I have never felt bolder than I do right now.

At 3 A.M. the world is sleeping: my friends are in their hotel beds, dreaming about long drives home, and marshmallow clouds. I'm awake, devising a plan for a better tomorrow, so that when I woke up this morning, and scrubbed the sharpie tattoo off my arm in the shower, I would be able to list all the things that make me constantly happy in life: contemporary music, dinner with my friends, riding my bike home from class, eating breakfast on the porch with Luke...

It's so easy to write when you're alone with the shades drawn. Creating is not hard when you're not in your right mind. Staying the same is simple... "All this passion and fruit," is a Mischief Brew quote, and no matter how much I've expanded my tastes, Erik Peterson still changed my life.

I have a fuzzy memory of running around on the playground playing Redwall: Little Heather Leadbury told me she didn't want to be my friend anymore. I was crying because I didn't understand. 9 years old, climbing over a iron caterpillar, buck-toothed and wild with a blue-bandanna to keep the hair out of my face. We were seen holding each other's hand only a day or so later.

Mrs. Burke is standing behind her desk with a younger Ali explaining that it doesn't feel good to be excluded, or ganged up on. I might have gone home that Friday and pretended to hurt my ankle so that my Mom wouldn't make me vacuum the stairs.

And that was me on the tour bus in upstate New York with my head phones on listening to a New Found Glory CD with my face pressed against the glass. I was watching a freight train, this intense love and curiosity welling up inside of me: this great mechanical snake, confined to a road where no humans go.

3 years later, I would cut class and board a train to Boston to get my first job. I would work hard and excel. I would learn to watch out for myself, value my possessions, and get home safely. Then 3 years later, when I felt overwhelmed by the commute, I would learn how to get another job, and another if I was unhappy. So that I could by myself a new pair of sneakers, or a cellphone when it broke, or put a deposit down on apartment.

So in the end, I'm not bitter that my Mom forced me to keep vacuuming...even after throwing myself down the stairs.