independence day

My last couple 4th of Julys haven't been much fun. Last year was a party at a mansion overlooking the lake where no one talked to me and I ended up dancing the merengue with the hired help and sitting back anthropologist style observing how the other half lives, and the year before was that year that my roommate and I stopped talking and I had my tangles with The Man, so I'm not sure what to expect this time around, but there's a cookout I've been invited to, or the option of retreating to the island for the day, other things maybe, all this depending on what the weather does. Being introverted doesn't sound like half bad of an idea either. Since this is a more demure hood than my last residence, I have a feeling there won't be massive pyrotechnic feats in the middle of the street.

I still remember that one night my dad and I were driving back across town through the wild streets of Clevelandia with Spacemen 3 on the college station, and the air was fuzzed with colored smoke, the profiles of children running through the yards, the sparkle of rockets red glared zooming over the car and I was euphoric on the element of danger and the smell.

I'm ambivalent about high-minded national ideals at this point, glad to live somewhere with relative freedom even if things are getting more messed up all the time, and we're the only country that's ever nuked anybody, and there's always one road to hell or another every few years paved with the best of intentions involving abstract ideals and ways to keep the war machine on turning.

But tonight, I'm cooking dinner, sundry folk will hopefully make their way over this way, and Elder is playing down the street, so I'll get to chill out to some fabulous stoner rock if not anything else.