suggested planning a nice dinner out this evening so that I'd have something fun at the end of an otherwise depressing day. So thats what we're doing! No idea where, yet, but they'd better have wine. ;)

I flew by stealth to Dallas yesterday morning in order to surprise Laura and Scott. A lunch of the PHPC gang was planned in lieu of a shower, and so Judy and Ellen conspired with me to come join in the fun. Ellen and I, without intending it, ended up sitting one seat away from each other on the same flight, so we were able to ride in to El Fenix (where else?) together. Our group consisted of Dr. Bill, Judy, Steve, Laura, Scott, Ellen, Margaret, and me. It was really fantastic to sit down with all of them again and reminisce.

Afterwards Ellen and I scoured the swanky new Northpark Mall for silver shoes to go with our bridesmaid dress, courtesy of Scott. :) And of course a homecoming wouldn't be complete without a dinner at Angelo's with my family.

Today is a little more loosely scheduled, although the idea of a breakfast excursion to IKEA has been floated. Tonight the larger Harris contingent is descending upon Buca di Beppo to see each other - I'm just glad I could be here for this one!

I didn't bring any form of camera on this trip, which feels a bit odd but also freeing. I'm here to just enjoy.

I got my upper TMJ appliance fitted on Monday, so now I have great hunks of plastic and metal in all corners of my mouth. Almost nothing is viewable when I talk or smile, but I am having flashbacks to my early days with braces. The appliances do noticeably affect my speech, however, and I have never been more conscious of how awkward and slurred my words come out. The wires of the upper appliance keep my tongue from hitting my front palette, so words with sounds like "sh" come out all mushy. Hopefully by the start of school I will be able to avoid letting something like "Hello, Award-Winning Dethign Profethor, nische to meet you!" escape my metal-bound mouth.

Yeehah! It feels like Texas..

This Independence Day morning I was inspired, for some reason, to make myself a mix cd*. I've been enjoying it all day, and maybe some of you will enjoy it too. God bless America, and God bless iTunes. :)

Mr. Blue Sky - Electric Light Orchestra
Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes
Float On - Modest Mouse
Chosen One - The Concretes
Another Travelin' Song - Bright Eyes
Happiness - The Weepies
Starry Eyed Surprise - Paul Oakenfold
Take It Easy (Love Nothing) - Bright Eyes
You Can't Hurry Love - The Concretes
Summer's Gone - Aberfeldy

*I apologize in advance to those of you I know will lament my excessive patronage of The bands. ;)

We got back from Providence Sunday afternoon, but unfortunately we returned apartment-less. We looked at tons of places, but everything in a good location was pretty run down or noisy, and everything that was quiet and well maintained was situated in less-than-ideal locations. It was frustrating, but we did end up learning a lot more about the character of the various neighborhoods. I guess one or both of us will head back up in a few weeks and try our luck again.

Tomorrow I head under the knife to have my wisdom teeth removed - a task I thought I had outlived until my TMJ issues cropped up. For some reason only two of my wisdom teeth ever materialized - on the top right and the bottom left - and I anticipate some really bizarre diagonal swelling over the next few days. Nothing a few quality pain killers and a steady supply of Wendy's frosties can't handle! Still, it pretty much wipes out my entire weekend.

I have also spent my week trying to figure out my own immunization history so that I can meet all of Rhode Island's vaccination requirements for incoming students. Who knew this was such a difficult task?! I've been at my doctors office every day this week - getting shots, drawing blood, dropping off forms, picking up forms - until I felt like I could drive the mile between by house and the hospital in my sleep. At least now I have a recent tetanus booster to protect me as I play - er, work - in the various shops across campus.

Yesterday I received the much-awaited packet of information on the RISD Laptop Program. I get a shiny new Apple 15" Powerbook Pro, which comes seriously loaded with software: Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Font Folio (you mean I am required to buy 2,200+ fonts for school?? Excellent.) and the Macromedia Studio. Woohoo! They open up orders tomorrow, and it is probably the one thing I will do before heading to surgery. :)

I've been back a week now, after spending a week in Dallas hanging out with my family. I went up on Memorial Day weekend, and stayed until the following Saturday. It was such a nice vacation! I liked not feeling like I had to cram tons of activities into my typical one weekend trip, and I got to catch up with a ton of my extended family too.

