hello sinister. it's july now, and i wonder if i am supposed to feel something for my country. *** the boys are cutting their hair, i've noticed. the temperature rises and it all comes off: welcome the shepherdess and her shorn flock. sometimes i wish i could be the one to wield the scissors, but the boys i know castrate themselves. i must rob them of something else. *** independence day never makes me feel very independent. i always end up trapped in my grandmother's house, eating dry, stringy chicken and corn on the cob, trying not to go outside in the sweltering heat and pumping myself full of advil to fend off pending headaches before the pyrotechnics start. it all has this uneasy sense of the obligatory about it; this is a holiday, thus we must eat together around the table and say one of the four annual prayers thanking our probably absent god for food and family. and then we eat, and roll our eyes behind each others' backs at everything everyone says. there is always a low-lying feeling of panic, i think, a need for escape into the normal regimes of our world, not the slowed, warped timezone of the picnic table on my grandma's patio. *** when i was a little girl, there were few highlights to the fourth of july. i loved sparklers, and those, along with those little snappy things that resemble sperm and make a nice pop when you throw them at the sidewalk, were the only reasons i didn't sleep the day away. i always hated fireworks. i hated those stupid little tanks and snakes that curl around the end of your driveway. i hated the smell of sulfer, and i was never allowed to light anything. so i sat around, threw my sperm poppers and sparkled for a while until i got ultra-bored, then went inside to read a book. and at night, i hated the booms of the big, flashy fireworks that everyone knows about. they were pretty, but i wasn't patient enough for that kind of pretty. i wanted one big ten-minute spectacle with a good bit of neil diamond and then an ending. but there was always the neighborhood rivalry, who could have the bigger, louder, longer, more colorful sky shows. and inside, televised, there was the fireworks spectacle at the baseball stadium in omaha. and there was whitney houston's national anthem and a picture on the television of bombs bursting in air superimposed over a picture of the the liberty bell. a big stone bell with a big long crack. and this was is america on the fourth day of july. cracked and competitive and on fire. *** it's a boys' holiday. and the boys keep telling me the reason they keep cutting their hair is because of the heat. but i suspect it's so their hair won't catch fire. *** i think i've been on sinister a year now. and i think i may have written of independence day before. but it's better to listen to it, and nod with elliott when he says don't go to far, stay who you are. and right now conor says i'll be grateful for this day, i'll be grateful for each day to come. and i wonder why. nobody needs a sparkler to sparkle, something in me says (in the voice of bron, i think). but i somehow have doubts for america. for an america sparkling. and independent. and free. and if it ever happens. the way we celebrate it happening. then i will look down again and write: she was free. to waste. away. alone. *** and this is where i say goodbye to people who never bid the rest of us farewell. love, lou xxx ------------------ THE FOLLOWING IS AN ADVERT FOR EXCELLENCE: never learned how to ride a bike? merely flailed helplessy in a chlorine-laced pool when trying to learn to swim? come to Camp Kids Who Gave Up 2002, sponsored by lindsey baker, dave snyder and conor oberst to learn to ride and swim like nobody's business! while you're temporarily residing on our beautiful, secluded island paradise camp, enjoy lessons from friendly guest instructors such as mandee wright and listen to a different live band every night (we feature saddle creek gems and omaha rapists)! dating lindsey is also an available option, so long as conor is off-island. 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