Let me start by saying that I hope you all had a fantastic Fourth of July. As some of you may know, the Fourth, of late, has been a somewhat difficult holiday for me; aside from the cultural discourse that it raises, my Grandpa passed away on the Fourth in 2002 - while it's been long enough for the sting to mostly wear off, it's still a bit of a bittersweet time of year for me.

That being said, there are still a ton of things that I love about the holiday - the summer heat, the family time, the barbeques, the baseball games, the fireworks... You know, the typical "Fourth Of July" entertainment.

This year... well, it was anything but typical.

To make a long story short, here's what the latter part of my day looked like.

After going to a baseball game with my family, I ended up going to Wolf's house for a few hours, and then into the city with him and our friend Chris. We went to a dance, and it turned out to be a gay/lesbian event (surprise! NOT by the information we had received!) - I was impressed; Wolf totally handled it like a man and we danced for about half an hour before looking for something more comfortable for all members of the troupe ("Sorry Chris, I don't think it's personal, they're just not interested in your gender!"). We ended up heading upstairs where we heard there was a karaoke event (which ALSO turned out to be of a particular persuasion... oh the joys of San Francisco) - and we stayed there until just after midnight. Wolf and Chris (that boy can SING!) did a duet of 'Luck Be A Lady', which totally cracked me up, and then Wolf and I stood in the back and danced to 'It's Cold Outside'. As it was winding down, we headed outside, only to have someone throw an M80 off a nearby bridge; it exploded about 20 yards behind a couple of tourists - they ran down the street yelling "RUN BEFORE THEY SHOOT YOU!" No one bothered to correct them - I think we were all too entertained by the entire thing. Not too long later, we ended up at Denny's before finally getting home and crashing out.

Here's hoping your Fourth was as enjoyable as mine was.