a pervasive feeling that Something Bad was going to happen on the mall, a natural intelligent shrinking from the 100+ degree heat, and agoraphobia kept me from tripping downtown yesterday to enjoy the fourth with the masses. instead i hung out with dearliz and her wacky sister. we rented movies, picked up our friend jay the mideastphile who recently spent three weeks in israel and since he's returned has done nothing but plot his next trip, not to mention his aliyah; and we made it over to lana's, where her parents and their friends were bbqing. lana made lovely veggie burgers from scratch (and in some cases, from eggplant and chickpeas.) we chatted, we laughed, we tried to compose a queer ABCs along the lines of lynne cheney's primer. certain letters posed challenges: i, for example. others were just fun.

but it didn't attain any independence-ish-ness. patriotism failed to stir me. the preponderance of american flags everywhere you look has rather numbed me to the sight of them. all the same, of course, i'm glad and grateful to have been born in this country. the usa has noble ideals, even if we fail to live up to them for the most part. and as tempting as this is, i'm going to hold out for a more sensible, if less amusing, solution.