Go forth and barbecue, face paint, watch fireworks and complain about how you can’t believe your boss didn’t give you Monday off because he obviously hates America.

But before you do all that, how about you read this and marvel in the sense of destiny, the utter determination, and the absolute hatred of not being able to negotiate how much money one gives the government that produced this gem of human history?

Come on.  If you really loved America, you’d read it.

(Annnd all my European and Asian readers just left the building.)

The Unanimous Declaration
of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

And then they listed out all the things they hated about the king.  Rumor has it that they particularly hated his hairdo and thought he had breath that smelled of turkey legs, but decided not to include that in the original document because they were running low on ink.

Nice, huh?  Or was it all horribly boring for you?

If so, fret not!  The fate of your patriotic soul still hangs in the balance, for I have dug up an old Schoolhouse Rock video that will appease any intellectual laziness!!

Don’t feel bad, it is a Sunday, after all.

While we celebrate this day, I also want to remind you of a few verses from, “America, the Beautiful” that for some reason are rarely sung (Ray Charles being a notable exceptions, I think).

America! America!
God mend thine ev’ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.

O beautiful for heroes prov’d
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life.

America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev’ry gain divine.

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears.

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

- Katherine Lee Bates (1910)

That sort of sums up how I feel.  I’m realistic, but I’m hopeful.  I think we’re a pretty great nation, but I think we can do better.  I think we will do better.  Because that’s who we are.

Have fun today, America, and remember the reasons behind the rituals.

Also a very happy birthday to my dear friend Jared whose birth in and of itself merits annual nationwide fireworks and belting out the national anthem at full volume.

I bought a Sam’s Wholesale Club membership!!

I know, right?! SAM’S-OMGEE-THIS-IS-SO-EXCITING!!!

You’re going to laugh at me, but the reason I hadn’t bought a membership until this point was due to some convoluted set of pseudo-moral objections Tariq raised about mindless consumerism and unfair business practices.

I didn’t really argue because that meant I would have actually had to listen to the argument PLUS I find it absolutely hilarious when my husband tries to get ethical.

This is the guy that laughed at me a few years ago when I suggested that we should start recycling. And when I got upset asked me how much water the recycling plant used to recycle plastics and-isnt-THAT-bad-for-the-environment?

And, then, when I got even more upset said, “Fine” but then grumbled something like “Leave it to Americans to love dirt, plastic and dogs more than they love people.”  Okay, not an exact quote, but something in the neighborhood.

Anyway, SAM’S CLUB!!

Did you know you could buy six tubes of toothpaste for ten bucks?

And one hundred and sixty Huggies for thirty five bucks?

Plus cheesecake and salmon?!

And frozen taquitos and a 24 pack of Dannon Light and Fit Yogurt?

Look, I know I’m getting FOBalicious here, but I am so excited!

Because, hey, SAM’S!!

That said, non-Indian people of the world, you need to know that merely mimicking an Indian accent is not funny.

Furthermore, IF what you’re actually saying or doing is not stand alone funny, it’s just stupid.

“Apu” from The Simpson’s is funny because what he says is highlighted by the accent.

“Hello, how are you?” in an Indian accent and then laughing, though?  Is neither clever nor as remotely hilarious as you might think.

And mimicking an Indian accent to someone whose parents or husband has a similar accent is both ignorant and rude.  Oh my goodness, I cannot even begin to count the number of times this has happened to me.

Disagree?

Let’s drive this point home in an unexpected way.

A few years ago, I was at a restaurant with a bunch of Indian friends.  Unlike me, none of them were born here, so they spoke accented English, although most of their accents were very slight.  One of the women at the table was relating a conversation with one of her American co-workers.  When this Indian woman repeated her co-worker’s words, she slipped into an attempt to speak English like an American.

Only, she’s not American, so it played as a bad impression of American accented English.  Apparently, we Americans obnoxiously drop “g’s” all over the place and our “a’s” are said with our mouths open entirely too wide.

Being the only person at the table who spoke American accented English, frankly, I was embarrassed by it.  I listened quietly to her do this accent which by virtue of subtext was a mockery of the way I spoke and realized if the tables were turned, I would have offended everyone at that table.  Worse, there was no joke.  The accent was supposed to be the joke.

The way I talk was the butt of her joke.

Nice.

Why don’t you just make fun of the fact that I wore glasses in the second grade while you’re at it, lady?

So, let me repeat, the accent is not the joke.  The words actually have to be funny, or one runs the risk of looking like an ignorant and slightly racist jerk.

And, apparently, the folks who run the marketing department over at Metro PCS are ignorant and slightly racist jerks.

Seriously, the only way this could be more insulting to my heritage is if it were two white guys with brown shoe polish smeared on their faces.

(Facebook readers will have to click through to my blog to see this ridiculous commercial).

