Merry (Day After) Boxing Day

I wanted to write a Christmas post, but I didn't get around to it.  So then, I was gonna write a Boxing Day post, which is the day after Christmas in cool places like Canada and the United Kingdom.  (Wikipedia link to info on Boxing Day if you're interested, since I'm too lazy to explain it to you.)  But anyway, Boxing Day was yesterday, so I guess today is the day after Boxing Day, and that's why I'm now wishing you all a Merry 'Day-After Boxing' Day   !

All I Want for Christmas is Your Two Front Teeth

I want to say something about punching you in the face and getting to keep the two teeth I knock outta you, but I can't really come up with any reason that I would do that.  I just wanted to make a clever little play on words with the title of this section, because that's what I do.  Anyway, the holidays are so interesting to me, because I love to observe people and people go nuts around the holidays.  This has been my first holiday experience as a "grown-up," and being surrounded by all the madness has been pretty entertaining as well as enlightening.  I've come to the conclusion that Christmas isn't that fun when you're an adult because you don't get toys.  Toys are so badass.  You pretty much always get what you want and then some, and toys are basically all you need when you're a kid.  Your parents feed, clothe, and house you, so what else is there?  Finding something to do with alllll your free time.  And me?  What do I want for Christmas at 23?  My student loan paid off.  An apartment to call my own.  Groceries, a new wardrobe... all pretty lame and difficult Christmas gifts to give.  

So this year, because I'm overly dramatic and because I already feel like I owe my parents too much, I asked for nothing.  My catchphrase this season was, "There's too many things I want.  So I might as well not get any of them, because it will just make me upset that I don't have them all."  Ha. What a diva.  It's all or nothing with me though.  And I want to buy my own things.  I know what I want and my wants are very specific.  I don't want to be telling my family that I want a Denali thermal jacket by North Face in bittersweet brown, women's extra small.  First of all I haven't tried it on yet, what if I like fissure green better?  Second, how much does that ruin the magic of Christmas and shit, knowing exactly what you're getting because you had to go with your mom to the store to show her exactly which one you want? 

I love getting things that are clever, that I didn't realize I wanted.  Maybe that's because that's the type of gift I love to give, though.  I would always rather give gifts than get them, which is a helluva ironic statement coming from me since I love just having things.   But I absolutely adore finding those gifts for my loved ones that they wouldn't think to get for themselves.  It's hard for people to do that for me, since I want everything and am constantly reminding myself of things that I could maybe possibly use at least once.  But !   It did happen this year!  I came home from work one day with a package from my great friend waiting for me.  I was absolutely in awe as I opened the box to find a music box that plays "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."  I had never seen a music box before, at least on its own outside of an actual jewelry box, and I sat and played it over and over and over, completely mesmerized by the whole affair.  Now that's a great gift.

Days Go By

Fuck Student Loans
a.k.a., Another Day, Another Dollar

I've reached a few milestones in the past 8 days.  The most important one (at least in terms of (K)no(w) Subject) is that I paid my first student loan payment of $265.35 !

I initially was pretty excited about this.  In fact, I came to write an entry in my blog about how I could decrease the amount I'm trying to raise through my ChipIn page .  Right now, my goal is $23,125.  However, I strolled over to my loan payment account information, only to find this waiting for me:

Zoomed in:

WTF!?!?!?!  $23,381.64?!?!?!  I distinctly remember, and have complete proof on this page, a balance of $23,125.00!!   I completely underestimated the fact that my principal balance goes up every month because it's accumulating interest.  >: /  Sooo turns out I'm not decreasing my goal, and instead I'm begging you to donate more money.  Although, I'm super stoked that I've raised $20, don't get me wrong.  But once again, you can do that here or on the sidebar to the right.  Thankssss!

...and your little dog, too

For some reason, every post-college grad goes through a phase where they want a dog really desperately.

I have no idea if that's really true.  But it sure rings true for a lot of my friends, and it definitely rings true for me.


Getting a puppy at this point in my life is pretty impractical.  As my mom is constantly reminding me, I can't even take care of myself.  I don't know what's in store for my future, I'm living with my parents for another month and a half, I don't know how to cook anything more complicated than ramen... yada yada yada.

 So guess where this is going.

Meet Toto!

Psst! I Have a Secret!

I don't know if it's still too early for me to have an inside joke with my blogger community... Especially since that's like 3 people.  Well maybe a few more now that I decided to come out of the blogging closet to my friends.  (Am I too self-deprecating for blog humor? I worry sometimes that I come off as whiny when I'm really just being sardonic.)


But here it is, just in case you get it:

::naked yoga

The Skin-ny

So I've been putting off advertising my blog on Facebook.




This is for a couple reasons.  One, I think there's a verrrry blurry line between good and bad facebook self-promotion. Two, I'm not sure if there's an unspoken thing about self-promoting multiple things, and I'd ideally like to spend my one token to promote myself as an actor, not as a blogger.

