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allyson rae
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 21. daughter. sister. best friend. music. psychology. dreamer. lover. crazy. obnoxious. silly. serious. quiet. beautiful. funny. honest. sunsets. thunderstorms. rainbows. summer. ice cream. daisies. white roses. pandas. cats. Harry Potter. Nicholas Sparks. Taylor Swift. Lady Antebellum. Garth Brooks. Jason Aldean. Miranda Lambert. Led Zeppelin. Guns N' Roses. The Doors. Bones. Castle. Gilmore Girls. M*A*S*H. JAG. Finding Nemo. The Notebook. Twister. Forrest Gump. Love Me? ♥
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 Here is a cute cat GIF for your enjoyment. :) ☮ ♥ ♫ ☮ ♥ ♫ ☮ ♥ ♫ ☮ ♥ ♫ ☮ ♥ ♫ ☮ ♥ ♫ ☮ ♥ ♫ ☮ ♥ ♫
Hi, my name is Allyson. I'm 21 & I like to pretend I'm the brunette Taylor Swift. If I could play guitar & write songs like her I think I'd be set for life, and all my eboyfriends would be thoroughly embarrassed by their actions by now. I spend most of my time watching Bones, Castle or Gilmore Girls reruns, dancing around my room to "Sparks Fly," & other assorted Taylor songs, scrollin' & rebloggin' cute cats on Tumblr, or baking cupcakes. If I'm not doing any of those fun things, I'm probably working at T.J. Maxx, turning fashionistas into Maxxinistas, writing stream of consciousness blog posts & letters to people who will never read them, or sleeping while my cat stares at me creepily. I am a "Senior" at SUNY Fredonia. I say senior in quotes because I highly doubt two semesters will be enough for me to finish everything I need to in order to graduate. I was a music major at JCC where I earned an A.S. in Fine Arts - Music, before transferring to FSU, getting my ass kicked in an audition, giving up all hopes of following the career path I've been on since I was 11, majoring in Psychology for two semesters, deciding that Psychology and I do not mix, and deciding to major in English. Yup. This past year has been a freakin' whirlwind. I have two best friends, who I couldn't live without. They keep me grounded when my head is in the clouds, and keep me laughing when I want to cry. True story. These girls will be the Co-Maids of Honor at my wedding one day. They are my world. They are my best friends, my sisters, & the people that I know I can always, always trust with everything. No matter how long it’s been since I’ve seen them, no matter how far apart we are—they will always have my back. ♥ I'm single, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I don't have to worry about anyone but myself, and it's refreshing. But that's not to say that I would refuse if the perfect mixture of excitement and stability waltzed into my life with bright green eyes, perfect hair and a white horse. Just sayin'. My life isn't perfect; far from it. But I love a lot of things about it. I love Harry Potter, I Love Lucy reruns, baking cupcakes, stargazing, sunsets, bonfires, popcorn, clean sheets, house hunting TV shows, late night phone calls, good morning text messages, pandas, & cuddling with my cat, Buttons. :) & if you just read all of this, I love you too. ♥
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| I don't really use this blog at all anymore. I've taken to doing all my blogging on Tumblr. Mostly because all I want to do is fangirl over Castle. And because I only have 7 followers here...versus 200-something there.
But I did want to post a link here, in case someone cool/important/famous happens across this page.
This started New Years' Day as my New Years' Resolution. I write. Every day. Just one thing. Whatever I'm inspired to write. Every day for a year. And it's the first resolution I haven't broken within a week. So so far, so good.
anyway, you can find it here: A Year's Worth of Words
Also, my main Tumblr: allthe-songs-makesense
Anyway, I do have a cool story to share with all...7 of you. It started with a research paper I wrote in my Intro to the English Major course last semester. Television as Literature: Castle and Detective Fiction – An Analysis. I earned an A from Dr. Simon, and posted it to my blog. You can read it here, if you'd like.
