Tag Archives: books

What’s in Whitney’s Bag?

By Posted in For the hell of it Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I loathe purses. Never have I seen a purse and thought, “Oh, hey, I like that.” It’s not surprising, really; I’m hardly a trendy person. I own one dress for formal occasions, two pairs of dress slacks, and zero skirts. I like jeans, cords, and the occasional pair of shorts. My shoe collection, if you can even call it that, is one pair of dress shoes and two pairs of Toms. So it’s only fitting that the first bag I’d fall in love with is a utilitarian men’s messenger bag. When I saw it in the Fossil store in fall 2010, I almost immediately purchased it. Then I looked at the price tag. $160. What the eff?! That’s more than I’d ever even considered spending on any one non-electronic item. I left the store, a little sad, but proud of myself for not spending so much on a messenger bag. A few months passed, and my mind kept going back to this bag. Then one day in December 2010, I was back in the Fossil store, and there it still was: the bag that was tantalizing me in my dreams. I bought it, without a moment’s hesitation, and I’ve never regretted it.


I have romantic fantasies of one day passing this messenger bag down to my child as he or she goes off to college.

I thought this blog could use a lighthearted post, so I present to you: What’s in Whitney’s Bag!


I’m just an asthma inhaler away from being the nerdiest person in West Philly.

So, I have:

Obviously, my wallet, which is also Fossil. After I got robbed the first time I came to Philadelphia, I consoled myself by buying whatever wallet I wanted, even if it was stupid expensive.

California magazine, the official publication of the Cal Alumni Association; Atonement, which I have started and not finished more times than I can count – (I’m going to finish it this time, damn it!); The Russian Reference Grammar because I never get tired of studying declension and cases (ha!)

Two sets of lanyard and keys: the Penn Law lanyard is Bobby’s and has our house key on it; the Cal lanyard is mine and has the keys to my mother’s and uncle’s houses on it, along with my Cal1Card mini-light and Berkeley key chain. Have you figured out where I went to school yet?

Hand sanitizer because everything, everywhere is disgustingly gross and I always feel forever unclean; hand lotion so my obsessive-compulsive need to sanitize my hands doesn’t dry them out; Chapstick because my lips are perpetually dry; pepper spray because no way in hell I’d go anywhere without it. Funny tangent about the pepper spray: I forgot it was in my bag and got through airport security with it on my flight from California to Philly. Yeah, the TSA is really doing its job.

My driver license which entitles me to all the booze I can handle (and even the booze I can’t); my Cal1Card which is probably my favorite card in my whole wallet because, while it doesn’t get me booze, it’s a testament to my hard-earned degree; my Cal Alumni Association membership card, which you’d think would be a little less flimsy considering I paid $30 for it; my FAMSF member card, which I love because I love museums, which is obviously why I got a membership in the first place; my very poor check card; my awesome lion credit card; and the Best Buy card that financed my computer interest free for two years

Starbucks card and a coupon for a free Refresher; Refreshers are some new concoction that Starbucks was giving away for free on Friday. It wasn’t that great – I definitely wouldn’t pay for one – but hey, the coupon gets me another one for free, so I’ll take it.

There’s also my Berkeley water bottle, which I am rarely spotted without; a stray cherry Jolly Rancher from my doctor; 8 leftover stamps I had to buy just to send one letter; my iPhone and ear buds, and (out of shot) my Clipper card for BART and Zipcard for, uh, Zipping?

wmlak

By Posted in Lists Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments

How am I just now learning about this‽
I love Anna Karenina. It’s my second favorite* novel. I also love Keira Knightley from her portrayal of Elizabeth Bennett in Pride & Prejudice. I haven’t been this excited about a movie since Deathly Hallows, Pt. II.
*Technically, it’s #9 because Harry Potter >; everything else, but I usually omit that because, duh.

