The Little Things

Hot cups of coffee

Cult classics, I.E., Fight Club, Donnie Darko, Princess Bride

Messy Hair with neon colors

Boutiques

Travelingtravelingtraveling

Vintage clothes and accessories

Being barefoot

Peacoats

Smore cupcakes from the Sugarshack

Phantom Planet

Modest Mouse

Chicago streets in the winter

Having classs cancelled

Peanut butter and banana sandwiches

That feeling of curling up with a blanket on the couch to watch something awesome

Movies with incredible soundtracks (Garden State, cough cough)

Going up North in Michigan

John Lennon

James Dean

Tattoos

LiveLavaLive videos

Piercings

Warped Tour

The Catcher in the Rye

Holding hands

Having money in my pocket for cigarettes

Airports

Stoner Movies

Adventure Time

Happy, bubbly, light sounding songs with plucky piano

Getting lost and ending up somewhere incredible

Open fields with shady trees

Waking up and knowing it's Friday

Fake mustaches

Big sunglasses (that rhymed!)

Volkswagon Buses

Playing ukulele all day

Johnny Cash

Oh, and of course, Aaron Paul

Party 101

Over the last few months I have been to substantially more parties than I had been going to. To be clear, I'm not in any way trying to imply that I'm super cool or popular or any of that jazz, because I'm not. The point here being that I have picked up a few tips along the way I thought should be documented for later use. So, here is the list of party tips from firsthand experience.

1. Bring what you like to drink. This one is probably the most important! If you show up at the party with a fistful of dollar bills and hope that you can buy something off the party thrower, it's bad news. You're going to end up drinking some disgusting leftover thing that has been sitting in the freezer/ liquor cabinet for a month. So if you don't want to get stuck drinking Gin and Kahlua, or Gin and pretty much anything, just bring a fallback bottle of Smirnoff for good measure.

2. When you put your stuff down, put it somewhere you WILL REMEMBER. This will prevent you from expereincing the dreaded morning after groping. What is the morning after grope you ask? Well it's basically waking up from sunlight blaring in your pupils, hungover, confused, and pretty much set on just going back to your own bed to pass out until noon. So having your shit in a place you know will make sneaking away while the rest of the partiers snore and drool, much easier.

3. Find a master beer pong partner. It's pretty much a gaurantee that if you spend the whole time owning the table, you will be one happy camper at the end of the night. So find a sweet pong partner who doesn't get pissed when you miss shots, can make a decent re-wrack, and of course has badass aim. Oh, and bonus tip, try standing at the corner when you shoot. Totally works. (By the way, this kid to the left, is totally not a pro beer pong player.)

4. If you're planning to stay at the party location, scope out the best sleeping spot! Do you really want to end up drunkenly curled up in a ball with your head resting on a sticky shoe? No you don't. So at the beginning of the night search out the decent sleeping places and then comfortably fall asleep later, with one foot on the floor. Because that helps. Yah, I learned that from the Jersey Shore...don't judge me. Oh, and as the wise Asher Roth once said, 'don't pass out with your shoes on.'

Hullabaloo

I've had a few things on my mind lately. Things like class. How high school truly does not prepare you academically for the reality of college courses. Things like my place in college and that I'm not sure I've found it.

Things like my friends back home. Things like how many cigarettes I smoke and whether or not I could quit right now if I wanted to. Things like the turns cannabis legalization has taken. For some reason I think about that a lot. OK, by some reason I mean that I would be really happy if the US took the step forward that is Proposal 19. I would be even happier if that extended to the state of Michigan someday.

As the wise Dale Denton said in Pineapple Express, "Have you ever dealt with a drug dealer? It's terrible, it's weird, it's awkward."

For a while this wasn't the case because the person selling was sort of a friend of mine. He was actually really cool and pretty funny. But this particular friend has given up both selling and smoking pot. Good for him, bad for me. Now I have to go through various aquaintances and friends of friends. Which can be a tense situation.

However if this law was passed I could go to a normal, well lit establishment, pay a tax to the state, and but some legal weed. As opposed to meeting in a parking lot or a creepy alley somewhere.

To me that's the shame in weed being illegal; it takes normal people and makes them into criminals. I don't enjoy sketchy situations any more than the next guy..girl. Whatever! The point being that I hope all goes well with prop 19 because I think it will be a healthy step forward.

In other news, my Linguistics midterm is on Thursday, or tomorrow if you wanna say it that way. Which I don't. Because tomorrow seems much closer than Thursday. As you can tell, I'm stressed about it. But on the other hand I was stressed about the last one and I did pretty well on it, I got an 80%.

