God. I am so fucking unpatriotic. I slept through the parade. I didn't want to go decorate the damned golf cart. I didn't want to help put up the flag. And I don't want to go watch the fireworks. Ugh. Bush would condemn me. I did go help Kid-next-Door-Steve and Garrick set off their firecrackers. They're illegal in Georgia, though. Some policeman drove by and asked us about it but I just smiled at him and batted my eyelashes some like a sappy cheerleader and he told us it was okay. I think it's so strange how everybody you know is broken in one way or another, but like in toys or glass, sometimes you can see the cracks and sometimes you can't. Sometimes when a glass shatters in your hand you could have no forewarning. Sometimes it's like that fifth Potter book, where the hummingbird kept hatching and unhatching. The glass breaks, unbreaks, breaks, unbreaks. Over and over. And each time it fixes itself it gets weaker, so that eventually it dissolves into a powder and the world forgets. The world is just full of walking, talking, broken people. I find that sad.