First and foremost, my house had been infected with a crazy case of Maverick fever. I've never watched or talked so much basketball in my life! Every morning the Dallas Morning News would have huge, blown up pictures of Dirk Nowitzki (who is, I have to say, a really scary looking man) with dramatic 60-point headlines like "50!" (when they won) and "Never mind" (when they lost). This pride and excitement for a basketball team is a relatively new sensation for longtime Dallasites, a situation underscored at work when a coworker admitted he'd never even heard of a team called the Mavericks. But, for the sake of my dad and brother, I am rooting for them in the playoffs this week. :)

I went down to Dallas with a project already planned - because what is a vacation without a project? I wanted to archive all of my family's old vhs and hi8 videos onto DVD, and I had bought a dvd recorder online in preparation. Things didn't quite go as smoothly as I would like, but, four trips to Best Buy later, we had a decent vhs capturing setup. I spent the whole week dubbing home movies, church musicals, graduation videos, and tapes from our summers at Skyline. It was fun watching home movies, and my inner librarian had a blast sorting and archiving everything.

Another project for the week was spiffing up the courtyard on the east side of our house. On the morning of Memorial Day we all trekked down to the Dallas Farmers Market, where there is a whole street just filled with plants from local growers. I wish I had such a resource here! We filled the Explorer with all sorts of azalea bushes and hanging baskets and flats of annuals, and then spent most of Monday outside planting.

Monday night we had a lovely dinner with the whole big family at Macaroni Grill, minus Alison and Eric and Tatum. But I got my Tatum fix a day later at lunch with my mom, aunt Carol, Alison and Tatum. We ate at local Mexican food restaurant who's claim to fame is that the owner invented the frozen margarita machine. A generation of college students on spring break thanks him.

My grandparents came into town Wednesday, and although Jeff had started his summer semester, and my dad had to go back to work, Mom and I had fun touring the Arboretum and going over my granddad's home movies. We even endured a little "adventure" while eating breakfast at La Madeleine, where we were pooped on - twice - by pigeons. Apparently its good luck when this happens, but I'm reserving judgment. Of course we had to cap a visit from Grandad and Meemaw with a big dinner at Angelo's, which was, as usual, delicious.

Jeff also turned 25 while I was in Dallas. With all of those home videos lying around, we just had to drag out some of our favorites from over the years to torment him. My favorite is from the Christmas where he got a big, red plastic guitar. He spent the whole Christmas day perfecting his rock and roll boogie, and my dad spent his preserving this embarrassment for future generations. I'll have to put that one online for all to enjoy at some point!

Our last bit of excitement came later in the week, when my mom happened to look out the front window one morning and notice 4 Channel 11 News trucks in our front yard. Turns out they'd been broadcasting the news from our front lawn since 5:30 that morning, and none of us had noticed! We tuned in only to see that the one distinguishing feature of house visible in the broadcast was the pile of leaves that hadn't been raked up yet. Oh well. ;)

Today is a day for celebrations:

• Happy Birthday to my talented and gorgeous Mom, who is looking really awesome for 29. ;)
• Our very own Cris graduated from her masters program at Harvard today. Congratulations, Cris!
• Robin and Jason welcomed their son Keegan into the world at 8am this morning. Dad has already claimed that he was born with a mohawk, flashing a metal sign. :)

The doorbell rang a few minutes ago, and I got up from geeking out over Quicken to walk up the stairs and answer it. A guy was walking down the street, ringing doorbells and putting flyers on each doorstep. He heard me open my door, and asked if I was the homeowner of our townhouse. When I answered no, he replied, "Well, if you could just give that flyer to your mom or dad, they might be interested in our discount."

Tell my mom or dad?! Right after I write my rent check, sip my glass of wine, and consolidate my student loans.

AJ. Ad-man. Adam bin Baldwin. Candy fiend. Champion nap-taker. Lover of pajama pants. Geek among geeks. Warcraft addict. Best Boyfriend Ever. Happy Birthday. :)

• Big news
• Flowers from Adam
  
• Photo montage!
• Lunch at Anita's with the Web Team
• Pile of loot from my Amazon wishlist (thanks Mom!)
• Dinner at Bonefish with Adam and Go
• A trip to Media
• A morning at Longwood Gardens (see more photos)
  
• A quiet Sunday evening at home. :)
  

Many thanks to everyone for all the emails and comments and phone calls - its awesome to be able to share my excitement with so many people! :) Its finally beginning to feel real for me, even though I haven't received my "official" letter from the admissions office yet. I've told everyone at the office, and this weekend I started a massive financial projection spreadsheet that would make my Dad proud. I don't know if it rivals the infamous Apartment Matrix, but I have three years to perfect it.

