After spending some years living in Southern England, Ali now makes her home near Ann Arbor, Michigan where she lives with her 3 year old son. Ali spent her childhood trying to "dodge trouble", as all parochial school children do. At 12, Ali and her friends formed a rock band, re-recording the hits from "Annie" on a $15 tape player borrowed from someone's dad. As an older youth, Ali delivered papers in an effort to save up for a graphing calculater for the purposes of advanced cheating in Calculus class. Despite her efforts to the contrary, Ali made it into the University of Michigan where she graduated in 1995 with a dual degree in Cultural Anthropology and African American History. Her favourite meal is a toasted garlic bagel with veggie cream cheese and a guava smoothie. She despises chocolate but loves red wine.