Three Year Step Back?

You may have heard of the Seven Year Itch. The Seven Year Itch is a concept that happiness in marriage decreases after seven years. It even has an extensive Wikipedia entry.




In my personal experience, there has been a three year step-back. In my first real relationship it was logical, high school and college differences, people growing up and more individual. When it happened in my marriage, it was more intense. It hurt more. It had a domino effect that hurt others and still impacts them today. But it was also clearly a bad mix, a poor match of personalities and souls.




When it happened in the next relationship, I attributed it to distance, complications, my inability to be more open to communication and expressing my feelings. But the idea of it being around three years did creep in. To be honest, I tried to blame the idea that I had an expiration date in relationships as an excuse for my failures in this particular one.




The next time it happened, I think I caused it because I thought it was going to happen. That's confusing. Right. I get that. But I was enjoying this relationship and then I felt I had to get really serious because three years was on the horizon. I even told her I had a three year trend. Which I can't imagine was a fun thing to hear. So I panicked. I went too hard, too mushy, too commitment. Then in reaction, I pulled away. Dating a yo-yo is complicated and confusing. So that ended close to three years as well.




Since then, years now, nothing has come close to three years. Until the past month. I'm closing in on three years with my dog and due to some work changes, my schedule is different. We are around each other at different times than she is used to.




As I have been home more during the day, her routine has been upset. She is confused why I am home during the day. Why I work nights and come home not ready for bed. So she's started falling asleep on the couch and not coming to bed. She will lay in her kennel at the previously normal time that I would leave in the morning. Then come and whine at my feet as I work on the computer, confused, maybe worried that I forgot to go to work. In short, closing in on three years, this relationship is changing as well.




In reality, I know that this current chaos has more to do with a change of routine than the perceived three year itch. But with extra time on my hands, the mind finds extra reasons to worry. My brain is constantly looking for connections, for reasons, for explanations for why I have not achieved the things I think I should have.




The vast of my interpersonal relationships are flawed, strained, distanced at best. Is this because of the natural flow of life and relationships? Or could it be that I expect things to end and create a self fulfilling prophecy that creates that end even when it shouldn't?


According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a self fulfilling prophecy was coined in 1948 by Robert Merton to describe “a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true." Could it be possible that I have used this self fulfilling prophecy to consistently undermine my relationships because I expect them to end eventually? It's not the worst idea I've ever had.


Could it also be that this period of underemployment, working more hours at more jobs but less income overall has impacted my self perception and self worth, even to the extent that I think my dog is drifting away from me, just as every other close important one on one relationship has eventually?


Last night, I couldn't sleep. I lay in bed. My dog soundly asleep on the couch. Was it because she was tired of me? Had I driven her away just like everyone else? Or was I making a mountain out of a mole hill. Perhaps she was just sleeping upstairs because it was ten degrees warmer and she fell asleep two hours before I even began to attempt to try.


After thinking too long about the possibilities, about the seemingly obvious existence of a three year step back in my relationships. I fell asleep.


Yet, in the morning, as the sun finally broke through, barely breaking the cloud cover of yet another cold and snowy morning, the pup was there. Sometime in the night, she had curled up next to my side. We lay there as I scratched behind her ears and sighed. And I thought, perhaps the terrors of the dark of night, perhaps those ideas that I was unlovable, that I had an expiration date on every relationship, maybe just maybe I was mistaken.


Or maybe she was just hungry. With this much paralysis by analysis, every day is an adventure.

Sometimes let the Imaginary Friends Walk Away.

I don't remember when I first encountered depression. It might have been in high school when I struggled to deal with hormones and emotions and being a teenager in what I thought was love. It probably should have been when my marriage fell apart and the break that can never truly be repaired happened in my immediate, extended family and friends. Depression was already a mainstay by that point in some ways and my ego and self righteous self interest was more powerful than gravity at that point anyway.