I think I will just post a copy of the e-mail I sent to our University's Director of PR...it sums up the story better than I can right now.
Hello,
I just shared an exciting moment in my life with one of my professors, and Dr. Simon thought it was a story I should share with you. So I am taking his advice.
I suppose I should start by introducing myself. My name is Allyson, and I am a 4th year student here at Fredonia majoring in English. Last semester, I was taking a course with Dr. Simon, An Introduction to the English Major, and our final project was a research project, of our own design, that we would propose and complete as a final 10 page paper. I decided to focus my research on the idea of television as literature, using examples from my favorite television show, Castle as support for my argument. If you aren't familiar, Castle is an hour-long police procedural focusing on a team of homicide detectives that solve crimes with the help of Richard Castle, a murder mystery and crime novelist. There is something about this show that makes it stand out to me as more of an art form than just a television show, and it made a great topic of focus for my project. Dr. Simon deemed my paper worthy of an A, and so I decided to post the paper on my blog page, where I interact with a lot of other Castle fans all over the world. And one night a few days ago, I got a crazy idea: What if I could actually get someone from the show to read this paper? So, on a whim, I tweeted a link to the blog page containing my paper to Castle's creator Andrew W. Marlowe, as well as his wife and fellow Castle writer Terri Edda Miller, and the show's two main leads, Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic. I didn't really expect anything to come of it. About two in the morning, my phone starts going off, waking me with a Twitter notification. It turns out Marlowe not only saw my tweet, but read my paper, and deemed it worthy enough to earn a response. I was floored. He tweeted me back saying that he hoped my teacher thought I deserved an "A," because he sure thought I earned one for my efforts. I never imagined I would get any response, let alone a response that positive. That tweet also led to an insane amount of traffic on my blog the next couple days, from people all over the world. It doesn't seem like much: just a 140 character response from a real Hollywood television writer, but to a girl from little Fredonia, NY...it meant something huge. All from an assignment I was given in a class where I had the freedom to write what I wanted to write about. That's what I love about Fredonia. The professors here (especially those in the English department--although I may be biased ;) ) really care about their students. They want us to study what we love and love what we study, and they push us beyond what we think we can do into the realm of the impossible. Without the support and motivation from Dr. Simon, I never would have been able to complete the kind of project I did, and having the freedom to choose what I really wanted to talk about allowed me to actually be excited about the things I was researching. And now I can cross "getting tweeted by a famous person" off my bucket list. Anyway, I just wanted to share my experience, and serve as living proof that good things--impossible things--can happen to anyone, even in a college town as tiny as Fredonia. So, as you can see...I've had a very interesting and exciting couple weeks. This story has gotten spread around the English Dept. Faculty listserv, and apparently has gotten great responses from the faculty. It' s also gotten attention from the PR office, and a Human Interest story about it was just posted on Fredonia's website. It's also inspired me in my career ideas, as I'm considering going into television either the industry itself (writing or something) or maybe doing research and in-depth analysis like this as a scholar (grad school? maybe?). This has been an AMAZING experience. One that I never dreamed of, and something that is producing some really great opportunities for me.
I probably won't update here for another...few months. So if you want, you can catch up with me on tumblr. :)
xoxo
Allyson | | |
| I know I am not the only one who has a guilty pleasure: you know, that one thing you do in the comfort of your pajamas (preferably accompanied by a cat and a tub of Ben & Jerry's). For some, it is a Saturday afternoon filled with cheesy Lifetime movies. For me...it's HGTV real estate shows. I know, it's strange: I'm a broke, 21 year old college student, single, living with my parents and about 10 years away from ever owning my own place. And yet, I'm captivated by house shopping, and phrases like "crown molding."
In my spare time (not that I have much of that, being an English major and all) I imagine the place I would love to end up after graduation, and I search for apartments and houses in those cities, looking for all those features that catch my eye every time I watch Property Virgins. I tend to picture myself in Nashville, living in a trendy little apartment downtown, working as a music journalist or record critic (and spending Saturday afternoons watching cheesy Lifetime movies with my cat and Ben & Jerry).
