Blogspot, it's not you, it's me.

I moved: http://allietownsend.tumblr.com

See you there.

For Speilberg

"Head On" - Spielberg Commissioned Special Project from Michael Koerbel on Vimeo.

The Cults

Download the EP 7" on the band's Web site for free. Do it, do it.

Twenty-three floors worth

Please, do not small talk with me about the weather. Your obvious statements about the rain do not make my elevator ride any more comfortable as my shoes slosh under me.

Monday, a list

1. Dear Sir, I'm worried your bedazzled "Thug 4 Life" shirt is harming your street cred.

2. This is a sideways rain.

3. The 10-foot sub delivered to the office is impressive and intimidating. I feel like a cat who has cornered a gigantic mouse. You want to eat it, but you're slightly terrified of what it might do if you try.

4. Pez-o-saurus

certainly a highlight

Excerpt

"The capacity to make dubious gifts is a mysterious quality of New York. It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky."

-E.B. White's Here is New York

Me, sketched

web site avatar, phase one
(those cheeks are out of control)


update: phase two, complete!

Gchat: A Context-Free Highlight

B: It's like Lucy Van Pelt meets Garfield meets Spy vs. Spy

Me: meets Tom and Jerry

B: meets Itchy and Scratchy

Me: exactly

Hey There Little Red Riding Hood

Tucked away somewhere in my suppressed conscious are the details of my acting debut.

In kindergarten, our class was due to give a "play" for parent's night, and despite what I'm sure was an excellent attempt at snagging that scarlet cloak, I lost it to the girl who actually owned one. (The budget was tight and my past Halloween picks didn't serve me well here.) Still, my acting merits won me a role in the 20-minute kiddie indie.

It wasn't the fact that I was playing a bed-ridden, infirm old woman who is eaten by a wolf that bothered me. No. It was the fact that I had to wear my pajamas in front of the whole class that made my stomach tie up in knots. On principle, I refused to go barefoot to leave some dignity intact. I wore a full length night dress and bonnet, and much to my horror, was forced to hug the smelliest boy in the class who played the role of the woodsman due to his enormous size, I'm sure.

On life

"Matilda said, "Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable...""

- Roald Dahl's Matilda (a forever ago favorite)

birthday cake candles & bank paper

As we chatted, we began listing our favorite scents. It's funny, but if you ask someone to name their all-time favorite smells they're usually not found inside a Bath & Body or wafting from your favorite kitchen. They're subtle yet familiar, and somehow have the power to take your thoughts from chaotic bustle to sleepy hamlet with just one sniff. It's what Glade will always strive for and never manage to tap.

Other favorite scents:

Freshly mowed grass
Pert Plus shampoo
His sweatshirt
Laundromat
Flour
Lake water
Baseball diamond dirt
Noxzema
The air, about two blocks downwind of the Sunbeam Bread Factory
Chlorine
Popcorn popped outdoors
Campfire

Dear Zooey

you're adorable.

Dream

... about virgins and vampires.

Metaphor for good and evil or my sultry taste in alliteration?

On Kristi, too

"And you. You look like little birds help you get dressed in the morning."

In my head...

Mmmm, sweet nothins.

On phone calls to my mother

"What? Oh, dancing. Like Beyonce."

The Valentine's Day Cactus

I've named it Cupid.

William, It Was Really Nothing

I celebrated Valentine's Day the way I have for the past four years: with my closest friend, doing things much too frilly for an average weekend. Our girlish pursuits center around sweets and love stories, the sillier the better.

This year's Valentine's Day entertainment was the film of the same name. It had some nice moments, but I have a problem with love being about large gestures or I-had-no-idea-I-was-actually-in-love-with-my-best-friend revelations. The six degrees of separation plot line seemed in place just to allow certain celebrities more screen time, and half of them cheaply referenced their real-life fame. The story never flowed and seemed to be made of chunks of thrown out screen plays threaded together in an attempt to one-up Love Actually. (It didn't.) Still, Jennifer Garner was cute, and Julia Roberts can always save a film otherwise in distress.

And just as Jessica Biel went into yet another misanthropic melt down about being perfectly beautiful and perfectly unlucky in love, a ripe burning smell followed by blasting fire alarms rushed us out of our seats.

The childish fear of being trapped in a burning building swooped in for a few seconds of premature group panic, until the usher stopped the group at the door.

"We're really sorry for the inconvenience, but there's no fire."

One man addresses the obvious. "Then what's with the smoke?"

"Well, there was a little fire."

We ended up missing about 10 minutes of a movie that really never had a plot in the first place, so catching up was never an issue. In the end, two best friends fall in love and those who opted to be alone were marked as villains. I kept wondering if Hallmark put them up to this? I never saw Valentine's Day as romantic. I'd rather spend it carelessly smirking at a version of love that doesn't exist, no roses required.

After a night that almost went up in flames, I needed something less polished to fill my head, and The Smiths happily carried me home.

On books

"No more talk about the death of the novel; the novel will be at your funeral."

-Richard Price

On allergies

"I didn't realize there was so much cocaine in Claritin."