I do know when that depression finally morphed into something darker that led me to begin to discuss the idea of finding a way out with my mental triumvirate. Yes, I like to think of my internal self thought as a trilogy of annoying white males. When I first came up with the idea, I was very pleased with myself. I imagine that my constant inner mental conversation takes place mainly by three parts of my heritage. All three images are vastly stereotypical and self serving AND not nearly as clever as I once presumed them to be.

I often think, imagine or for lack of a better description - converse and argue with three men in my heads. An aggressive, territorial, quick to assume attacks and impulsive German. A jovial, quick with a joke and to lit up your smoke but prone to loud bar arguments Irishman and a concerned, calculated and at sometimes overpowered - but ultimately the one in charge - Jew.

That is some racist shit right there.

Stereotypes born of movies, television and books. Caricatures more than nationalities or personalities. I would imagine the arguments, give horrible accents to them all. Always mentally giving it more a 12 Angry Men discussing important legal matters feel. When it was simply a child creating cartoon placeholders for the emotions and feelings that he couldn't understand.

In recent years, the fun of the masquerade has faded and the personas have fallen apart. When depression turned into thoughts of suicide, it wasn't a discussion between three voices. It felt more like a chorus of impenetrable tones from soprano to bass chanting in discord toward a needed resolution.

Suicide isn't a resolution. And I was lucky to understand that eventually the first time, with the help of a car load of jackasses (see blog entry from years ago) and every time since with the help of logic, patience and at times, those personas again.

Where it once felt like a play of intellect and passion on par with Miller, Mamet or Beckett, it is now more often than not the meeting of three weary, anguished actors underwhelmed with their roles. The lines feel stale. The pacing and stage direction is too expected and familiar. There isn't even the occasional toaster ejecting toast to provide levity. It's simply worn out, out of phase and ultimately sad.

Now and then one actor will decide that tonight is the night that he will be seen. That this is the chance his monologue and sonnets will shine. One part of the triad will explode and rush to the edge of the proscenium, dangerously teetering on the edge of the orchestra pit, at times even moving out of the spotlight. The passion is there. The desire to find the climax, to twist the metaphorical knife is profound.

Yet the moment passes. Often from exhausting or ultimate lack of conviction from the impulse that spurned the caricature itself.

And so the persona, the German, Irishman or Jew slumps back against the walls of the mind. An actor disgusted with the lack of script, the repetition of a flawed plot and the plot like a cage that is their limited character definition.

I know that those three mental beings are not real and I know that they were created as flawed, stereotypical and implements of emotion. Yet when each took his turn on the stage, in the spot light of my mind tonight, I enjoyed their commitment and passion to the character they were given. And I understood their ultimate failure and frustration as not their own but born of the limited material they were provided.

As they each sat, breathless and unfulfilled, I finally saw them as the actors they were. I saw the limits of the roles I gave them to play. Perhaps it is time to let the stereotyped personas and emotional crutches of the past go. I think my mental avatars are getting too old for this shit.

Taking Risks and Being Open to Possibilities

Historically I have not been a big risk taker. I tend to like to know the odds of outcomes before they occur. At times this is very productive. Other times, it can result in paralysis by analysis. I have always loved the stories of detectives like Sherlock Holmes or con artists like Neal Caffery from White Collar or even how Benjamin Matlock, Jessica Fletcher and Detective Columbo would always figure it out and solve the case with a dramatic explanation in the final minutes.

But as I keep being reminded life isn't as scripted and as neatly put into a bow as I would like. Rarely can you know all eventual outcomes before a situation starts. Sometimes you have to take the information given and make your best guess.

The Minnesota Timberwolves seemed to encounter this situation over the weekend. They thought they had a complicated but potentially exciting scenario all figured out, or in the least they felt like they had a path to a solution. Confidence was climbing. Excitement was building and then poof. The situation as they had seen it, the scenario as they understood it, changed in the blink of an eye when another team, unexpectedly used their leverage to disrupt Minnesota's plans.

The organization, the fans, the media then proceeded to examine what changed, what went wrong, what could or should have been differently. The fan base on social media went full wailing and gnashing of teeth - here we go again. The sky proceed to continue it's eternal free fall in the world of Timberwolves supporters.

