bored on the fourth of july

i'm trying to write again, and also going through the process of digging out things that were on my old blog, that were read mainly by a very different cast of characters than i have in my life now. so, it's new to them... so, this, from 2005.


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when they light up our town, i just think,
'what a waste of gunpowder and sky.'
- aimee mann

my fourth was spent... independently. it began well, dovetailing without sleep into the previous day's night, leora and eric and i in the warm water of the pool at my apartment, drinking cold beer, talking quietly.
they left at four in the morning, and i slept, slept, and slept until about noon. i was still sore from saturday's run, which had taken me far past the red line, past the maximum of six or eight miles i had run in the past several months, all the way to 14.

i made some oatmeal, and watched t.v., into the night. my roommate came and went. i didn't make calls i should have made. didn't go to any of the two or three parties i had been invited to, didn't go to meet amelia and her brother, didn't take up another possible option.

i ate a can of black beans, which was somehow appropriate while watching napoleon dynamite. at about 9:30, i heard muffled thumps from outside. i put on shoes and ipod and wandered out, walking up congress to amy's.

i walked north past families, couples, walked under faces and eyes turned up and to the west, where color erupted over the treetops.

it is hard for me, sometimes, to separate energy from mood, from reality. i didn't want to be alone, but i couldn't seem to generate the motivation and effort to join in, to interact. i felt a sense of loss, missing the color and noise, maybe because some part of me doesn't want the smoke and silence that intervenes between the bursts. maybe i've too often felt the thrill of the party or evening or of love, even, end, leaving regret hanging in the air like the sharp incense of cordite.

i stopped, away from the crowds, and finally turned to watch. the new coldplay album that i still haven't gotten enough of was playing,

and all you ever wanted was love,
but you never looked hard enough.
it's never gonna give itself up.
all you ever wanted to be,
living in perfect symmetry -
nothing is as down or as up.

i stood, and the world was only light and music. i thought of my friends out there, watching, taking joy in the moment, in each explosion of color, globes of purple, sparklers, rockets streaming skyward, exploding in colors that went from gold to red.

part of me missed them, wished i was seeing it with them, but part of me knew i had made a choice - how disconnected am i? how much do i disconnect myself? am i a hypocrite to feel lonely, when sometimes i choose to be alone?

the show hit its climax, and then ended, leaving ghosts floating over the city.

i walked to amy's. the people there make it hard to be antisocial. the crowds hadn't reached that far up the street from the river yet, and i spent a good 15 minutes there, my only real human contact of the day. i bought a new flavor for the first time in over 15 years of going to amy's. the girl slapped a sticker on my shirt.
the crowds began to approach from the south, streaming up the sidewalk, began to line up. i said goodbye, put my headphones back in, and walked home.