Also, as far as academia goes, I got my first D on an English paper and had to withhold the urge to punch my professor in the jaw. If I had she would have probably turned to a pile of dust because shes older than the freaking hills. She is the worst.

Also, I will be staying here for the weekend and I will be forced to actually do laundry here and find things to do on campus to occupy my time. I have it so easy when I go home. I can relax in a spacious house on a comfy sofa, I can eat whenever I want, I can call up my friends and be like 'Yo, let's do something awesome, RIGHT NOW'. I can also watch OnDemand shows and just take a nap if I feel like it.

But I figure it's high time I spend a weekend up here, considering I've been in school for just about 3 months and I've only stayed the weekend here twice. So that will happen...hope I don't die of boredom. Wish me luck.

You Look Like You Just Murdered the Grimace.

I dyed my hair purple this weekend.

Not entirely, just streaks. However, being the incredibly broke person I am, I had to use boxed dye which fades rather quickly. So for now it looks pretty good but I have a feeling I'll be going over it again next weekend.

My friend Melissa was the one who did it and it proceded to cover the palms of her hands in purple hue. After walking outside to smoke a cigarette my friend Renee looked down at her hands and casually told her that she had obviously murdered the Grimace. Yes, the Grimace from McDonalds.

Which she very well could have done and the purple hair dye was just a cover up. I have sick friends.

Other than that not an incredibly eventful weekend. Although I have to say that every weekend is good just because I get to come home. Which I love doing. I love the familiarity and that I know everyone and that I can do whatever I want to whenever I want to.

Friday, during the day, I went to the zoo and Friday night I went over to Melissa's house. Which proved to be very interesting.

We smoked a very large amount of weed in a relatively small amount of time and then a bunch of the biker guys came over and we smoked even more. I saw responsible adults hit a joint, roll a joint, and at least make an effort to understand the inner workings of a plastic bottle bong.

All said and done we ended up passing out around 5:30 in the morning after a very fun night. Saturday me and Renee made a trip to Goodwill where she found some kick ass cds including the newest Phantom Planet album and a Warped Tour '05 compilation in awesome condition. We also searched every grocery and drug store looking for the right color of purple hair dye.

Then we went to Kristis to cook dinner with Tyler, Sierra, and Mel.

After dinner we all headed to Chunch's which is pretty much a gauranteed good time. I didn't get drunk and I didn't smoke enough weed to get completely blitzed out of my mind so it was a very chill night.

I probably won as many beer pong games as I lost and when we came back to my house around 4 a.m. we all got in the hot tub which brought back awesome memories.

I spent today hanging out with my dad, window shopping for things we can't afford and watching classic horror movies.

All in all, this was a great weekend. I got chill time, a couple days to sleep in, a couple nights to party, and my weekly dose of my friends. I suppose I'm ready to go back to school for the week.

Where It All Started

Today is a rainy, miserable, bleak kind of day. I have nothing but homework to do, which we all know I will postpone until the very last possible second. I thought a better use of my time would be to make a blog post chronicaling my life, from birth until college. Just in case, you know, someday I get hit with a blunt object and forget my entire past.

November 16th, 1991: A baby named Jessica Mariah Alward is born at Tacoma General Hospital in Tacoma, Washington. It was probably raining, because it's always raining in Washington. We proceded to move to Puyallup when I was around 3, while living there two important things happened. One, a got to ride a pony for my 4th birthday. Two, there was a drive by in our neighborhood that hit a few hosues near us, after that we moved.

1997: The Alward family, my dad, my mom, my brother Josh (who was already a douche), and I, all pile into a large brown van with weird crushed velvet curtains and drive to New Mexcio. At first we lived in a sketchy trailer park that my mom's sister owned. The pool was drained and the wind was freakishly strong all the time. When we realized how weird that place was, we got the hell outta there. We move into an Adobe house at 4209 Paolo Duro road in Albuqueque. It was awesome. My brother and I had a tree fort and basically spent our days terrorizing the uptight old people in the neighborhood.

2000: We move to Michigan. We start out in Lansing in a fairly nice house downtown. We live by a Dairy Queen and a produce store where my brother and I steal oranges and eat them pretty much everyday.

2002: We rent the house out to some sketchy tenants (who later turned that house into a hot mess), and move out to the small town of Eaton Rapids. About this time I meet some awesome people, who I proceed to cause some trouble with later. This trouble included, but was not limited to, accidental arson, the first time ever getting in trouble with the police, and the first time I ever smoked weed. They weren't bad people, their family was just CRAZY.