Meanwhile, while the Timberwolves scenario was proceeding to play out, my mind was spending most of Sunday replaying choices, actions and decisions made in the preceding days. Whether it was examining every word of a message sent or a work related email, trying to determine if I was supportive but strong enough when it came to an important issue or even if I should have chosen a different song or shown more enthusiasm at karaoke. No issue is too big or too small for my mind to dissect, rebuild, tear back apart, turn into an enigma or mystery on par with the platypus.

I will think too much. Guaranteed.

Someone I follow on twitter talked about how it is hard for entrepreneurs to talk about their plans with non-entrepreneurs. Big dreams and taking big steps is scary and not for everyone. It can be easy to poke holes in a big plan or dream or too see the challenges instead of the possibilities. And big challenges often lead to failure.

The Timberwolves failed to get their desired free agent. I worry that a message or an email didn't come off as I wanted it to. I've stared at the same paragraph in a short story for weeks. Quinn and the Dream Riders still doesn't have an ending that I can accept. My goal of submitting to at least one writing contest each month has been scratched before lifting off each month.

It is tempting to give in. To allow the allure of failure, disappointment and awkwardness lead me to stop writing, stop looking, stop dreaming of something big. It is a chore some days to avoid picking up my toys and going home, so to speak.

I doubt that the Timberwolves will simply stop trying to improve their team because of this set back. Experience from the past makes many fans see this as a pattern and return to what is normal. My brain sees word choice, or writer's block or any small set back or lack of perfect outcome as a sign that nothing will work.

Ultimately, when I am faced with that awkward paragraph or empty page, when a moment doesn't go the way that I, Sherlock, Matlock or Jessica Fletcher expect, the only one who can decide to keep trying, to keep writing, to dream...is me.

So like the Timberwolves, Wayne Gretzky and Michael Scott, it is time to try again.

Time to take another shot.

Little Victories.

For the first time in more than two years, I have no antidepressants coursing through my veins. It's been a rough while getting off the Effexor but I did it. I'm starting to feel again. Like really feel. I don't think I really understood how numb I have been for the past two years. I would hold things in and then they would only get out through extreme measures. No sex drive until it became a physical necessity. I felt so numb that I would just go and go until I collapsed. Like I couldn't feel that I was pushing myself too hard until it was too late.

Wouldn't feel hurt until it was too much to control and then with a little help from alcohol, completely explode in a wave of tremors, tears and toxic anger. I simply wouldn't feel until I couldn't stop myself from feeling.

Now the feelings have been creeping back in. Imposter syndrome is now an every day or two event again. I rode my bike to work today because some part of me was convinced that I would rage quit my job if I had the option. One single email, one slip up and I felt the crushing weight of dispair and failure. I figured I couldn't quit because on the bike there is no way I could take my paper box full of personal items home. So build in a buffer. 

Since 2008-2009, I've always had a bag hidden at my desk, of nearly every desk job I've had in the past 10 years. Ready to pack up and go. Getting laid off twice in 15 months creates some anxiety, ever since it always feels like I'm waiting for the pink slip to drop.

Loneliness is now more often wave instead of a constant pulsing current. Goosebumps happen when the right chorus hits or the wind blows just right. It feels like I can feel every gnat, fly or mosquito that lands anywhere on my body. It feels like going through a second puberty. Suddenly all of these emotions are back and vibrant and after two plus years of progressively feeling less and less it is a lot to take on. As I increased my dosage, I became more and more a zombie. 

Changing living situations over the past 12 months have made my suburban home feel a lot more isolated and more and more like a prison as opposed to a home. Children grow up and they create their own lives and the importance of parents in their social structure seems to decrease. I was not ready for it to change as much as it has and that just made me feel more and more like a zombified isolated disaster. 

Getting off the Effexor has helped. It's one step of many. I'm trying to look at long term goals and not focus on the frustrations of the immediate moment and past. How I'm not where I want to be and haven't been there in a long time. How I feel isolated and that leads me to isolate myself more.

It's exciting. It's terrifying. And it is all very overwhelming. I'm glad to be off the drugs and to feel again. But it's like every nerve in and outside me has been turned to 11.

