hannah margaret allen

2014-03-13T12:29:00.002-04:00

It seems only fitting that there's a wind advisory today.

The wind howls through the poorly sealed window and clanks the vent connected to my stove. I've about had enough of this weather.

A three-day sliver of springtime, and you're tossed headfirst back into bitter winter. A taste of possibility, and you choke and spit it out.

Into that vehement wind that unwinds your scarf, numbs your toes and makes you question. Swirling alongside the plastic bags and cigarette butts, you wait to settle. Even if for a second so you can get enough traction to hit the ground running — even if just to warm up.

"As we will one day not be at all." -Joan Didion

2014-02-05T13:37:00.001-05:00

Every fissure of the internet — social medias, list-sites that mask themselves with the news, credible news sources — has been deluged with the premature death of Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Monday at the office, I sat at my desk that just so happens to be outside of an acclaimed movie reviewer’s office. And I listened. I heard stories throughout the day. Anecdotes of his acting brilliance, hilarious remarks from interviews and disbelief of the man so suddenly gone floated over to my cubicle. There were bits cynicism, but mostly it was ‘he was utterly genius in this’ or ‘can you believe that scene was entirely improvised?’ There’s no question, he left his mark, and his departure was untimely.

I saw Hoffman this past October on a flight. I was causing a stir thanks to my standby ticket resulting in being the the last one on board and without space for my bag. In the midst of my embarrassment, a disheveled man whipped around from the first seat of the plane, the seat by the window with the shade pulled down. He was a familiar man under a Ghostbusters hat.

I froze, he scowled. Philip Seymour Hoffman was peeved with me. I was causing the ruckus that was preventing us from pushing back from the gate. Cringing on my way to my coach seat I chuckled. What a story, I thought.

Throughout that flight, I read Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. Bravely and poetically Didion plunges into the grief of the sudden death of her husband. How apropos.

I had the book merely because I knew I liked Joan Didion. I ended up spending that short weekend at the beach confronted with death, and despite the fact I hadn’t lost anyone, I devoured the pages with my lifelong infatuation with grief, which stems from my funeral director lineage.

Stretched out by the ocean, I read Didion’s emotional account while donning a flopping hat and 45 SPF. Mama, a fifth generation funeral director, was already browned but still oiled in hopes of more color. While she flipped through an InStyle and we sipped beers nestled in koozies, I would share snippets of the book. My mother has the gift of handling death, grief and coping engrained in her being. I suppose that makes sense when it’s her business.

I’ve always been how astonished at how handling the delicate time of death seems to be a natural part of her way. Is it because she’s removed herself from the situation enough while maintaining her grace and compassion? Is it because she has grown up in the business? Like the child of a grocer understands how to restock the shelves, she understands death? But I’ve grown up in it, and I’m not like that. Some are just able to confront and accept the inevitable better than other, I suppose.

As if it was in question, Hoffman’s legacy is now solidified in history like those before him that died too young.

I come back to Didion, however, extrapolating that when we’re shocked of the passing of people we love (or even slightly familiar) it’s because we’re faced with our own temporary time here:

"We are not idealized wild things. We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all."

Seasonal Settling In

2014-01-17T13:44:00.001-05:00

As the weather freezes us out of our dresses and into three layers of leggings, I can't help but reminisce about the warmer days.

What a brilliant time I had in that first summer living in the city. Outdoor concerts, picnicking in Central Park, leaving all the windows open to hear the Mariachi music, two months of outrageous heat before caving and buying a window unit, barbecues in backyards...

The buzz of autumn was addicting as the air crisped and sunshine still lasted beyond the workday. It was a welcomed shift from the scalding summer. I remember my walk to the train, now blistery and seemingly five blocks farther away, and how it felt like uncharted ground as the city changed color. My neighborhood transformed and the day-to-day discovery was thrilling.

Unfamiliar happenings continued with the onslaught of winter. We had our first big snow — the most snow I've ever seen — the week before Christmas. Linked arm-in-arm with Mag so as not to slip in my ill-prepared footwear (and looking like adorable old women), we realized why the change in seasons has made us love Brooklyn even more.

With every change in season, other facets of the city emerge. New smells, nuances and hurdles make us feel that much more knowledgable and that much more at home.