Since I really haven't written much about it (jinxes, you know), this all started back in November, when I flew up to RISD for an info session and made the decision that this would be the year I applied. From that point until the end of January, my only goal in life was to prepare my portfolio. The portfolio is both the best and worst part of applying for a design program: on the one hand, there is no studying, no prep courses, and no test to take; on the other hand, you have absolutely no frame of reference for how you stack up against your peers. Its completely subjective, and working for months and months towards a nebulous goal without any boundary or reference point completely wears you down, physically and creatively.

But ultimately I finished, and raced it off to the post office at the absolute last minute (typical Katy style). Fast forward to two weeks ago, when I got an email from the department head. RISD narrows the initial applicant field down to a smaller group (30 if I remember correctly from the info session) and then asks them all to come up for an interview on campus. So Adam and I hopped on a flight up to Providence!

There were some stressful moments - losing my luggage and racing frantically to purchase new clothes, practicing tough interview questions with Adam, last-minute internet research in the hotel Starbucks - but ultimately I had a great interview and left feeling more confident that it was a place I could thrive in. I've never to date had a leisurely, planned-in-advance trip to Providence, but I do hope I'll get one eventually!

Last week I got another email, with the excellent news that I was accepted into the program - a three-year MFA program in Graphic Design. I'll spend my first year taking core design classes like typography and color theory, and then spend two years in graduate studios working towards a thesis.

So if you've ever wanted to travel to New England, now's your chance - I hope to have lots of visitors. :)

I got in.

Happy Birthday, Jason! Sorry J, I just couldn't resist using this picture. Its all in love. ;)

...for everyone's favorite writer, friend, and all around cool person..

Happy Birthday, Julie! :)

..as Lizzi takes the Bar today.. GO LIZZI!!

I'm going to try and recap all the wild and wonderful things that have been going on with me lately. Hopefully this will get me back in the habit of posting here! I'm going to try and keep this post on the top so that as I add new stuff it won't get lost.

So, without further ado..

Things I've done since last posting...

• Won big at the company holiday party


• Hosted a fondue dinner


• Traveled home for Christmas


• Traveled to Media for Christmas


• Rang in the New Year


• Indulged my stomach - and my wallet - at DC Restaurant Week


• Channeled my inner twelve year old


• Applied to graduate school

After a lazy Christmas morning in Dallas, Adam and I hopped on a plane for Philadelphia to see his family. Flying on the actual day itself turned out to be pretty easy - no crowds, no lines, and most people were in pretty good moods! Plus we each had a pile of newly-gifted books and magazines to read during the flight. :)

Sunday night we had dinner at Adam's house and settled in to watch Sky High with Elizabeth and Aaron. The next day we had lunch with Jim and Wendy and Elizabeth at PF Changs, and got to hear all about the cruise they went on over Christmas. It only increased my wish to go on a cruise some day. Monday night we had a delicious Christmas dinner back at Adam's house, and then opened presents! Janice painted us a gorgeous holiday bowl, and we were showered with movie and dinner gift certificates - we are going to dine in style for a while. :)

On Tuesday we were up (relatively) early to make the short trek down to Wilmington, DE, to catch the Amtrak train back to DC. Elizabeth came with us because she was spending New Years with cousins in West Virginia. We ran the full gamut of land-based travel that day - car to Amtrak to Metro to taxi to home - and were pretty wiped out afterwards. About all I could handle was watching Austin Powers before I crashed!

All in all our holiday vacation was exactly what we'd hoped it would be - all travel went smoothly, all loved ones in good health. Plus, one unanticipated upside to spending holidays so far away is that Christmas lasts a whole lot longer, with packages of presents trickling back from all over the country for weeks! :)

Its been fourever (da dum dum ch!) since I posted, so I figured what better way to break the ice than a cheezy meme! I promise I am working on actually having real things to write about here.

Four jobs I've had:
Hostess at Cantina Laredo
Language Learning Center computer lab assistant
Pulling and packing orders for a childrens clothing manufacturer
CMU Information Desk attendant

Four movies I can watch over and over: (Adam can attest to the fact that there are way more than four movies that fall into this category, 'cause he's had to watch them all)
Cold Comfort Farm
Love Actually
Pride & Prejudice
My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Four places I have lived:
Dallas, TX
London, UK
Pittsburgh, PA
Fairfax, VA

Four television shows I love to watch:
Project Runway
Debbie Travis' Facelift
Modern Marvels Engineering Disasters
City Gardener

Four places I have been on vacation:
Telluride, CO
Tybee Island/Savannah, GA
San Francisco, CA
Winston-Salem, NC

Four of my favorite dishes:
Meatloaf
Grilled salmon
Filet Mignon
Brisket

Four websites I visit daily:
Flickr
Apartment Therapy
Lifehacker
Design*Sponge

Four places I would rather be right now:
Outside
My studio
Dallas
London

Four bloggers I am tagging:
Twilight Invasion
writersbloc
Teacher. Wordsmith. Madman.
Allsorts

Maybe its the impending snowfall we're expecting tomorrow, or the Christmas music I've been selecting for this year's mix, or my latest silkscreening project, but this weekend I have been in an extra Christmas-y frame of mind. Here are a few spots to indulge your cravings for all-you-can-stand holiday imagery:

Allsorts
My mom is posting oodles of pictures of the decorations at the Homestead. Its making me nostalgic!