 In my semi-regular fictional apartment search, I stumbled across vacancy.com, and found an apartment in a building that fit my ideals to a T. Metro Manor Apartments is located right downtown in Nashville, and is within walking distance to all the great restaurants, shops and entertainment available in the music capitol of America. Plus it is close to public transportation, which is perfect for someone who doesn't have a car. (Now, I know you are thinking: 'What 21 year old doesn't have a car?' Well I have your answer: me.) Also, The building is secure, which would give me (and my parents) peace of mind, as a country girl living in a strange city.
The apartments are affordable, starting at $565 for a studio, and $655 for a one bedroom. Plus, there is ample closet space, with multiple closets within the apartment, and many of them are oversized or walk-ins: a must for a girl like me, with a wardrobe to rival the size of several Hollywood starlets. And when it comes time to wash that mammoth amount of clothes, there is 24 hour laundry access within the building. Other amenities include:On site maintenence and 24-hour emergency maintenence service; outside grill and picnic area; fully-equipped kitchens; included water and sewer service; and open floor plans. One other important perk is access to high speed internet service. As a young adult, I spend a lot of time online, shopping, "googling," and staying in touch with friends and family. This would be even more important if I were to move miles and miles away from my home in Western New York to try my hand at city living, and high-speed internet would be essential to keep up with all my online activities.
While leaving the nest is still a long way off, if I ever do decide to up and move to Nashville, I would definitely take a good look at this apartment complex. And if I decide to move anywhere and need a place to rent, I have a feeling that vacancy.com is where I'll start my search. Anything that makes it easy to find a place that I can picture myself snuggling with my cat and some Chunky Monkey is good in my book.
Vacancy.com Metro Manor Apartments, Nashville, TN
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| meet someone. Someone who will sweep me off my feet, make me blush at all the wrong moments, make my heart pound through my chest until I explode.
I just want to fall in love. I love that feeling of falling in love so much. There is only one thing that feels better than that.
staying in love.
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| Since January 1, 2006. I remember because I decided to make a new Xanga after the breakup with my boyfriend. I didn't want to see those entries about how much I "loved" him and how much he meant to me when I was so sad and depressed. So on the first day of the new year, I posted my first entry on my new blog. I left behind Lucky2008Charms (which I so juvenilely typed as 'xOx_LuCkY2008ChArMs_xOx') and started typing under the name 'x_TheHonestTruth_x.' (I guess I had a fascination with X's and underscores when I was 15.) I don't remember when exactly I changed my username to Allyson_Singsxo, I only remember trying to earn enough credits to do so. I started looking through my old blogs, from both Lucky Charms and this one, and I couldn't help but laugh at myself. My life was so...trivial back then. All these problems that seemed so big were in reality, nothing worthwhile. That boy I swore I was so in love with? He was a loser who didn't deserve my time. All those inside jokes I referenced when recapping my entire day at school--I can't even remember the majority of them.
I have grown up and changed SO much from the person I was 5 and a half years ago. Looking back on my life at 15 and 16, I can't help but wish I could go back in time and smack myself upside the head. I'd scream 'Allyson. Stop being so stupid. Stop wasting so much time. Stop thinking that you are Chicken Little and the sky is falling. It's NOT. NONE of this will matter to you five, ten, twenty years from now. None of it.' I can't believe how naïve and immature I was, but then again, I guess that is the curse of youthful ignorance and hindsight, isn't it?
When I was 15, my biggest interests were winning back my ex-boyfriend, spending too much time at choir rehearsals, and trying to make every problem seem bigger than it was. That's not to say that I shouldn't have cared about my ex, because I should have. He gave me some valuable life experiences and lessons that I needed to carry with me. & that's not to say that all that time at choir practice was wasted, because some of my best memories happened with those people. & of course, I'm not saying that there weren't some things that were big problems, because there were. I was a severely depressed little girl who has grown into a moderately depressed young woman.