The permanence of Brooklyn feels both unsettling and cozy. Time constraints — four years in college, a semester abroad — make everything feel temporary and trivial. I have no end date to my life here. I have nothing stopping me from living in New York forever or moving next month. Life is finally starting to feel real in both fantastic and complicated ways.

But for now, I’m letting go the weight of the future and holding onto the sunshine.

**The ever-lovely Sarah Jordan (no not all Tennesseans have two names) is celebrating a birthday this weekend, which will no doubt provide wonderful stories and photos.

Music Video: "Morning Light" by The Dirty Guv'nahs

2014-01-13T20:23:00.002-05:00

The Badland crew has done it again.

Remember the "Fairlane" music video (I may or may not have terribly thrown a football and stared dramatically at the camera)? Did you think it was fun? If there's any inkling of a yes, watch "Morning Light."

Why watch it? My darling LJ (Brown Cow babe, fellow January 26-er, overall ridiculous human being) can be spotted flipping her hair and working a saw (you read that right) while being the babe that she is. Also, the Guvs are a bunch of goons that having a blast dressing up and breaking things. Not to mention, they are great fellas that play great Southern music.

Watch it. Right this minute.

[You can also download the song for free.]

Brown Cow's Back, Back Again.

2014-01-09T10:19:00.001-05:00

The Brown Cow* had its first reunion, and oh me, it was insane. So loud, so silly, so wonderful to be back in their presence. We sipped some bubbly, watched Bridesmaids (does this scene ever get old?) and caught up on all the missed happenings.

It's hard to believe we moved out in May. How time flies.

But also how things stay the same. xo

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The Dormant Spiel

2013-12-10T09:55:00.000-05:00

Now, as I recall the carefully crafted spiel, the one I share when I'm asked why this blog has become dormant, I can’t come up with much. I haven't written on here since October 3rd, and the other posts within the past six months have been sparse and, quite frankly, shallow. This post has been on the tip of my fingers, but begrudgingly and infuriatingly so, the words haven't wanted out.

Holding onto the edge of the playground slide, my thoughts and stories have squandered all energy on fighting gravity pulling them down, wanting to fling them out onto the mulch below. It would be easier to just let go, enjoy the hilarity of static cling in my hair and continue romping around (sorry, playground analogy over). But I don’t know where to start.

I suppose I’ve changed. Not wanting to be inconsistent, I kept the same voice that I’ve used since I was a freshman in college. Sporadically, I’d mention how I felt like I was slipping. I was losing a fight with my insecurities in being authentic, and I eventually threw my hands up.

I didn't want the mask I’ve donned, the one depicting life through my blog-filter — a life that is simple, unobtrusive, quaint, etc. — to fit my face.

It started to catch up with me the other night at a small gathering for our newly-doored apartment (yes, that means Mag and I have lived five months with a haphazardly hung curtain between our bedrooms). Sarah, a new friend, acknowledged my blog from across the room. I cringed. She said she not only enjoyed reading it, but it inspired her to start her own. And that was all it took to realize this self-doubt is silly. I must rethink and reconcile.

What am I doing? Who the hell cares? I just need to do what I do, which is write. Besides, I have some stories to fill you all in on.

Photo taken by Erin Grimson

Sundays in the Park

2013-10-03T13:51:00.000-04:00

There are Sundays that go by unnoticed, spent in bed ordering takeout from bed. There are Sundays that are transcendent, however, and this past Sunday was one of them.

Mag in her spontaneous nature signed up for a half marathon out of the blue the week prior. It’s in three weeks. She spent her morning running Prospect Park. I spent mine reading and crocheting. Our separate mornings were respectively restorative.

I wanted to go to Sunset Park. She frowned at that. “We never try,” I whined not wanting to take the train to another green space. So we gave our park a chance. We packed my big red blanket, journals, books and pretzels to walk the two blocks up to our own elevated escape.

Couples lounged on the hillside. A mustached man in a newsboy cap ran up and down the slope. A hoard of kids kicked a soccer ball around us.

“There's something right and wonderful in seeing all the diverse kids playing together,” Mag said lifting her head from her journal.

The sun was beating down warming the cool air. Taking it all in, you could see Manhattan spectacularly to the left of our view and the expansive water to the right.

