whitney arlene photography

So here it comes, a better version of me -F. Apple

I recently challenged myself to create five mini-biographies of (you guessed it) me. I did this in response to a day of feeling like crap, like I was an uninteresting and boring 9-to-5er. I made the first one reflective of my mood at the time, and tried to make the following four about the parts of my life I knew were there but that I wasn’t seeing in the haze of my bad mood. Here’s what I came up with:

The loser version. Whitney gets to work every morning by 9 a.m. Sometimes she’s there before then, and she likes to eat lunch at the library cafe downtown. She is very tired these days and often makes pasta for dinner because it’s the easiest thing she can think of. Whitney wishes she had more time to write and exercise.

The homeowner version. Whitney is a twenty-something new homeowner living in Buffalo, New York. In the past year she has learned how to snake a toilet, replace ceiling tiles, and clear out a flooded basement. She is still learning how to use power tools and figure out when contractors are trying to bullshit her. Her house was built in 1886 and the inside is painted in bright, circus colors.

The craftster version. Knitting, painting, zine writing, envelope-making, and cross-stitching are among Whitney’s treasured past times. Her friend Brynn taught her how to knit on a bus ride from Siena to Rome, Italy. The old Italian women sitting behind them coached Whitney on her first stitches by using dramatic hand gestures. Currently, she is working on a cross-stitched collection of text message shorthands; she has completed “OMG” so far.

The Buffalonian version. Whitney was born and raised in Western New York and after some brief travel after college, decided to settled down in the City of Buffalo for awhile. She enjoys walking across the Rainbow bridge to Niagara Falls and riding her bike through the flat streets of the West Side. At the moment, Whitney works for the City government and hopes to have a hand in making Buffalo a greener, growing place to live.

The kitchen sink version. As if she didn’t have enough projects in the works, Whitney recently taught herself how to cross stitch and promptly started stitching Christmas gifts for friends and family. She’s also writing a YA novel, several personal essays, and many overdue letters. She has approximately a thousand half-finished knitting projects and grand plans for her garden. She just bought and launched her first all-on-her-own website and is pretty excited. Whitney is very busy and full but that is how she likes it.