I'm about eight minutes from my airport ride showing up in the office, Les Miz is blasting from the speakers, I have the MS1 script packed to read on the play (because I'm super excited about "---"), and my vacation outbox message has been on for I-won't-say-how-long. Let's do this.

things are gonna be great / at 28

So maybe it'd be considered cheating to specifically pick the new birthday song, but I don't really care. My rules, my game. Besides, "In the Light" reflects (ha) what I didn't feel I did well this past stressed-out year, and hence what I need to keep working on this year. (And isn't it nice to have a song that I actually know the words to rather than a general knowledge of melody and chorus?)

[Fun fact: it's the Truman male a capella group True Men's version that plays in my head, no disrespect to dc Talk. (I wish I could find a link to share.) Further fun fact: it's the same version I played over and over the first week I lived in the new apartment (before Jessica moved in) to help me fall asleep. I was on a flat mattress--or the couch, depending on the day--and there was crying. Bless you, younger Hannah.]

Sometimes I like playing "follow the margin citations," which is how I jumped around the Old and New Testaments last night, though originally starting in Psalms. We need the light, whether as a scientific principle or a symbolic representation of God. Light warms us, nutures us (whatever vitamin I don't get enough of because I'm always inside a dark room ... and growing the leafy things I don't usually eat unless there's a burger attached), and guides us through and out of darkness. One of the first verses I've learned due to theater is from the top of John: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it." The light that we need so badly to survive is a mystery to the darkness it conquers, just as it is a mystery to us who naturally have that same darkness in us. (Who here really remembers all the talk in science class about photosynthesis or electricity? Science Major David, please don't buzz in.) Maybe all this made more sense in my brain last night at midnight-ish, or even this morning drafting it on the bus. I just know I can be petty, and intentially mean, and I sometimes lie to actors (even when it's not to their benefit), so I need the light as much as I can soak up at any given time.

I don't care that there's now a separate spot to add a post title. I'm going to keep using the one bit of HTML programming that I know to make this line appear like it does.

I'm still at work for a couple of reasons, though none of them are that it's weird to have a show tonight that I don't have to stay here to run. (This is such a good thing, I cannot even express it.)

At this point, I'm still here because (1) the internet is slow, and things I wanted to take care of during the day haven't been accomplished yet and (2) I was gifted a large mug of Butterbeer (oh, the sweet caramel literary-inspired goodness), and I'm not going to let it go to waste (or sit in a spot where actors will drink it instead of me. The jerks.)

"Jerk" seems to be my insult of the moment, which I guess bears documenting. I don't know; I'm full of sugar right now, I fly to Missouri in a week, see "The Avengers" at midnight tomorrow, and I was handed Cardinals tickets for this weekend to go with my Butterbeer. This is either the universe apologizing for my often stressful 27th year, or wishing me an extra special early 28th.