Friday, July 6, 2012

July 4th, 2012

At midnight on the 4th I ran the Firecracker 5000. Ringing in Independence day with a 5000 metre dash. Sounds downright un-American. But I ran it non-stop!















I'm on Season 4 of How I Met Your Mother and in this episode Robyn has to get a job in seven days or she'll have to go back to Canada. visas suck. anyways....

 ......

Yesterday my brother and I drove up to Bellingham to spend the 4th with our uncle and cousins and their friends. Stefan played me some Bjork, which I've never really listened to before. I liked this song:



We got to Lake Samish and joined our famliy/friends on the dock with the trampoline. We drank lukewarm PBR's and played with our cousins' new puppy Havoc. I ended up on a a little party barge with bikini'd strangers drinking a Dreamsicle.














Then we headed into town to meet our uncle at the house (i.e. mansion) they're renting. Four stories with a big deck and a lofty attic and a roof for sitting and watching the fireworks over the water.

I bounded around the mansion by myself for ten minutes before realizing that was my first 5-Hour Energy and I was WIRED.

There was a lot of eating, drinking, mingling and sunset-watching to be done. And it was awesome. An hour later though, I was up on the roof by myself listening to the neighborhood fireworks starting up. I remember thinking at one moment, "if I just get a little drunker this might get easier." Last 4th of July was in New Orleans, and all the AmeriCorps were lighting off fireworks and I started thinking of the demonstrations in Bil'in and Beitin and army bullets and tear gas, and I had a panic attack. It only lasted about fifteen minutes and after venting to my my boyfriend and debating if the feeling would and should go away, I joined the crowd again and just went on with the night.


Then I wondered why I was up on the roof by myself and whether the feeling would and should go away, and another drink later everyone was up on the roof with me and I eventually pushed it out of my mind. But it wasn't hard to get at. It wasn't subconscious, or spiraling, or vague. I was so angry. Last week the army was training in Al Aqaba, and the children were hearing these noises, not knowing if a bullet was going to come through their window, or where that rocket would land. And we paid for it. And it was happening in Afghanistan. And it sounded like this. Booms and whistles and shouting. It sounded like our celebration, and I wondered if the feeling would or should go away. But like I said, I drowned it out. I ended up roaming the streets of Fairhaven with my brother and cousin, trying too many locked university doors and a quirky hot dog stand and my first cigarette since New Orleans and a bush to squat behind and a random party to crash and leave after five minutes, and finally, the mansion basement to claim couches in, to gossip in the dark, and catch a few winks before the drive home.