Buutttt ... I can also maybe turn my blog fan page into a Whitney fan page some day...

... Which would void the anonymity I'm sort of going with on this whole blog thing, where I can be myself but that's because nobody knows me, because I'm pretty sure there is about one person that reads my blog... (up until now, at least).  Plus there's that whole Big Brother complex I have.  And, honestly, I'm not very good at keeping up with things, so I'm afraid that once my life is more exciting I'll forget about it.  But ! At the same time, having "fans" will inspire me to keep writing, that is assuming that my facebook friends like this shit...

*&#@!@(*)%@#!(!@#,./';L<>?!@><#$@"!@$()*!@$!@$:"?/.,.;'[\\`\]`\][`.843209*@&(@*#%&@(

Wow I Suck

I'm sorry to say that I'm already hardcore sucking at being a blogger.

It's just that not much has been going on lately.  I go to work.  I come home and go to bed.  I wake up the next day to do it again.  I understand why people get so totally bored by their lives.  This cannot be what it's about.  Right?

The truth is, I haven't been my usual cheery sarcastic self lately.  And it's not because of work, because I know that my job is my job and not my life.  I suppose it's because I don't know what I'm doing with my life.  Boo hoo, right? Everyone says that - my mom still does, and she's 57 years old.  But I guess I use that phrase so loosely.  I do know what I'm doing with my life.  Right now, I'm living with my parents trying to save up money to move somewhere else so I can hopefully pursue an acting career.

I think I dislike adulthood because there's no solid goal to work towards.  "HAPPINESS."  That's my goal.  But what the eff does that mean?  It's not, "a paper on global warming," or, "get a 4.0," or even "graduate from college."  Nothing is definitive, and boy do I like definitive.  I like to have goals to work toward, not overall LIFE ones, but just smaller ones.  So you think I'd be happy knowing that I'm working toward moving out.  Not a big philosophical life goal, but a practical, next-step goal.  So why do I feel so restless?

The Wonderful Whitney, in Oz

I have a confession.

I can't BE-LIEVE I haven't mentioned my affinity for the seminal classic, The Wizard of Oz.

But seriously.  Ever since I can remember, there has been a reference to The Wizard of Oz in some way every, single day of my life.  Really.


In fact, my original idea for a blog was going to be called "Sex in the Emerald City" with the clever subtitle, "The Wonderful Whitney, in Oz."  It was gonna be really great, about me moving to New York City, a fresh-faced actor hoping to make it on Broadway or something, and it was going to work out perfectly because I was going to have three promiscuous roommates to write about, in addition to having three best gay friends there with me, (my scarecrow, tin man, and lion, of course), and honestly the only reason I'm bummed I didn't move there is because of this idea.

But alas, the references still come, and I'm glad I'm letting you know about this now, because now I have an excuse to post the more interesting references I come across.

Why Oz?  You could say that I just identify with it.  Sure, I'm a girl, being thrust into a world that I don't understand, and forced to follow a path that will hopefully, eventually, lead to Home with a capital H - because Home, after all, is a quintessential concept and not necessarily a tangible place.  But it's more than that, for some reason.  I love the Magical, the Whimsical, the Dream itself - and I fully believe that, amongst all the black and white and even grey that is the literal, physical life we lead... there truly is a place over the rainbow that's alive in color.

All My Pictures Are of the Back of My Head

For someone who is so great at technology (yeah. I am.), I'm really freaked out about it.

I mean here I am blogging, putting myself out there in a lot of ways, but in lots of ways I'm still trying to conceal my identity.

Like, I won't give you my last name.  But I'm asking you to donate money to my college fund.

I would never give you my facebook profile information.  But it probably wouldn't be that hard to find.  Plus I'm just biding my time until I'm ready to start advertising my blog on my facebook (it's really easy for me to sit here and be a geeky blogger when only like 3 people I actually know are reading it).

And, as the title of this post suggests, the whole 2 pictures I have of me on my blog (besides those that are (excellently) drawn using Paint) are of the back of my head.

Someday I'm gonna have to get over all of this if I want to have, say, an actor website.

'RED' Hot

It's that time again, time for another bitchin movie review.

This one's for Red, directed by Robert Schwentke (who most recently did The Time Traveler's Wife and Flightplan) and starring everyone.  Seriously.

I GOTTA DOLLA!

HEY HEY HEY HEY!

Well I finally took the plunge and posted the link to my blog on my Twitter.  This was really hard for me, first because I've never had a blog that was actually public, and second because I wondered what people would think, both about my writing and about the fact that I'm asking people for money.