2005: I meet the greatest people ever. This was 5th grade, the year I met Melissa and Kristi, also a year later I met Renee. However, me and Renee weren't friends at first. She would always ask me to play chess, and then I would beat here. Also, she enjoyed creeping around at that point. Anyway, I met these people and to this day they are my greatest friends. The best people I've ever known. Down for anything, always have my back, straight up badass girls. Also a year later I met Kyle Hill. Who would later be my first boyfriend, my first kiss, and probably the first person I knew to get arrested.

2008: I get arrested for shoplifting and spend my summer doing community service.

2010: Graduation, leaving high school, coming to college. All that good stuff. And now here I am.

Things I couldn't remember the exact date of: the first time I dyed my hair a color that isn't natural, when I got my nose pierced, my first concert, when I got my license, and the first time I beat a Zelda game.

Drag Race Por Favor?

Have you ever been on the highway, maybe in the middle of a town, perhaps stopped at a traffic light, when you look to your side and catch the eye of the guy driving the hummer next to you? He's peering at your Oldsmobile Alero, a perfectly respectable vehicle, and he's looking at it like he could spit on it and it would evaporate into thin air? This happened to me on my way up to school this afternoon.

I swear every person that passed me was driving a big, overcompensating, gas guzzling truck and staring at me as they passed with this smug ass look on their face. The breaking point was a Hummer clad from bumper to bumper in U of M stickers. U of M, for those of you who don't know, is referring to the University of Michigan, the rival of my favorite team, Michigan State University. So this guy pulls up right on my bumper, even though I'm going a respectable 75 mph. He revs his engine like the douche bag he is, and proceeds to pass me, and it looked in my mind as if he was cackling on his way by. True, he was probably not laughing maniacally as he sped past me, but in my twisted head he was.

So this just pissed me right off. It was early, for me anyway, and I hadn't had any coffee, and I was sick of pompous assholes thinking they owned the world. So I sped up. I sped up quickly, with a purpose damnit!

And I passed that asshole. Oh yes, sweet victory was mine! I passsed him going a smooth 85 mph and crankin my far superior music as he played his ridiculous pop radio.

That's right dear followers, it felt damn good too.

Plus, the fact I didn't get a ticket was an added bonus.

The moral of the story is this. If you're speeding down the highway and you feel a sudden urge to drag race the fuck out some a-hole that's totally trying to pwn you, just do it. Because you're awesome and you will win.

My Favorite Things

These days, as you may have noticed via my last few posts, I'm not always in the best of moods. A lot of times I'm bored which leads to feeling dull, which leads to feeling unhappy. So on these days when I'm feeling sullen and bored I do a number of things in an effort to cheer myself up. Sometimes these things work, sometimes they don't.

1) Listen to awesome music

The definition of 'awesome music' varies depending on the mood I'm in. Sometimes awesome means the harmonies, beauty, and catchy beats of early Beatles tunes, like I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Other days it means listening to my favorite dark, pissed off, rock/punk combo of all time, Alkaline Trio. And still other days it means the techno laden synth bass of Beck. No matter the music, it serves to take up brain power and thus makes me feel less stagnant.

2) Read

Being somewhat of a literature geek, reading never fails to cheer me up. Right now I'm reading two books simultaneously. One is the Autobiography of Anthony Kiedis, the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The other, is a book of wisdom written by the Dalai Lama. Waiting in the wings is another Kurt Vonnegut book, because he's my favorite author at the moment. I think Kurt Vonnegut is a badass because he questions the government and writes massive novels about it and he tried to kill himself. Don't get me wrong it don't think suicide is cool, what's cool is that after his suicide attempt failed he just sort of shrugged it off and proceded to write several more masterpieces.

3)Lay in the grass and stare at the sky

This one is good for two reasons, 1) it gets me out of the room, which is pure salvation after hours of dark cramped boredom, and 2) it makes me feel free and happy just because the sun is shining and I get to be laying in it because I simply want to. This habit probably carried over from my childhood, I was a big fan of cloud shape searching. Nonetheless, this really never fails to make me feel more at peace.

4) Watch a damn good film

This is sort of a last ditch attempt at getting my creativity flowing. It's really cheating though, because it's based off of someone elses mind not my own. Regardless, watching an extremely well put together, creative, well cast film is something that is hard to match. An appreciation for these types of movies isn't hard to find if you're watching the right ones. Plus if the leading character is somewhat attractive, bonus points.

