So today was my real birthday! I woke up to my cell phone ringing at 7:45. I had been dreaming about marching band. Mr. Miller had given me the opportunity to help write the marching show and rather than just creating a sequence of dots, I was brainstorming an actual story outline that would flow with the music (which was a strange collection of pop rock from the 80's and 90's). Anyway, my phone rang and woke me up all stupid. Worried, I got out of bed to see who it was and, not recognizing the number, called the person back. Kristofer's mom answered in her usual good-spirit; Just wanted to wish you a happy birthday! she said, and then sang. That was nice. :) I got off the phone with her smiling and collapsed back into bed. My alarm was going to sing in 15 minutes but I didn't feel like getting up just yet. In fact, I hit snooze twice before I finally rose. Getting old, I suppose. The day went well enough. Thanks to the wonderful world of Facebook, I recieved dozens of birthday wishes from friends and people I haven't talked to in ages. I don't usually comment birthday wishes on peoples' facebook, but I realized today that it was actually really nice to see all those comments there on the home screen. I also got phone messages from all the important people, intermittently brightening my day throughout. :) Nothing too exciting on the whole. I'm on duty, just got through a boring meeting, and have much work to get done before I go to bed and then wake up early to do news updates at the Blaze. It is going to be a very long day tomorrow. All in all, life has this week on a slant. Everything is crushing down at once and I'm feeling the weight of it while pretending it's not there. I know I can carry it though, and I guess that's why I'm not stressing out. At this point, all that is left to do is to sit down and simply take care of business. Carrie