I collected a few more freckles, finished a book and reflected with Mag on our mere four months here. We are now settled and at home. There’s a vast comfort in coming back to a place all our own. There’s a reality faced with the change in seasons. We really aren’t leaving with the end of summer. And I feel so content in it all.

A Proper Tea Party

2013-09-26T13:38:00.001-04:00

There's nothing as impeccably British and decadent than proper English tea. We had ourselves a real tea party, homemade scones and all, last month with Kezzy (our English houseguest that spent the summer working for Gap in NYC). I even brought out the cloth napkins.

A few days later, we woke up to a smell of something delicious baking and found Kez in her towel making another batch of scrumptiousness. The recipe is fantastically easy, and the fresh cream she whipped up topped it better than words can express. The photos will just have to suffice.

How far Canterbury seems at a time like this. Without it I wouldn't appreciate milk in my tea. I wouldn't be able to relish in a day of cold, drizzly weather. And most importantly, I wouldn't have my Mag to live with in Brooklyn.
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Escaping to the Park

2013-09-19T10:08:00.002-04:00

Lunchtime for me has been consisting of walking the nine blocks to Bryant Park to immerse myself in a book and soak in the shade of the trees. This little hiatus in the city takes me back to the Tuileries and the Paris.

With the changing of weather here I expect even more glorious finds of nooks and crannies that provide the needed escape in city-living. Where do you find your escape?

Faith in the Pace

2013-09-17T10:43:00.003-04:00

My face is tired from smiling.

Whether it was the gurgle of the radiator heating my crooked apartment for the first time or the crisp breeze blowing the fig trees in the backyard, I’m not quite sure. There’s something about today that makes me smile.

Pasty Cline sings her heartache. I feel it. I still smile. My coffee is already cold, and I have work I need to be doing. I still smile. The air is perfect. The day is at my cold fingertips.

I’m going to dub it the smirk of New York City. The smirk of knowing one day you’ll be sitting on the roof, last night for instance, eyes moist from the tears and frustration of this place, and then your cheeks will be sore from contentment. Mag calls it the bipolar of New York. One minute it’s filled with elation the next isolation.

There’s a faith in the pace assuring me that though the bad, distressing and difficult will be present and sometimes deep it’ll zip away like the R train when it actually decides to run. There’s faith that the good will be euphoric. There’s faith that ebbing and flowing will be present, and thank goodness for that.

A New York Tale of Start-Ups, Part II

2013-09-16T11:48:00.000-04:00

A continuation of part one.

There are two things I’m trying to get at here.

One, New York has taught us how unproductive it is to try and predict your future in explicit detail. Sure, dreaming and planning are keys to knowing where you want to end up, but to really make things happen, namely in the beginning of your career and post-college life, you have to be moving, acting and doing. Mag took matters into her own hands. She didn’t wait for someone to hand her a conventional job, a job that she had gone to school for. Instead she worked with what she had. Case in point, I work for a men’s magazine. Come on.

Secondly, do as much as possible and with as much of enthusiasm you can possibly muster. We have devoured almost every opportunity that has been thrown our way to the point of exhaustion and frustration. In the aforementioned point, you can’t know what is out there if you’ve got a micro-focused idea of what you’re going to do. Saying yes to the seemingly random (i.e. a cleaning and key drop service) leads to connections, leads to steady jobs, leads to what you could be actually passionate about. I’ve admired Mag as she rolled out of bed bright and early to make sure the Russian family can get into the East Village apartment. I’ve seen her manage people and excel beyond Randy’s expectations. You just have to do. You just have to get at it. You just have to say yes.

Four years as a political science and English student, a fling with the dreaded LSATs and two internships (one at the NY Supreme Court and And one with Chuck Schumer’s office) later, Mag concludes that maybe law school isn’t for her. Maybe she just doesn’t want the security of what comes with a law degree, which really isn’t that secure anymore, and just maybe she wants to take a huge risk on New York City with her best friend in the entire world (that’s me). She knows she likes people, being creative and dissecting day-to-day (think unpacking a piece of literature but with real life) so she sets her sights on advertising, which she knows nothing about. Ten weeks later she is starting a job at BBDO, the second largest advertising agency in the world.