But my interests have grown, shifted and expanded. Five years ago, I wouldn't have been caught dead with a psychology textbook. Now, despite switching my major, I find mental illness and the treatment of mental illness to be incredibly fascinating. Five years ago, I never would have guessed that is was possible to feel satisfied, fulfilled and complete as a single person. Today, I can honestly say that I enjoy being single--95% of the time. Five years ago, I considered my best friend to be a person who didn't even end up inviting me to her wedding. But now I see that my true best friends are the people who will never leave my side--even when I try to push them away. Five years ago, I was convinced I wouldn't be able to survive a day without music. ...well, that much is quite the same, only the focus has shifted. Rather, I should say that I didn't think I'd survive doing anything else but pursuing a career in music. But I can, and I am, and even though I feel sometimes like I am missing an arm, I know I am doing the right thing. Most days I can even convince myself that it's true. Five years ago, all I cared about is what other people thought about me. Today...the only person I aim to please is myself. Because despite the fact that I care about so many people...the truth is, no one's happiness should matter more to me than my own. I'm working on that one.
My name is Allyson. I am a 21 year old college student. I'm majoring in English and minoring in laughter. I stay up late and sleep past noon, I still watch cartoons when I need a laugh, and my mom is still my world. I've read the entire Harry Potter series at least 25 times, and I watch the movies like they are crack to me when ABC Family has Harry Potter weekend. Taylor Swift likes to write songs using my diary, (I have yet to prove that and sue for copyright infringement, but I am working on it. lol) & I cried when I watched the "Sparks Fly" tour video when it came out today. I'd rather curl up in bed with my cat and red velvet cake than go out drinking and partying on my 21st birthday, and I am okay with that. My daddy is my hero, my little sister is a pain in my ass, and my extended family is a little bit insane. I watch too much TV, drink too much Pepsi, and spend WAY too much time on Tumblr. My goal in life is to own at least 5 cats, and have at least one of them be a Ragamuffin (preferably a black one named Severus.) I still sleep with the rattling teddy bear I got on the day I was born, and I love laying in bed and listening to the rain pour down on the roof outside. I like to write stream of consciousness blog posts and letters to people who will never read them. I've loved three people, but I've only ever been in love once. I just know. & there IS a difference. In the summer, I can't sleep unless there is a fan blowing on me directly and I am snuggled under a blanket. Counter-intuitive, I know. I want to live in Nashville. And Paris. & London (although, with the political climate there in recent days, I'm beginning to rethink that one.) I want to see all the Wonders of the World. I still listen to the Backstreet Boys when I'm feeling like a kid again, and when I hear old songs on the radio from the 90s, it still amazes me that I remember all the words. I still don't know exactly who I am or what I want out of life, but i know one thing--I am a lot closer to knowing now than I was at 15.
I don't know what the point of this blog post actually was. I just kind of...felt like writing it.
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| I am a self-proclaimed music aficionado. I love music from (almost) all genres, artists of any age, race, or gender, and anyone with any semblance of talent. I grew up loving artists from Reba to Garth, Led Zep to the Doors, and anything in between. The only important factor for me to consider when listening to a new artist or a new song is this: do the lyrics mean something? Anyone who knows me knows that while my tastes cover a range of styles, my heart lies in the world of country music. I have a laundry list of beloved country artists, from the aforementioned Reba and Garth, to Martina and Leann, Kenny and Keith, up to today's Miranda Lambert, Lady Antebellum, Carrie Underwood, and Jason Aldean. I even enjoy the occasional trip back in time to the days of Patsy Cline & Johnny Cash. All of these artists have one very important thing in common: their songs tell stories. The lyrics have meaning. Someone, somewhere, will listen to a song by one of these artists and they will feel something. That is not to say that these lyrical stories don’t exist in other genres, only to say that the idea of a song telling a story and emoting something is hugely prominent in the world of country music.