Whitney’s 14 Favorite Books
(Because She Just Couldn’t Narrow It Down to Ten)

14. A Separate Peace, John Knowles
13. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
12. Maus, Art Spiegelman
11. The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
10. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, Alison Bechdel
9. Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut
8. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
7. Pnin, Vladimir Nabokov
6. The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
5. The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
4. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
3. A Man Without a Country, Kurt Vonnegut
2. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
1. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

I was going to write the reasons I love each of these novels, but then I realized that you presumably have better things to do than spend an hour reading through effusive explanations.

PS: Congratulations to my uncle, aunt, and cousin! Cousin #2 is on the way. I couldn’t be happier for them.

Did You Miss My Lists?

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Here’s a non-comprehensive list of
Things We Are Definitely Not Discussing:

1. How I went in for a trim and came out with a quarter of my hair missing. I’ve grown it out from chin-length for nearly four years and this dude hacks off a year’s progress in 20 minutes. B. says I look like Lara Croft now, which makes him the third person to say I resemble Angelina Jolie. (Feel free to discuss that last part.)

This is a “before” picture. I’m too pissed to take an “after” picture.

2. My average quantitative reasoning score on the GRE. That word right there is a fighting word.

3. The case. If you don’t know what this means, I’m delighted. If you do know what this means, then you should really shut up about it. If I wanted to talk about it, I would bring it up. You bringing it up is just bad manners.

4. How long it’s been since I last went to a yoga class. 

Now here’s a non-comprehensive list of
Things We Should Totally Talk About:

1. My punishment for ending a statement with a preposition. Lines? Grammar Sets? “The Essay of Pain and Suffering?”

2. In fifth grade, we either went to “Fun Friday” or wrote “The Essay of Pain and Suffering” depending on how “good” we were over the week. You know how many times I went to FF? Once. I basically had the essay memorized.

3. My fantastic GRE verbal reasoning score. 165/170 = 96th percentile. Or my fantastic analytical writing score. 5.5/6 = 96th percentile.

4. The Magicians by Lev Grossman. LKP gave it to me almost two years ago and I’m just now getting around to finishing it. It’s surprisingly droll if you can get over how pretentious it is. You can read my full thoughts about it on my upcoming post for The Canary Review.

Jane Eyre

By Posted in Ostensible Book Reviews, Writing Tagged , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Since my parents’ promise to me that I would get a great job if I went to college has not come to pass, I have a profusion of leisure. Right now, or rather when I’m not writing (indignant letters to a certain University demanding a refund for my degree enclosed with copies of job rejections), sleeping from midnight to noon, or killing zombies and aliens on the Xbox, I’m reading Jane Eyre.

It’s part of my goal to read half a hundred books this year, and even though I read it (purportedly) in high school, I’m inclined to read it again because of my teenage tendency to read SparkNotes rather than entire novels. Yes, I am indeed proof that you can graduate with a degree from the fourth best English program in the entire world without having read even half of the books assigned in high school, but I digress.

Anyway, I’ve read about a third of Jane Eyre, and I have a few observations I’d like to share:

1. This book makes me want to drink. Heavily. Mrs. Reed, John Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst. Jesus, these are not people whose presence I want to endure without a stiff martini.
2. There’s not enough sex. I’m youthful and progressive and, damn it, I want to read the dirty bits. I’m hoping I’ll be a little more satisfied when Jane and Rochester get together. That happens, right?
3. For someone so acclaimed for being a protofeminist, Charlotte Brontë sure spends a lot of time talking about clothes.
4. The way Brontë writes makes me think I’d be good friends with her in real life. I get the sense that she practices great restraint in writing, and was probably wont to say highly indecorous and hilarious things in conversation, which I totally appreciate in another person.
5. Surprisingly, I like Jane Eyre! I was not expecting this, as British Lit. usually causes me to fake gag while making the “vomit” sign in ASL and curse aloud, but hey, personal growth… or something.

This list offered a lot more insight about me than the book, but isn’t that kind of the point of a personal blog?