This city is a mixed bag of wonder, opportunity, bullshit, fear, uncertainty, competitiveness and complete bliss. It's just a matter of wading through it all.

Listen Up: The Staves

2013-09-13T08:00:00.000-04:00

I present The Staves. These three are from Watford in the UK, and they have unabashedly captivated me (I'm talking like I'm in a Jane Austen novel probably because they make me feel like I'm in a Jane Austen novel). I have been experiencing a music drought, but this hit what I've been feeling and needing.

I'm utterly obsessed with them namely this song. Oh and this one. But watch the video above too.

Happy Weekend. xo

A New York Tale of Start-Ups, Part I

2013-09-12T10:46:00.002-04:00

This is a New York City tale in its truest form. Rooted in that overused and somewhat-misunderstood idiomatic expression of pulling oneself up from one's bootstraps comes the story of a girl moving to the city to figure it all out — in essence, one of the only common threads found in every New Yorker.

Maggie moved into our railroad apartment with no real job (there were leads but nothing certain). She began helping Randy, the father of the two-year I had been part-time nannying, with his start-up company called Proprly.

Bred from the digital age of coffee shop offices and internet commerce, Randy created Proprly after experiencing some kinks in renting his apartment in NYC and house in Maine. Essentially, Proprly provides key drops and cleanings for folks wanting to rent out their places, which makes it even easier to escape to the country, experience a city in an organic way or just find accommodations that will fit your budget.

Mag pulled on that white polo embellished with the hot pink Proprly logo and immediately starting lugging vacuums about the city, a city she barely knew. This less-than-glamorous job involved the quick thinking and resourcefulness that can only be found in a start-up company. To name a few: leaving functions to make sure she could get the keys to the West Village, doing the cleaning alongside Olga because it needed to be done within the hour, going to laundromats because no one could do it in the time she had before the client arrived (my personal favorite).

She has traipsed around Manhattan and Brooklyn, befriended the cleaners, greeted and directed clients on what to do in the city and basically killed it as key facet to this start-up’s story.

I say all of this to set up part two. Stay tuned.

Go check out Proprly:
Website

Facebook Page

Twitter

Southerners in the City

2013-09-10T09:50:00.005-04:00

This move officially feels permanent now that the family has come to visit. With grits and Jack Daniel’s on our side, Mama treated my friends to some old fashioned Southern hospitality. Mag and I were treated to lovely meals in a greenhouse-esque restaurant and hugs that can only come from a mother. If only they would have known the hotel coffee and room service for breakfast would have sufficed for our luxury needs.

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Making Amends

2013-09-09T09:50:00.002-04:00

Oh me, oh my.

The updates have been stored in my brain, journal, scraps of paper in my wallet, and it is now, ladies and gents (mostly ladies), the time to properly, fully and regularly update this thing we call a blog.

Where to begin really? I'm now fashion assisting and freelancing, which lends itself mainly to more pajamas and coffee. I can't wait to share the spectacular spread we worked on all last week. I lifted so many coats that weigh nearly as much as I do and presumably cost more than three months of my rent. Post-shoot, my darling co-worker, Marykate, and I ventured to the waterfront in Williamsburg to soak in the fresh breeze. Autumn is blowing in. It's more than fantastic.

College football has started back up (a sentence that no one expected to read on this blog ever), and I spent this Saturday with some fellow Volunteers at the UT bar called Traffic. Interestingly enough, it was almost more fun than when we went to the games in Knoxville. Maybe it was because it was sans the 100,000 redneck crowd. Maybe I'm just nostalgic. Embracing home, the team, the traditions when you are, you know, not at home really revitalized me. My fervor in singing Rocky Top was almost embarrassing, and I feel a bit more centered. Who knew?

Many more updates are en route. I've had many visitors, adventures and stories that need to grace the blog. Plus, I've been reading a ton — The Portable Edith Wharton, The Art and Craft of Feature Writing, Anna Karenina (I'm smitten with it) and many great magazine articles (many of which are on MensJournal.com).

All that to say, the page has turned, and I'm not a crumby blogger anymore. Well, I may not be top notch, but here's to positive thinking! Happy Monday, all.