Vintage Christmas pool on Flickr
These people make me look like Scrooge.

Wee Wonderfuls (more on Flickr)

my mailman, for bringing me such an awesome pile of goodies yesterday:

Many thanks to to all of you that helped me out with my latest company contest! Our combined efforts have paid off, and I (as well as Jason and Soma) am the proud owner of a new iPod Nano. :)

This weekend, in preparation for a visit from my (Great) Aunt Virginia and her husband Mark, Adam and I did a lot of cleaning. Real cleaning, too - vacuuming and dusting and organising of random corners filled with stuff. I only saw one closet where something had been stashed away in desperation, which is pretty good for me!

Ultimately their visit was cut short by time and health and the need for sleep, but it was great to see them even for a short bit. We gave them the grand tour of the (sparkling clean) place, talked a bit about holiday plans, and then they were off! I envied them their drive out the Dulles Greenway and north through Leesburg and into Maryland - the scenery is gorgeous out there, and I'm sure the leaves were starting to turn.

Speaking of leaves, fall on us with a vengeance. After the summer drought left everything parched, last week was a solid block of drizzle and rain. The temperatures are dropping, leaves are starting to fall, and pumpkins are cropping up in doorways. I put a pot on the stove with mulling spices this weekend because it just seemed to fit with the weather! I received the bulbs I ordered earlier this summer from Brecks, which definitely tells me fall is here - I've got to get planting!

I'm taking advantage of the federal holiday on Monday and heading home to Dallas for a few days! I'll miss my grandparents by just a few days (the power is back on in Lake Charles - finally!) but I will get a nice weekend with the fam. We're already thinking of taking a trip down to the State Fair and enjoying the chaos. Apparently a friend of a friend has taken the blue ribbon for his homemade Mayhaw Jelly, and there's a jar from the same award-winning batch sitting at home that I hope to get to try.

In other news, everyone's favorite mountain man has finished a 2600 mile, seven month journey along the Pacific Coast Trail, from the Mexican border all the way up to Canada. The daily journal of the trek is a must read. Congratulations, Dave!

And, in conclusion, I will now post a picture of my cousin's baby Tatum. Cause she's just cute. :)

We got word this weekend from neighbors who stayed in Lake Charles through the storm - a lot of houses in the neighborhood have trees toppled onto them, but my grandparents house is fine. They just happened to have removed the one aging tree from their property a few months ago! Whew.

Its very surreal to watch places that you've spent time in get shown on the news. I've been glued to The Weather Channel tonight watching the progression of Hurricane Rita, and although the storm is thankfully weakening, its still nerve-wracking to watch. Every time they show that loop of the current path I'm sure that its going to veer slightly to the north and nail Lake Charles.

At least now I only have to worry about places and things - I called home to confirm that Grandad, Meemaw, Meemaw's children and grandchildren have all evacuated to Shreveport to wait out the storm.

On Saturday morning, for some reason, I found myself compelled to upload pictures into Flickr. Lots and lots of pictures. If you feel like spending a few minutes on memory lane, check a few of the new (old) sets out!

Trip to Virginia Beach - 2002

Visiting Laura in Philly - 2002

Picking Pumpkins with J and Cris - 2002

General Scoobiness - 2002

Jason Runs the Marine Corps Marathon - 2002

Visiting Neema in Madison - 2002

The Blizzard of '03

Cherry Blossom Festival - 2003

Easter - 2003

My car, Jenny, hit an impressive number today on the way home from work!

I'm heading off for a week of vacation on Saturday, and I couldn't be more ready! We're spending a week with all of the scoobies in Tybee Island, GA. Its only 20 minutes from Savannah, so we'll be venturing into the city to explore and take tours, I'm sure. I even read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil to get into the spirit of things! We're staying in a funky cottage on the southern end of the island:

Curiously, the weather reports for where we're staying look like this:

I'm optimistically (naively?) interpreting this to be like the weather in Florida - sunny most of the day with a small, daily shower in the afternoons. Otherwise we're going to be spending a lot of time on that covered porch.