And while I have listened to many a song by these and many other artists like them, relating to their lyrics, finding humor or sadness between the lines of strategically rhythmic prose set to a steel guitar, only one artist has connected with me on the deepest, most delicate level of my existence: Taylor Swift.
When it comes to Taylor, this is not a simple question of “I like this artist. Her songs are catchy and she has star power.” For me, Taylor and her music connect with me in ways that no one else ever has. Let me start with outlining a few basic facts. To start, Taylor and I are the same age. Being born only three months apart, and growing up in the same world at the same time, she and I experienced the same things at relatively the same pace. As she grew, her music grew. And as her music grew, I grew too. That may be why it is easier for me to relate to a 21 year old girl looking at her experiences from the point of view of a 21 year old girl that it is for me to relate to a song like “Family Man,” by Craig Campbell—the story of a working class husband and father who adores his family and would do anything for them, or something like Trace Adkins new hit “Just Fishin’”—the sweet reflection of a father’s fishing trip with his young daughter. Both are beautiful, well-told stories from a point of view I cannot relate to…and both are songs that cause me to change the station when they are played on the radio.
Secondly, Taylor is living a dream; specifically the only dream I’ve had since I was a little girl. While it may have been watching a televised Reba McEntire performance, or watching an old Garth Brooks concert video that sparked my interest in performing country music, it is Taylor’s undeniable success that had led me to believe that crazy dreams like performing for sold out arenas and stadiums really can come true.
Lastly, no one can deny Taylor’s incredible songwriting ability. After an unfruitful trip to Nashville at age 11, where Taylor passed out demo CDs of herself singing to karaoke tracks, she returned home and learned to play guitar, beginning on a 12 string at the age of 12. Songwriting came soon after. While the subject matter of a 12-year-old’s songs may be mildly juvenile, some of her earliest songs show an incredible depth far beyond her years, despite some of the silliness. At age 14, Taylor was the youngest staff songwriter ever to be signed to the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house. As of today, she has at least partial songwriting credit on every song of every album she’s released (not including the traditional Christmas songs included on her Holiday Collection EP). With her sophomore release Fearless, Taylor retained sole songwriting credit on seven of thirteen tracks, and her 2010 release Speak Now was written in its entirety by Taylor, without the input of any co-writers. I could also go on to quote her extensive chart performance success, or the fact that Speak Now sold over 1 million copies in its first week alone, but I am writing this at 2am and I don’t have the patience for every detail. Love her or hate her, you cannot deny that she has been incredibly successful.
My love and admiration for Taylor Swift and her music can ultimately be traced back to one thing: her songs. Every song tells a story, in true country fashion, yes. But her songs are incredibly personal, like a look into a diary entry or a well-cherished memory. She does not hesitate to name names, or to be brutally honest. While many people will argue that all her songs are the same, I will be forced to disagree. Yes, many of her songs do revolve around the idea of love, boys and heartbreak, but she also writes songs about family, and friendship, and courage; about being true to who you are & never letting anyone make you feel inferior; about the loss of the innocence of childhood & growing up. Taylor Swift has one rule when it comes to songwriting—she writes what she knows. And if love and boys and heartbreak are what she knows, that is what she is going to write.