It's good to feel. But maybe not this much. There has to be a happy medium.Today I biked to work and I will bike home. I made the needed changes to the email related issue and the world didn't end. I tried not to go scorched earth and burn bridges (metaphorically of course). I got some things done. At best today is a little victory. But it is a victory nonetheless.

Spiral. Downward. Not Ham.

I’ve been doing really well with dealing w anxiety/depression over the past few wks. Exercise, etc. then I got a cold/allergies and my schedule got off course. Today is the hardest day I’ve had in a while. It’s amazing how things can snowball.

Little setbacks seem like mountains. My pulse feels like it’s pounding out of my veins. Upset stomach. Upset intestines. Not enough exercise and feeling awful. Slept 15 hours yesterday and all I can think about is the things I didn’t accomplish. Logically I know it’s ok. But...

Logical doesn’t really own real estate in my head. It’s usually just passing through. So I can see the physical signs and acknowledge them as such and know I will logically be just fine and things aren’t falling apart. But the signs still suck hard.


Yesterday I tried energy drinks comfort microwave popcorn and a ham and cheese sub and I made it until 2 before I had to collapse. I went home thinking I could sleep a bit and recover. I figured that a NyQuil nap of 12-15 hours would knock out the cold/respiratory bug.


And it kind of worked. I woke with less gunk in my airways. I got showered, dressed and to work at the goal time so I can leave when I need to today. I used a coupon and got a burrito for lunch at over half off. Deals and coupons increase the taste of any meal for me by at least a percentage equal to the discount.


I felt decent. But had a conversation or two that took my mind to places I'd rather not visit. Like when you're passing a dark alleyway at night so you cross the street or walk just a bit quicker than normal. These conversations had my mind stopping and looking down that dark passage. Giving corporeal form to every shadow. Making assumptions into facts. Negative thoughts into carved in stone laws of nature.


I ate my burrito. It was meh. Nothing tastes good when you can't breath or smell. I went up a level of obnoxious with a different style of energy drink. I tore into the emergency stash of Twizzlers and Rice Krispies - specifically chosen for their nostalgic properties as much as their sugar. I almost pulled the trigger on another 20 oz of Mountain Dew.


I hid in the bathroom, as much due to the anxiety than the upset intestines and poor diet. I tried to drown the cold or allergies or anxiety with copious pints of water. Which not surprisingly led to more hiding in the bathroom.


Then the phone rang and I learned that my dog had slipped her collar and was out on her own. I yelled into the speakerphone to get her to come to the phone. My blood pressure spiked and I threw up a bit in my mouth. The acidity burning the back of my throat and sparking a coughing fit. The dog is safe and home. Her adventure lasted just few minutes.


So I'm back at my desk. Trying to fend off the shakes. With a mental version of myself rocking and screaming while I try and keep the outside looking 2:31 PM on a Wednesday appropriate.


Knees bounce and I turn to the one thing I haven't tried yet today. Writing. Well I have tried. I'm at a word standstill on both a podcast script and a radio show script. I have an empty page judging me for not filling it with radio show description templates. I haven't touched any of my personal writing pieces in days.

Instead I started this. Free writing. Words. Emotional vomit on the screen. It feels good to do something. To accomplish something. Even if that is just some nonsense spewed out with little structure or purpose. The hope is that this will jump start my day. Or in the least serve as a emergency fail-safe parachute to slow my downward spiral. 1.5 hours and I'm out in the sun, navigating the bus, trains and teenagers. None of which are as easy as it seems.

For now, the pulse doesn't seem to be making my veins rise out of my arm. The water has helped soothed the acid scorched throat. The dog is home safe and happy for her adventure.

It's going to be ok. Probably. The parachute has popped and my descent has slowed. I should enjoy the view. Maybe it is time for popcorn.