Friday morning thoughts

2013-08-30T11:04:00.000-04:00

I wake up to the pattering of my alarm. The AC unit grumbles from being on all night, and I need more sleep.

Meandering through the closet, through Maggie’s room to the coffee, my senses slowly come to. I knock yesterday’s batch of coffee grinds out of the French press and into the planter on the ledge outside the window. A deflated basketball collects water next to it. It’s an old school basketball, the kind my grandfather is pictured in black and white photos with. I wonder how it got there, who played with it and what I should do with it. The fig trees have gotten big.

With the crispness of autumn fading in I feel like everything is cleaner — the kitchen, the streets, my clothes. The light in the back of the apartment draws me in, and I contemplate sitting for a few minutes instead of getting ready. I’ll be late though. I could blame it on the trains? I could just get ready in five minutes? No, neither will work.

In a groggy, retainer clad, sans glasses fog Maggie acknowledges my presence. She doesn’t have to be awake early this morning. No matter how much I tiptoe she always hears me. She always smiles. It’s nice to have someone be glad to see you and wish you a good morning.

This Friday I’m on the cusp of a long weekend filled with all the dirty laundry in the world and ample time to read, rest and reflect. Happy weekend, y’all.

Bullet Points: New York Has Taught Me

2013-08-08T17:49:00.000-04:00

Real New Yorkers and journalists refer to The New York Times just simply as The Times.
Crossing at crosswalks is merely a suggestion, and staying on the sidewalk at aforementioned crosswalks is a rookie mistake. Step off, peak to the left and right, cross whenever possible.
The subway breeds craziness, and normal looking people talk to themselves constantly. I’m somewhat concerned there is something in the water.
It’s ultimately a good thing when the neighborhood señors ask me why I’m not at work. They keep tabs and call me ‘Mami,’ which obviously leaves no room for complaining.
Fratty is universal not just Southern.
We have a mouse living under our stove (Mag affectionately calls him Gustav), which surprisingly doesn't freak me out as much as I thought. The traps are set.
I’m sore from grocery shopping (pathetic).

Intoxicatingly Ideal

2013-07-30T08:57:00.000-04:00

This may be the first time I’ve been alone since moving here (I'm writing this after work on Monday). Solitude is fairly a nonexistent state right now. New York promotes this. My commute and completion of daily errands used to all be carried out by myself—now I’m in the busiest city in the world, squished next to some BO-reeking man while trying to get to my office.

This city paradoxically offers all the opportunities, culture and intrigue while still being terribly lonely, scary and overwhelming. Everyone here has a greater goal (“the plan”) at the forefront of his or her barista job. Every editor is using this job as a stepping-stone to get to themagazine of choice. Every unemployed person scrounges with temporary jobs to get to the permanent one.

No I can see why not everyone makes it or likes it or lives here forever.

I find this city intoxicatingly ideal. My polarized commute to work transplants me from my small, Spanish-speaking Brooklyn neighborhood to my office in Midtown where tourists block the drain and business-types are everywhere. Beautiful, beautiful things happen on the trains. People show compassion, quirks and insight. They can also be nasty, selfish and downright cruel. But it never gets (or rather, it hasn’t gotten) old.

I welled up on the train the other day because of this great Regina Spektor song. It was then that I realized that no matter how lonesome I get here, which I really haven’t been sad or homesick yet, I still have this magnificent city to call my own.

I’m a part of this place, and I am absolutely head over heels for it. It’s invigorating and difficult. It’s the only place that has made me feel like even when the bad comes as it inevitably will come I’ll be able to combat anything with the awareness of the people, place and home that is New York City.

Merry Manhattan Monday

2013-07-29T10:18:00.003-04:00

Every morning I wave to Lady Liberty on my trek across the bridge. I then proceed to swim upstream through slow walking tourists. I click through the marble lobby to Wenner Media, and then sit under fluorescents while being as manly and productive as possible.

This wrote this story on MensJournal.com last week about skinny ties.

Happy Monday! xoxo

Merry Monday: Blog Bruch

2013-07-22T11:26:00.002-04:00

Good news: my brilliant blog friends aren't creepy Craig's List killers. In fact, they're the most lovely, interesting and warmhearted bunch I've met since living in New York.

Setarra, a dear one that I've always felt akin to, arranged for us all to brunch it up with Michael and Kelly (too bad Gelman couldn't make it).

