July 4
Well, it's hard of hard to feel like celebrating America when so much has gone wrong with it, lately. (I wrote a facebook post about that, a little while ago.) But I'm gonna try. For one thing, I'm wearing a shirt I bought recently, specifically to wear today. Also, I finally opened the Firework Oreos my sister bought me like a month ago, and tried one for the first time. It has popping candy in the cream, but it didn't seem very poppy at first. Once I'd swallowed all the cookie bits, though, it did sort of start popping.

As usual, we went to the lake to have a potluck lunch with a bunch of relatives, so that was nice. And the weather was quite nice. And I read an article from last week's EW that I've been waiting til today to read: The 25 Most Patriotic Movies of All Time. (I'd seen maybe six of them, but I'm sure I'd like to see some of the others.) And I read the first chapter of "Starship Troopers" (which I had previously read in 1997). And I guess that's about it. We stayed a few hours, had food and conversations and I did some reading, and now we're back home. And I've done some internet, including watching a video called We Are America that was posted on YouTube last Fourth of July, but which I believe I'm seeing for the first time, this year, because it appeared on facebook. Anyway, it's a great message about what patriotism truly means. Also watched an older video I'd never seen, of James Earl Jones reading excerpts from Frederick Douglass's 1852 speech, The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro, which is an important reminder that "freedom" hasn't always applied to all Americans. (And sadly, it still doesn't, in many ways.)

Well, I didn't see any fireworks, since we left the lake well before dark. But that's what I wanted. Once it finally did get dark, I started watching the movie I'd been planning on watching tonight for some time, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde. I chose it because the title obviously alludes to the colors of America's flag (even though blonde is substituted for blue). And I think it was a good choice, because at one point, Paulette said that Elle looked like the Fourth of July. And the first song to play over the closing credits was "Me Against the World" by Superchic(K), which includes the lyric "It's my independence day." And, you know, the whole plot of the movie is kind of patriotic, in its own way. (Well, technically in the way of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which was #12 on EW's list of patriotic movies.) While watching the movie, I had some beers from a Sam Adams summer mixpack. And they were good. And... I guess that's the end of my Independence Day for the year.

So... here's a picture my sister took of me in my new shirt, while we were at the lake. I didn't have time to pose or smile or anything, but like... I'm not a smiler, anyway. It looks like I'm frowning, but this is actually my face's natural repose. Also, there are obviously fireworks and American flags on my shirt, but I'm not sure if you can tell that the flags are actually eagles.

August 6
I added a line of text on the front page of this section, right under the "Happy Fourth of July" at the top of the page.