#depression #anxiety #gettingthrough #justkeepswimming

Hellboy (2019) Movie Review

On Thursday, I had the opportunity to attend the opening night of Hellboy (2019). I was a bit surprised there were showings as early as 7:30. It was a spur of the moment decision. I have joined the new AMC A-List program so for roughly $22 a month, I can go to three movies a week. So I went for it. What follows below is my review, I avoid most plot points but as it is a review...

SPOILER ALERT

I loved the earlier two films, Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II The Golden Army (2008). Guillermo De Toro, Ron Perlman, Doug Jones, Selma Blair did an enjoyable and engaging job. It was classic superhero fare with action and comedy and evil villains. I saw both in the theater and owned them on DVD. Which is a thing we did back then. 

They were my first introduction to the characters and prompted me to eventually dip my toe into the graphic novel collections of Mike Mignola. For years there were rumors that Del Toro had a third film in mind. Perlman was on board and so seemingly was the studio. The movie however never seemed to materialize. Though in my personal opinion I hazard to guess that Del Toro's original ideas and creative impulses for Hellboy 3 morphed over time to the The Shape of Water. Which felt like an Abe Sapien spin off Elseworlds love story to me. But I digress. 

The two Perlman/Del Toro movies fared relatively well but one criticism that I heard from fans at the time was that they went too far making it a superhero movie and watered down some of the more horror like elements of the story. I mean we are dealing with Nazis, Devils and Demons here, so there is going to be some gory elements. 

One thing that the 2019 version of Hellboy made sure to do was up the gore level for sure. Having seen both Hellboy and Shazam (review coming soon) on back to back days, you can certainly see the difference from PG-13 and R. As someone who still suffers from night terrors from movies I saw 30 years ago, had I realized the R rating, I might have skipped it. Most of the violence done by the "bad guys" was quite martial, limbs, heads, bodies ripped apart. Hellboy took some pretty graphic damage at times as well. Most of it was story related but there was one long segment near the climax that felt like it was a bit torture porn. The CGI folks definitely had some fun with the graphic nature of some moments. 

Outside of the gore the two biggest differences between the 2019 version and the 2004 or 2008 versions of Hellboy related to the relationship between the titular character and his adopted father, Professor Broom. In the Del Toro versions, the character of Broom was supporting but not really truly a driver of the narrative. John Hurt, a Hollywood icon played Broom in the earlier incarnations and was his as always viable and engaging self. Broom was important for sure, but the story was more about Hellboy and his journey and finding himself, his place in the world. Perlman plays Hellboy as more stable and adult. He seems less a wild card and more a rogue. He might break the rules but he does so knowingly. Hellboy in this case may be troubled, he may break rules but he also seems more in control. 

In the 2019 version, directed by Neil Marshall takes a different tone with the Hellboy/Broom relationship. As a viewer I should admit that I saw each of these versions of the Broom character at very different times in my life. First as soon to be minted father, then as a young, confused and failing father. In 2019, I saw Broom as the father of one teenager and one soon to be teenager. So those perceptions definitely color my review as well. 

Ian Mcshane plays Broom in this newest version of Hellboy. And as ever brings a level of depth to a character that viewers were probably not expecting. The relationship between McShane's Broom and David Harbour's Hellboy is full of strife and conflict throughout the entire film. Where as Hurt and Perlman seemed to be occasionally annoyed. There is palatable distrust of Broom by Hellboy in this new version. 

As the 2019 version of the film worked to create more gore in the action scenes, the script also seemed designed to show Hellboy's humanity. His doubts and ultimately set up the climax with more doubt than you expect from a super hero ending. Harbour does an exceptional job of showing Hellboy's emotional side, with more angst than arrogance. Perhaps it was all that time working with teenagers on Stranger Things but Harbour feels more Spiderman than Tony Stark. From Harbour's first appearance in the movie in an epic action scene in Tijuana to his first meeting and big brother/uncle relationship with Sasha Lane's Alice (who is thoroughly enjoyable as support and a lovely surprise as a character), there is humanity and a bit of chaos and a fumbling nature. Hellboy's interaction and reaction to the first death he causes sets the tone for the entire movie. This may be a being born of a demon but there is something human there as well. 