So, if you have a blog, I don’t hate you, I haven’t unsubscribed, you are still 100 degrees of awesome.  I just have some stuff I have to do.

[Write something about how I need to reorganize my entire house and bills and life because I cannot see straight due to the clutter that has accumulated over the past fifteen months.  Husband, beware, I'm going to purchase refill tape for my label maker, file folders and more whiteboards tomorrow and thus life with your crazy super organized wife will resume shortly.]

Anyway, I’ll be back here and at your places in about a week or so.

I will still be on twitter and Facebook because, my God, there’s no need to get crazy and turn into the unibomber.

[Reminder to the uninitiated: Yes, I know, Muslim bloggers should not use the word "bomb" on their blogs.  Even when trying to be funny.  But me?  I like to thumb my nose at the establishment. Bring on the body scans!]

In the meantime, let me tell you about how this weekend, my mom gave me my childhood in a box.  You know, kindergarten certificates and newspaper clippings, etc.  It was a strange thing because, well, I just thought she’d want to keep that stuff forever and ever because she loves me so much.

But, apparently, she, too, is sick of the clutter.  The clutter of my childhood.  Sob.  She didn’t say it, but I swear as she handed me the box, I heard her voice boom “My job here is done” in my head.

Anyway, in this box was a paper written by a psychologist who had the joyful task of evaluating me for gifted classes when I was twelve years old.  I had not, until this weekend, actually seen the written results of this evaluation, but had only heard them.

Mostly in the context of, “You are way too smart to be getting crappy grades like this.”

Now, please, I’m not going to get annoying and share the actual results with you because most of you already know I’m very smart.  Haha.  No, but, really, I am.  And I actually have documentation, now.

However,  I do want to share the following excerpt with you, my dear, non-judgey friends:

“Faiqa appeared to be highly motivated to do well.  On occasion her anxiety about doing well probably had somewhat of a negative effect on her performance.”

You know what?  That information?  Would have been NICE TO KNOW twenty two years ago.  Correction, twenty two years, three thousand self help books, three majors, one husband and two kids ago.

Because that’s what it took to get me to realize that it is not the gold stars and head pats that matter, but that life’s real joy resides in the things you actually do in life and how you feel while you are doing them.  We do things because they feel right and good and honest.

Gold stars are for gunners, not winners.  In the end, a gold star doesn’t make laying your head down at night any easier or fill one’s heart up with a sense of completeness.  A gold star just tells you that someone else thinks you’re doing a good job.  You have to think you’re doing a good job, in the end, that’s what matters.

Life lesson:  A good job is the one you enjoy.  Gold star optional.

Still, yeah, it would have been awesome to know that when I was twelve.

I absolutely don’t want anything to be different, of course.

I’m just saying that some of those self help books were a real pain to read.

And it would be nice to get that money back because I have a lot of label maker refill tape to buy.

See you in a week.  Or so.

I think it might have played out this way because I, for one reason or another, felt that my life was getting increasingly chaotic.  Reading the same books comforted me.  In life, I’m not sure what’s going to happen next, but I know that in the last third of Mistry’s A Fine Balance, I’m going to start shaking my head at the mess that is humankind.  Or that somewhere in the last fifty pages of the The Deathly Hallows, I’m going to weep like a runner up for prom queen.

The point is, last week, I put an end to all this.  I decided it’s time to read new books by authors I’ve never considered, in genres that, until now, I’ve either ignored or rolled my eyes at.  Because predictability, while comforting, does not leave a whole lot of room for expansion of the mind, soul or wit.

Recent post pregnancy weight aside, I’m feeling the need to be expansive these days.

So, I went crazy and bought a slew of books and have neatly placed them in a stack on my nightstand.  A reminder, if you will, about my renewed commitment to live outside of my comfort zone.

I was about seven or eight when I got my first library card.  I remember the excitement, the expectation, and the inevitable joy of finding new treasures of wisdom, laughter or tears in each book I brought home.  I feel like that again when I look at the stack.

Here’s an excerpt from what I read today:

He tapped irritably at a control panel.  Trillian quietly moved his hand before he tapped anything important.  Whatever Zaphod’s qualities might include — dash, bravado, conceit — he was mechanically inept.  He could easily blow up the ship with an extravagant gesture.  Trillian had come to suspect that the main reason he had had such a wild and successful life was that he never really understood the significance of anything he did. (62)

I sort of love that last line.  Can you guess what I’m reading?  It shouldn’t be too hard since they made a movie based on it just a few years ago.  Have you read this book?  What did you think of it?

Also, I read very, very fast, so that stack of four or five books is going to be gone in about a week or two.  In the past, I’ve limited myself to classical works, literary fiction, memoirs, personal/spiritual development, history, “ethnic” literature, some young adult and Harry Potter.

I’m trying out other genres, what might you suggest?