Independence Day.

Generally, it rains. What tends to happen here on the 4th is that it's been hotter than two rats fucking in a wool sock (sorry, kids: sometimes, when mommy and daddy rats love each other very much—), and then, out of nowhere, and against all forecasts, it rains. Storms, even. Bowling-in-the-street kind of storms.

Instead, we're having September, such that the humidity has been somewhere around 50% all day long, and the temps have been low enough since July brought itself in that we've had the upstairs windows open all night long, had the fan running in the bedroom. This is not July. This is not the 4th. I wasn't even grilling corn on Carr Street. I grilled for all intents and purposes here at home, in the neighborhood, and it was not hot. It just was not. I've been home half an hour and I'm still not showered. That's not a Greensboro 4th as I remember it. But I will take it, friends and fans of independence, of fireworks public and private. I will take it.

The dog's freaked right the hell out: she's not a huge fan of celebrations of patriotism. Or any other loud and sudden noises. She'd be more a fan of a kind of thing like sun tea, which, if you're struggling through the first six or sixteen pages of what ought to be a new book, and mainly what those pages do is make you want to pull your eyelashes out and braid them into friendship bracelets, becomes precisely the kind of project that saves you from having to go back outside right away. Instead, you can research sun tea, certain bacterial catastrophe included, and then procure supplies and make said tea anyway, grinning in the leering face of death, and then and only then will you have to head out back, icy glass in hand, to face them pages. Sun tea is a nice slow quiet explosionless process, safe for dogs and boys alike. It'll save you from what ails you. It may ail you in other ways, but this afternoon's experience suggests it'll save you first.


It may, may, may rain tomorrow. The fancies give us a good shot tomorrow evening. There's even now a little rain on the radar. I know it's rained a ton, but I think it's maybe time to hope a little bit. Grind your jaws in just the right way, please. Think of well-watered crops, of soaked-in flowers.

Happy 4th of July, former Carr Streeters. Odd to be away from home. First time in easily ten years. Nice in its own way, though, too. That's the thing about all of this, I guess. It's at least one of the things.