McShane and Harbour's relationship drives the movie. But Jovonich's evil blood queen plays an excellent foil. As a lover of The Fifth Element it was unnerving to see the supreme being as a villain. However, instead of chewing the dialogue and going full evil witch, there is a gentleness and purity of belief in her actions and attitude. If you are a person who could understand Thanos' rantionale or could argue that the Rebels in Star Wars were simply terrorists, then you might also fall under her spell. She sets herself up as a counter point to McShane's Broom. And that is the crux of the internal battle for Harbour's Hellboy. And in the end it is the backbone of the movie and in my opinion, that, not the gore is what truly shines. 

Daniel Dae Kim does an nice job of adding a bit more flavor to the conflict, even if his eventual "big decision" feels like overkill. By that point, the audience knows what side he is on and there is little tension in his actions, even though it is played as a big moment. The voice work of Stephen Graham was excellent and had me dying to figure out where I knew his voice from. I'll let it be a surprise for you as well. But after looking at his history, I had to slap myself for never putting two and two together when I saw him in two other very famous movies. I would love a career like his, part of so many fun moments and movies but you wouldn't recognize him in line at the bathroom. There is even an appearance from Thomas Haden Church, which took me way too long to recognize. It ranks up there with the geeky joy of realizing who was the voice of Noir Spiderman in Into the Spiderverse. Again, I'll save the surprise if you haven't seen it. 

Hellboy 2019 to me was an enjoyable film. Though I do worry that by going for an R rating and adding in the gore they may have shot themselves in the foot. Harbour and Hellboy don't have the built-in fandom of Reynolds and Deadpool and I think that will hurt them in the box office. In the end that will be the true judge, how much money the film makes. However, in my eyes, the ability to create doubt, to give Harbour and McShane and Jonovich the space to create a possible moral and ethical quandary is the real success of the film. 

I don't do stars but would watch again. Probably buy the DVD and try to talk about the interpersonal dynamics with my children in the fall. 

It's not easy to admit you're not Batman.

It's been a week. A week of learning. A week of terror. A week of struggle. Frankly it doesn't make it any different from any other week.
Except. I decided to write about it. Which in and of itself is part of the problem.
I have no idea where it came from. I don't know the idea from whence it was born. It wasn't given to me explicitly by my parents or upbringing. It wasn't an expressed command from a higher power. It wasn't rules or laws magically burned into stone. It was just me. Growing up. In the era and time that I did.
I honestly think I'm Batman.
And if not him, then I am meant to be a hero. To save others. To protect.
What I ever really understood is that no one needs my protection. No one expects me to be a hero. There is no one to save.
Except me.
 Yeah. Yeah. Hero save thyself. How trite. How quaint.

I wrote the above several years ago and never posted it. I felt it was whiny. It was not that introspective or original. But recently I have been thinking about Batman again. Zack Snyder, the once herald of DC Comic movies and their tone said that "Batman kills, Superman kills, Get over it" I was interested in Snyder's vision for DC's universe at first. But this just once again shows that he wasn't the right man for the job. He wanted to tear down the ideals of Batman and Superman, make them "modern". And while that might work for 300 or even some elements of Marvel or The Umbrella Academy, Runaways and other fringe comic related properties, it doesn't work for icons. Snyder wanted to watch the comic world burn and missed the point that his audience didn't.

His tone and cinematic style are enjoyable to watch. He would have been the perfect director for a Moon Night or Lobo movie. Play fast and lose with the rules, break walls, break convention. But he took that tactic to the wrong properties. Batman turned 80 today. You can't fight that much history. It's like remaking the Babe and having George Human Ruth be a vegan who is into Crossfit. You simply took it a bridge or continent too far.

I feel that Snyder is an amazing director. But DC was so desperate to separate themselves from Marvel, they lost the plot. The pendulum swung so far that they couldn't hold it from swinging out of control. It happens in sports and business all the time. We fired this leader so we need to find someone the polar opposite. They go too far and then they find another opposite for the next job. Look at what happened when they replaced Snyder. They went to JJ Abrams, proven hit maker and subtle boat rocker.

