Thursday, July 16, 2009

The Return of the Blog. For Real.

July 4th is a time for celebration for the country and for me it's a time to iron out my own hypocrisy. For years (possibly decades, I lost count) now I have claimed I do not enjoy fireworks. I will never completely understand the significance of chemicals reacting in the sky as a symbol of freedom or independence, but maybe that's the point. We are now free to try to blow off our on fingers (all 10 of 'em!) at least once a year. This is what Thomas Jefferson lived for (along with making sweet sweet love to slaves, of course).

But, I guess being dragged to a field in the middle of a town as a youth and watching embers fall down around me, permanently turned me off to the idea of fireworks being cool. I have not been excited for them since I can remember and this year was no different. I was headed to the beach for the 4th for some debauchery that had the possibility of bordering on illegal. I had giant plans to cook some meth, experience my first hooker and possibly drink some wine and then I realized I would be spending the weekend with my parents and not Zach Galifianakis' character from the Hangover.

As I was preparing to leave (packing over 38 pounds of laundry into my fany Nissan Sentra) I told my roomate that I was going to to beach and not excited about fireworks anyway. Fast forward to the next night.

It's July 4th and after close to 24 consecutive hours of watching my parents watch their computer screens I decided I needed to be inspired (or at least jarred awake by loud noises and shiny things). I ripped out the iPhone to try to figure out where the town fireworks would be. Good news! Only ....an hour away! That's right, a beach town in the middle of summer decided that no one would want to see fireworks in person (and even considers any fireworks on the island illegal. Jefferson would not be pleased. Unless he was slave-banging when he heard the news, of course).
Internet research assured me that if I was "inventive" enough I would be able to find fireworks displays around. I decided to do the most inventive thing I could - I stepped outside. And I heard them! Dear lord, I heard the glorious sound of popping and sizzling skin! I looked into the sky and saw nothing. I walked in a circle that was approximately 3 feet in circumfrence to see if I could scout them. I couldn't. I couldn't get any more inventive than this.

The noise kept getting louder, and instead of getting more excited I started to fear for my life about what a bunch of rednecks with illegal fireworks could do in a wooded area (although waking up to a flaming tree falling through the roof would ignite the senses.) I returned to the depths of the couch and flicked on NBC, hoping to at least catch the NYC fireworks. The cable box said it was on, but the fireworks display being put forward disagreed. IMMENSELY DISAGREED. It sounded like they were just playing a radio station as the mayor shot off single color bottle rockets over the ocean.

5 minutes went by and it ended in an unspectacular fashion. I was disappointed until the mayor came on the TV and said that Wilmington, NC had the best fireworks in the nation (he was high), and then I learned that NYC's fireworks were next although the mayor claimed, "There is no way they are gonna have better fireworks then us! Yee haw!"

The broadcast fades. Music provided by WHQR Radio Wilmington. I knew it. Within 5 seconds the NYC fireworks were on and they immediately outshone the Wilmington fireworks. I watched for 15 minutes before deciding that fireworks, legitimately weren't for me and maybe I suffered from the "you only want what you can't have disease."

Later on in the evening CBS decided to have Craig Ferguson (a good ole fashioned American who just happens to have a Scottish accent) host the Boston fireworks with guest performance by the corpse of Neil Diamond! (Official CBS name). My parents raved about how good he used to be, but by that point I was already deaf from his shriek. He then played a song (which I cant recall) that climaxed with an unfurling of the American flag while a drunken crowd roared.

This part of the performance was so over the top that I couldn't contain myself from laughing out loud. This caused a slight smack from my father (who is patriotic), but I don't understand why drunken Americans cheering drunkenly at a cliche is patriotic. But maybe my opinion doesn't matter, I didn't take time off from making slave babies to create America, I'm just the fireworks hypocrite.

The Return of the Blog.

Everything is more complicated than you think. You see only a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make: you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won't know for 20 years. And you'll never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it's what you create. Even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but doesn't really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope for something good to come along. Something to make you feel connected, to make you feel whole, to make you feel loved.

And the truth is I'm so angry and the truth is I'm so fucking sad, and the truth is I've been so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for just as long have been pretending I'm ok, just to get along, just for, I don't know why, maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own, and their own is too overwhelming to allow them to listen to or care about mine.

Well, fuck everybody.