5) Smoke Weed

This one does not count for the times I'm at school. Just to be clear, I do not smoke weed while at college, ironic but true. Also, I don't mean going out to a big ass, loud kegger and smoking some ditch weed with a bunch of lowlife townies. No. By this I mean getting together with my closest friends, sitting in the grass or on the porch in a circle, listening to good music under the stars while we smoke a joint. Despite the criticisms placed on pot I say, from personal experience, that it is a completley innocent and relaxing activity. It does not make you stupid and it does not fry your brain. It puts you in a state of happiness and it makes everything more fun. Music sounds better, conversation is deeper, life is simpler. It's just...fun. Not to encourage drug use, this is simply my personal opinion. If my life is getting really shitty, weed has a tendency to brighten it up.

For Good Measure

I thought I should post a picture of my current obsession.

Because, you know, I'm obsessed. So...yah.

I did mention it in the post earlier today that I could

restart the 24 hour a day Aaron Paul posts.
Plus this is my favorite scene in Breaking Bad, ever.

Partly because it's beautiful and partly because later

the cashier calls him dreamy. Only because it's true.

Take the Money and Run

So check it out; if I could just get up and walk out right now I would.

Not that I'm in some horrible place or that something particularly terrible is happening to me right now. In fact, I'm just sitting in my dorm room, on my bed.

But if I could just get up, walk out the door, and just keep walking I would totally do it. Walk right past my car, walk right past the town of Mt. Pleasant, and simply go. Hitchhike along the highway or walk until the soles of my shoes wear down to thin paper-like wisps barely clinging to the outer threads of my converse. Sleep outside under the stars and eat only when absolutely nessecary. Meet people who I can talk to about life and music and religion and shit that absolutely doesn't matter, like who my favorite Beatle is. See where the path of the unknown leads.

I wish this was my plan for tonight. But it's not.

Tonight I'm working on homework that I don't care about and fulfilling obligatory plans with a girl from my linguistics class. Tonight I am being blockaded from sunlight as thick dorm room walls cover every inch of what could possibly be sunny and warm. Tonight I read facebook statuses and blogs wondering how much better their lives might be right now than mine is. Tonight I accept phone calls from home only to be annoyed and pissed off at one sided discrimination and snap judgements. Tonight I am bored. I'm always bored.

P.S. I don't mean to make every fucking post either depressing as shit or a complete rant about my weekends, it just works out that way. If you want I can go back to posting 24/7 about Aaron Paul. Seriously...I could.

Hello Again

Overall this was a weekend well spent. I did aboslutely nothing today, and it felt awesome. Well, not absolutely nothing. I did put some effort into overcoming a massive and ferocious hangover. And I watched The Runaways. You know, the one with the weird faced Twilight girl and Dakota Fanning pretending to be a child prostitute? Yah, that's the one.

I woke up drunk and fell off my bed also. Sooo that was nice. And the only thing I managed to get down was a large hi-c from mcdonalds after I wrangled my friend into taking me there.

More than the Hi-C I needed to go pick up my car from the house I left it at last night. And of course I couldn't tell my mom I had left my car somewhere because I was in to much of a drunken stupor to drive home. Also, withdrew my last ten dollars in my bank account. FUCK.

Oh and my friend Matt got stopped on his bike by the cops that night. The ironic part about this is that he had completely stopped drinking for 6 months until last night when he had ONE beer. They shined the spotlight on him and made him take a breathalizer. It's like they have a radar for that shit. Strange indeed.

Other than that I spent Friday going to a bonfire and to see the new 'Let Me In' movie which I thoroughly enjoyed but probably because I like really weird movies. Indie shit, that's how I roll. Then my friend got sick so I spent the rest of the night at home watching Lockup and Intervention because I'm weird like that.

Oh! The other news is that Josh is in jail again. Josh being my brother. Yes on Friday night he got picked up for three outstanding warrants and he proceded to call me at three a.m. from the Eaton County Jail and casually have a conversation about what he was doing beforehand, a.k.a. hanging out at Dann's and visiting with an old friend. It's kind of strange to me that a three a.m. phone call that comes in as 'This is a service from Eaton County Jail requesting permission to proceed with a call from inmate: 'Josh Alward' doesn't even phase me anymore. Very strange indeed. Is this real life?

So now it's Sunday and I know that I should drive back to school tonight. But the thing is...I don't want to. It's a tough thing to get around. So instead I'm listening to the Black Keyes and not doing homework. Probably gonna go hit up some How I Met Your Mother OnDemand style.