the smell of boiling beer with brats always reminds me of studying for the college algebra final with people whose names i cannot remember. i wasn’t so good at college algebra. i sucked at it as a matter of fact. there was one thing in the whole course i was really good at — it was something totally random maybe algorithms or something like that, or maybe i haven’t a freaking clue what it was anymore. would you even study algorithms in algebra?

anyway, i am boiling a brat and making a pasta salad, because many, many people died so i could celebrate our independence with beer and brats and pasta salad– i would not want to make a mockery of such tradition.