I don't chat much about my work life here, mostly because its boring and not really fodder for entertaining blog entries. But every now and then us valued employees are given coupons and neat stuff to give away to friends and family.

So. If you weren't aware yet, my company sells hosting, and I have a few coupons to give away for 50% off your first year of hosting, which comes with a free domain (or renewal/transfer of an existing domain).

If you or anyone you know might be interested, drop me an email at katybeck (at) katybeck (dot) com and I'll send you one.

We now return to our regularly scheduled broadcast.

At long last, I am finally accepting the iTunes meme baton that writersbloc passed to me a number of weeks ago. If you get a chance, check out the other responses by Teacher. Wordsmith. Madman. and As I Please. Or join in!

Total Music Files on my Computer: 1481 Songs, 4.86 GB. Adam has 5.9 GB on the computer 2.5 feet away from mine - that counts right? :)

Last CD I bought: I don't buy full CDs all that often, but the last full album I bought was Madeleine Peyroux's Careless Love. The last few singles I bought were:

• Refuge (When its Cold Outside) - John Legend


• Tiger, My Friend - Psapp


• Starry Eyed Surprise - Paul Oakenfold


• Sprout and the Bean - Joanna Newsom


• Book of Right On - Joanna Newsom

Song playing right now: (Da Le) Yaleo - Santana - Supernaturale

Songs that I listen to a lot:

• Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes


• Don't Wait Too Long - Madeleine Peyroux


• Take My Hand - Dido


• Accidentally In Love - Counting Crows


• The Lucky One - Alison Krauss & Union Station


• Wildflowers - Tom Petty


• Homeward Bound (Live) - Willie Nelson With Paul Simon

Songs that evoke a lot for me:

• Somewhere Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World - Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole


• The Front Porch Song (Live) - Robert Earl Keen


• God Only Knows - The Beach Boys


• When You Come Back Down - Nickel Creek


• To a Wild Pony - Jim Morgan

Adam and I spent last night at Wolf Trap Park, enjoying an outdoor concert featuring Joss Stone and John Legend. At first we were worried that hot, muggy weather would keep us from enjoying the performance, but it turned out to be a really nice evening! I had never heard John Legend's music before, but he sold me with this concert - he had a commanding stage presence and a beautiful voice. I'm definitely checking him out on iTunes!

Joss Stone also had considerable stage presence and an astounding voice, but it becomes obvious very quickly that she is really, really young. She hopped, skipped, and giggled around the stage until I wanted to tie her to the microphone stand just to give my eyes a rest. She often had to ask her band what song she was supposed to sing next, and at one point she abruptly ran off stage, to the obvious confusion of her band, instructing them to "play something pretty.. I'll be back in a tic!" while we all sat there wondering what was going on.

But even these things couldn't distract from the fact that the girl can SING, and it was hard not to get swept up in her energy and passion for the music. All in all, a really great night!

Thanks, Adam (who is now fully recovered), for my awesome birthday present. :)

Friday morning found me taking care of a sick boyfriend instead of going to work. So I hopped over the grocery store to buy apple juice and lots of bland crackers for my invalid, and then settled in for an unexpectedly low-key Friday.

I added some new pictures of Tucker to the little memory gallery I've been keeping. My favorites are these three, titled "Give me the BBQ!", "Give me the pie!", and "Give me the whipped cream!" respectively. Pretty much sums her up, I think. :)

I took some pictures of the Alamo Fire Bluebonnets that I grew from the seeds I was given at Christmas. I've grown up seeing bluebonnets everywhere on roadsides and fields, but until this summer I've never really gotten up close to them. They smell amazing!

I also keep a photoset of stuff going on in my garden here.

Happy Birthday to the coolest Mom a girl can have! :)

I'll miss you, Tucker.

Well, not really. But it *is* my head inside a really, really big magnet. (I believe this is a birdseye view of a slice of my head, with the forehead at the bottom) I had my first experience with an MRI this morning, a first step in (finally!) getting some treatment for the TMJ problems I've been having for too long now.

Getting the MRI was uncomfortable, but not scary. They stuck earplugs on me and rolled me into a big tube, but because I just needed my jaw imaged I was only halfway enclosed. I did three, three-minute images with my jaw closed, and three more images holding a stack of 16 (I counted) tongue depressors in my teeth for nine solid minutes. A nice trick for someone with a displaced jaw! Ouch.

I can sympathize with people needing to be all the way inside the