BUT I GOT A DOLLARRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


My first buck came from none other than my friend Joe, who's an actor making it out in Chicago.  Look for big things from him, he's wonderfully talented (or at least he was back in college when I saw him four years ago in The Grapes of Wrath, so I can only assume he's freakin phenomenal now) !  Follow him on Twitter @JoeVonBokern .  Thanks so much Joe!

In honor of my rule that I haven't been following very well, I want to post a link to his fantastic blog, Playbills vs. Paying Bills, which you can visit at playbillsvspayingbills.com . He actually co-authors it with two other graduates from my college theatre program, all of whom are amazing, and each of which live in different cities: Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.  All have great stories and (especially) information for actors looking to try their luck in one of the big U.S. cities.  Check them out!

Are You Afraid of the Dark? I'm the Opposite. When I'm Aswake.

Every once in a while, I wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air and focus on a spot at the end of the bed, where I see something that I can't really make out due to the fact that I'm most likely still asleep.  And it's dark.  But I immediately become afraid of it, because I already know what it is...

That's right.  It's a spider.  And despite the fact that I'm a grown up, I'm one of those 98% of women who are deathly terrified of spiders.  Especially when they're in my bed.  Because though it may look like a tiny little black dot from afar, the moment I see it, I see this coming at me:

FANGS.  Drooling.  Hairy little legs that scuttle scuttle scuttle toward me, getting closer and closer, and if it touches me I'm gonna die I know it I'm GONNA DIE !

I Think My Blog Posts Need to Be Way Shorter

I talk too much.  Now I'm finding out I write too much.

Sorry guys.  I'll try to keep them more to-the-point.

My First Movie Review: 'Let Me In'

My mom always says I should be a movie critic.  So I'm trying my hand at it.  I'm not sure being overly critical of tiny details is grounds for reviewing films, but I do really like to talk about them, so there you go.  The job I worked for three out of my four years in college was as a film projectionist in a movie theater, so I saw a lot of movies.  I actually sort of wish I was still working there, one because I would have a job, but more importantly because I got to see the movies before they came out, and by myself.  I often let myself be influenced by the things I've heard about a movie and the people I go to see it with.  So it would have been a good gig for writing movie reviews.  Luckily, since I have two friends in my hometown and neither of them had seen this movie, and I hadn't read any reviews, it's a good one for me to talk about.

Plus, Roger Ebert is my absolute hero.

this is shamelessly copied from my 'About (K)now (S)ubject' page

(K)now (S)ubject is a blog with no subject.

I tried for months to come up with a theme for the blog I knew I was

to write.

(I'm a little dramatic.)

Originally I was going to write a blog about my exploits in New York City.  But then I didn't move to New York City.  Then I was thinking I could somehow incorporate my love for ferris wheels into a whimsical little blog that dealt with the ferris wheel as a metaphor for life... blah blah peopledon'tcare blah.

But then I realized: I can't define my blog because I can't define myself.  I have no idea who I am, other than an actor with a passion for learning about people and looking at the world from their point of view.  I want to live a thousand different lives.  Thank gods I have a great imagination, because that's the only way I'm going to be able to live them all.

It’s been approximately 3 months since I moved out of my cushy messy college apartment in Boulder and moved in with my parents.  And I've simultaneously grown up and grown down, which just has to be a blessing in disguise, because they say that all you've ever needed to know you learned in Kindergarten, and while I completely agree, I feel like I'm about six years old again, and so far I'm still looking for that six-year-old sense of optimism and fearlessness about the future.  I'll keep you posted on that.

Although one of my goals in creating (K)now (S)ubject is to raise money to pay off my blasted student loans (see my Info on Donating to My College Fund page), I think that, even if I don't raise a cent, I feel like I have something to share with the world.  And despite the fact that I have no idea what that is, I've been yearning to start a blog for ages, and I've put it off long enough.  So although I don't know the subject of my own blog, I do know that I have the capacity to talk about hundreds of completely unrelated things... and I guess my goal has always been knowledge.

I want my blog to be more than just me talking at you and you listening.  One of the many reasons I love blogs is because they can be a work in progress - and mine certainly will be.  This is a blog for the readers, and I eventually hope that it will at least be partially by the readers.  I am on a constant quest to keep learning and growing, and what better way to do that than to hear and listen to my readers’ feedback... This is all assuming, of course, that I manage to find readers... And keep the conversation going!

And as part of my so-called mission, I also want to include a link and description of another blog that I like in EVERY post I make.  I have a lot of blogging friends, both literally and otherwise, and I'm really into paying it forward.

So, in my first order of business as the Queen of (K)now (S)ubject, I give you Karyn Bosnak's website and blog: 

http://www.prettyinthecity.com/

The source of my inspiration, reading her story and perusing her website (which is exactly my style, witty and funny and quirky all rolled into one woman who has no apologies and isn't afraid to be herself) gave me that final push to say, do it.  Start your blog.  Shit, maybe you'll make some money.  And if not?  At least you know you did it, even without a subject.