The Dark Night

I recently saw "The Dark Knight" twice in a week. Last Saturday, and last night. Both times with good friends.

I didn't like it.

Okay, okay, fists down. I know it was a good movie. It was excellently done. Heath Ledger lived up to all the hype about how well he played the Joker. They were obviously planning on using him again. I think it would be an incredibly stupid move if they tried to replace him with another, even if he died early in the next movie. But then, Jack Nicholson (did I spell that right?) was considered the definitive Joker for years, that he couldn't be topped. Michael Keaton was also considered the definitive Batman too, until Christian Bale stepped in. I think Jack Nicholson played The Joker as he was seen in the comics. And he did a fantastic job. Scared the crap out of me when I was a kid. But the new Batman series seems to be striving to make Gotham, Batman, and all it's characters more realistic, and less like it came from a comic book world. That's how Heath Ledger played him, and I like that.

So why don't I like the movie? Well, it's violent. A lot of people die. There isn't any blood, at all, but it is violent. And I don't like violence. I don't like "seeing" people die, or get hurt. It makes me not like a movie. I didn't like King Kong for the same reason (that includes the Faye Wray version). It disturbs me. I have decided that my favorite genre of movies is comedies (even though I'm picky about them, too). I like intensity, I like drama, I don't like death, I don't like pain. You'd never know that, with the fact that I love to watch crime dramas, and Court TV. I guess I don't like fictional death. Anyway, that's the reason I didn't enjoy seeing the movie. Too bad, because it really was well done. I highly recommend it.

Oh, and it's nowhere NEAR as dark as a lot of people have been saying. Except that a lot of it takes place at night. And your in a dark theater. And you'll probably go at night, so it's dark outside. But that's as dark as it gets. Still, don't take your kids to see it.

Prayer and Consequences

So, lately I have been praying for the ability to take responsibility for my own life. Not every day, or even regularly, but I have, when it has occurred to me to ask. Because I know that I shouldn't like playing the blame game as much as I do. But, man, does the blame game make life easier for myself (not necessarily for others; it probably just pisses them off). But, in fairness to those around me, I'm trying to stop. Because if I want to end up with friends when I die, I need to stop blaming everyone and everything when something goes wrong. As for the consequences for that prayer? Well, now I have the opportunity to not play the blame-game with The Mom and take responsibility for my half of our crappy, crappy relationship. She sent me a letter that totally threw me for a loop, making me see her as a person, (I know, an actual person!) rather than as just a mom. Grrrr! It was all so much easier before! But, when The Man gets off the phone, I feel that I have to call her to respond to this letter. I would write one back, but I can't stand non-instant communication in situations like this. The faster I get them over with (with all the requisite crying) the better. I have no idea if this will actually change things between me and The Mom. I hoping it does. We've done this so many, many times and I feel like it has always back-fired on me. But I'm going to keep trying, because, well, I asked for it.

Dang you Heavenly Father! When I prayed for this, I didn't mean for it to happen! *shaking of fist to the sky*

(I would have said damn, but you can't really damn Him, since He's the only one who can do the damning, and I would probably be damned myself for damning Him, and I really don't want that. Damn damn damn damn damn.)

Good to get that out of my system.

Now, let's see if I can take responsibility for myself and my actions, AND own up to them. Slow going, I'm sure, but so be it. I'm counting on doing this making me a better person. I know, I know, you all think I'm perfect. Sorry to bust your bubble, but I'm not. No, really, I'm not. Not till next week anyway. Then I will be.

*sigh* I guess I just have to do this, no matter how much I don't want to. I did ask for it. Here's to hoping that I make it.

*sigh*

Sorry, folks. I know you all are dying to hear from me, but I have tried several times now to find something to blog about, but I'm coming up empty. My life is boring. I get up, I do school stuff, I try to convince myself that I need to clean my house for the sake of our allergies, try to take the dogs on a walk without getting heat stroke, shower, go to work, and come home exhausted. That's about it. I suppose I could talk about the trip we just took to Montana, but it's exhausting to even think about. I didn't want to go. The Little Brother wasn't getting married anymore, why should we? But The Mom expected us to come. So we went. We did a lot of things, and I was grumpy pretty much the whole time. Feeling trapped will do strange things like that to you. And I had the obligatory "What's wrong with you? Why do you hate me so much?" discussion (no fight this time, I held myself back, thankyouverymuch) with The Mom. The Dad had to send the usual "Stop picking on your mom" e-mail because that's what she told him. And I had the usual cry fest on The Man's shoulder. I wondered why I ever bother to visit The Parents. We also went to the zoo and saw a couple of movies (10,000 BC and X-Files. I liked 10,000 BC, but not so much X-Files). I forgot to do the school work that I planned on doing. I played a video game of The Dad's and stole The Little Brother's laptop to surf the Internet. I picked up dog poo, and discovered that Dog #2 had eaten part of a stuffed animal and I had to pull the fabric out of her butt because it wouldn't come out. Lovely. I went shopping with The Mom, and she bought me 2 pairs of shoes, one for work and the other to replace the flip flops she had had since I was a baby and had given to me when I was 17 or so. I only wanted work shoes, but she threw the flip-flops away after I expressly told her not to because she thought they were disgusting. They still had life in them, and they weren't disgusting. They were just old. They weren't even falling apart. Oh well. We went to dinner once and out to lunch almost every day. The Man, The Little Brother, and The Dad went golfing a couple of times. And we learned how incredibly noisy our dogs are at night, since they were in the same room as us. And we came home, finally. Next, we are off to visit The Sister-In-Law in That One Town in That One State. Hopefully something a little more interesting will happen before then, or at least on the trip, so I can blog about it. We'll see.