We sipped sangria, boisterously filled Diablo Royale with our loud laughter and bargain hunted as a way to escape the heat. We even found a little time for some chocolate, which I had a detailed dream about last night that involved a chocolate bath (I blame you Michael).

It was an absolute blast.

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Merry Monday: Subway Adventures

2013-07-15T10:53:00.000-04:00

Her little fingers were pressed up against the train window, and she wobbly balanced on her mom’s lap while gazing out across the view that she sees everyday. Repeatedly but each time equally convincing she belts an overwhelmed “Wow!” from the depth of her toddler frame. I don’t know if it’s the water, the building, the height from which the train is off the ground or some other simple and astonishing construction that impresses her so deeply, but it does. And that’s how I feel daily.

The train zipped me over to Manhattan this morning and the sun was shining in a way that reassured me in my core that this is where I am supposed to be. This place gets me, nourishes me, makes me me.

I just want to have my nose up on that grimy window, marveling at the city and exclaiming. Instead, of course, I smile to myself, read my book and write a blog post later.

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It's Pimm's O'clock

2013-07-09T10:50:00.000-04:00

I squealed in the near-empty office.

I thought I was alone, strangely enough, because it was two in the afternoon on a Friday. Apparently, everyone departs for the weekend a skosh early and calls it summer Friday. The wonders of office life.

My excitement was based solely on the fact that I got an interview. And interview for an online story that probably wouldn’t exceed 400 words, but at this stage in my career/life/whatever it was equivalent to a six-page feature.

The best part: I got to go and try the drink I was writing the article on. Maison Premiere, a New Orleans inspired restaurant in Williamsburg, fastidiously balances the elegance of French décor with the slightly awry edge of Cajun Nola.

Standing next to the open shuttered window I sipped the most luxurious of Pimm’s Cups—my assignment and purpose in trekking 50 minutes from my housewarming party in which my house was being warmed. It was savory, sweet and simply divine. Is there anything more lovely than a well-crafted, meticulous cocktail?

Check out the article on Men's Journal's website.

Merry Monday: Sunsets from the Roof

2013-07-08T20:46:00.002-04:00

What is more glorious than a rooftop view of the city with the sun setting and the breeze blowing? Not much.

Hope Monday was tolerable. xoxo

Foggy + Clammy

2013-07-05T08:00:00.000-04:00

The sticky nature of New York living has surprised me. I wake up with a clammy feeling that usually permeates a walk downtown on a mid-summer’s day, not a sleep or a stroll to the kitchen or any movement of any kind. The stagnant air hangs in my apartment like the haphazardly balanced shelf in our bathroom, the one that continually falls breaking the glass in frames.

Yet somehow, despite the uncomfortably of it all, I embrace it.

I wouldn’t venture to say I like it, because we all know that liking such an annoyance would be absurd and filled with that foggy, NYC-is-the-best-slash-only-place-in-the-world mentality. I do find, however, that I would rather be slightly perspiring and always a bit grimy than sitting in delectable air conditioning in Tennessee.

It’s give and take, I suppose. What life has consisted of mainly thus far:

Making pancakes at odd hours of the day. Also freezer pops constantly.
Having to go to the bathroom which is off Mag’s room so I wake her up often. But every time she acts so excited to see me. It’s sweet.
Sweating. Smelling. Smelting (alliteration, yo).
Reading so much because the train is wonderful that way. I felt overly confident and started Anna Karenina. We shall see about that.
Tacos. All the days.
Stoop sitting. We find our neighbors to be so insanely nice that we just want to hang. So we do.
Working in an office isn’t so bad. Especially when you get published, and especially when you’re doing interesting stuff.

That’s all for today. Happy weekend!

Independence Day

2013-07-04T08:00:00.000-04:00

Y'all better not of forgotten about the Brown Cow. Just because I don't live there anymore doesn't mean the legacy is dead.

Prime example: Throwing back to the first week we lived there on the 4th of July. WE sipped our PBR and grapefruit juice in our pretty much empty house, and it was the best.

Though we're apart this year I feel like Independence Day has taken a whole new meaning for me (Oh so deep, it hurts).

Be safe, have fun, Happy 4th!