I have loved Taylor Swift’s music since the first time I heard “Tim McGraw” in 2006. From her self-titled debut to the 2008 release of Fearless, I have continued to support Taylor and her music, finding song after song that I could relate to on a personal level. But it wasn’t until Speak Now that I heard an album that could so completely, with every song, touch me to the very core of who I am as a person. Every song hit me in a different place emotionally, and as Taylor explained in her liner notes, every song was an open letter to a different person, expressing thoughts and words that she had wanted to say but never did. But her open letters to people could have been my own. While I had found most of her earlier songs easily relatable, these ones were as if she had opened up my diary, read page after page, added some snappy chords and a catchy hook and then spit my stories back out in song form. From imagining the future with a boy I thought could be the one, (“Mine”) to speaking an apology for some things I should have never said, (“Back to December”) to the awkward moment that comes in the form of running into your ex in public and not being able to say anything, (“Story of Us”) and even the magical moment when you meet the eyes of someone perfect from across the room and that first interaction (“Enchanted”). Each and every song recounted a moment in my life, bringing the memories back into crystal-clear focus. Taylor may have been writing the songs about her experiences, but I think she may have been channeling mine.
However, it was the heartbreaking reminiscence of a lost love in the six minute ballad “Last Kiss” that left me frozen to my mattress, eyes shining with tears while I played the track on repeat. The incredible imagery she uses in this, I daresay, masterpiece, leaves nothing to the imagination. It is as if you are standing right beside her as she lives those moments, and with every word, you can feel the intense pain and longing of a breakup as she recounts the memories; memories I swear to God were mine. One section of the song in particular left me sobbing into my pillow, unable to do anything but recall countless memories of my own, only fueling the emotional turmoil the song itself can provoke, painful breakup notwithstanding. I do remember the swing of your step/The life of the party, you're showing off again/And I roll my eyes and then you pull me in/I'm not much for dancing, but for you I did/Because I love your handshake, meeting my father/I love how you walk with your hands in your pockets/How you kissed me when I was in the middle of saying something/There's not a day I don't miss those rude interruptions/But I'll go sit on the floor wearing your clothes/All that I know is I don't know how to be something you miss/I never thought we'd have a last kiss/Never imagined we'd end like this/Your name, forever the name on my lips/So I'll watch your life in pictures like I used to watch you sleep/And I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe/And I keep up with our old friends just to ask them how you are/Hope it's nice where you are.
I can’t tell you how many times I played that song within the next few weeks. But once I was able to cast my own emotions aside, I couldn’t help but find the absolute beauty in the heartache of that song. Never in my life has a song impacted me in that way, especially when the incidents from which my emotions stemmed had happened so long in the past.
This song, along with many others from Taylor, is very personal to me. Her music has helped me get through a lot of hard times, and has been a comfort to me on numerous occasions. Taylor’s songs connect with me in ways that I can’t explain, as hard as I’ve tried to in this blog post. I don’t expect anyone to understand how much her music means to me, but I do expect that people will be respectful of my feelings about her music, despite their own personal opinions about her. Just in the way that I respect other people’s musical tastes, even if they are vastly different from my own.
You may not like Taylor Swift. You may not like country music. And that is okay. Everyone is entitled to their own personal music preferences. But not caring for an artist or a genre doesn’t make it okay to disregard other people’s feelings about those artists and genres. It’s not okay to make someone feel like less of a person for liking an artist or band. Music is a deeply personal thing for many people, and in many cases, insulting a person’s musical tastes is equivalent to insulting a person themselves. A healthy, spirited debate over the merits of one genre over another is one thing, as long as you are respecting the other person’s opinion and not trying to tear them down instead.
Maybe it’s just me. Maybe music is more personal to me than it is to anyone else. Maybe I am more emotionally invested in my favorite music than most people. But somehow…I don’t think that is the case. It might not be Taylor Swift for you, but I’m sure everyone who reads this can think of one artist or one song that means something more to them than just a simple chord progression paired with some clever lyrics. Somehow I don’t think I’m the only one. So let’s just keep it simple: you don’t insult my music, and I won’t insult yours.
(And just as a footnote here—let’s everyone try and remember that recording artists, like Taylor, along with actors, actresses and anyone else in the public eye, are people too. They deserve the respect that anyone else deserves, and it isn’t right to say nasty things or make hurtful comments about them just because you don’t particularly like their work. Just because you don’t know someone personally doesn’t make it okay to be nasty. Just…think about it.) | | |
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