Today is Batman's 80th birthday. In a sense. More often than not over the past 80 years the one thing that seperated batman from his villians was murder. He broke the law over and over again. Breaking and entering. Stealing evidence. Assault on a daily basis. Not to mention how he could use his wealth and prividlege to consistently evade consequences. From assault charges, to speeding, to using drones without proper FAA clearance.

He broke a lot of rules. But one of the things that made him different from his foes was murder. Yeah he would beat you up and then tie you up but it was never with a limb or a lung missing. When Zach Snyder casually says Batman kills people. He proves that his Batman was never based on the history.

Snyder wrote an Elseworlds story. A What if? He was brought in to do that very thing, challenge the status quo. And DC is in a bad place overall because of it. They have taken their two most marketable icons, Batman and Superman and have tarnished them. Meanwhile, Aquaman and Wonder Woman have thrived. Flash on TV is good and Flash in the movie is a blatant rip off of the Spiderman/Iran Man Marvel dynamic.

But here is were DC's troubled comic history can actually make all this work. Admit your TV heroes are more loved than your movie heroes. And then drop the ultimate reset that is already cannon.

Crisis on Infinity Earths.

Bring it all together. The CW version of Arrow, Supergirl, Flash and others. But keep your broken movie versions as well. Epic battle after battle. Let Ezra Miller's Flash try to bet the TV version. Let both versions of the Suicide Squad face off. Make Supergirl from TV shame the movie version of her cousin for being a 90s emo kid.

The possibilities are endless. In the comics when DC realized it had gone way too far and needed a purge, the crisis was the answer.

DC remember your history, take all of these disparete parts and reset. Don't reboot and pretend this time you have it figured out, own your mess cinematic and TV recent history or hell even bring back past versions of all. Do you really think Michelle Pffiefer as Catwoman vs Halle Berry vs the young Selina from Gotham wouldn't be worth the price of admission? Or a Luthor face off of Hackman, Jesse Eisenbern and Michael Rosenbaum wouldn't be interesting?

DC you have massively failed this version. But look to your history and bring all of the infinite versions together. Make it epic and take back the icons.

Snyder wanted to let them all kill and die. Your true power and your most unique story can be your inspiration, let all the versions live, at once and then sort them out.

Just don't bring back Jason Todd and let us vote...

The Story in the Lacing

The beer has a quarter inch of head. It is cloudy and mysterious. The foamy bubbles slowly pop and end their existence. There is a calmness to the beer as it sits and waits for consumption. It settles. It is stable and yet full of possibility. The head begins to dissipate. I do not love ice cold beer. It feels rushed, hurried. Full of over eager moments. I like to let the beer settle into the glass, to absorb the spirit of the room. As the coverage of foam begins to fade, and the color of the beer shows through, I know it’s almost time for the first sip.

I lift the glass and the coaster comes too. A pet peeve but also just science in action, right? I try again but add a pinky as a blocker to keep the coaster from coming along. It leaves my hand with a pinky out perception. And my anxious mind begins to wonder if the coaster lifting or the pinky out is a worse event.

I lift the glass to my lips and the melancholy slightly warm nature of the glass presses against my lips. The hazy nectar flows against my taste buds. Tart at first, then sweet. Chilling but not shocking my mouth. As the glass returns to its protective station, the lacing on the glass begins to form. Bubbles, unique as snowflakes cluster against the glass. The music from the jukebox flows seemingly in time with the lacing as it takes residence on the side of the glass.

It is in this moment where you can begin to feel like a child laying on a hill, staring at the clouds. Images and shapes and imagination becoming apparent, things that once are seen can’t me unseen. A baseball diamond. A constellation of stars. A honeycomb shape which makes the mind think of colony collapse. Something that is not as easily understood as it seems.

The glass waits for round two. The color and haziness never fading. I lift the glass again and the impetuous coaster follows along. The pinky defense succeeds again this time with my chaos than class. Again the hazy liquid crosses the lips and tames the taste buds as it continues down the gullet. Another layer of imagination inducing lacing appears on the glass. Is that a ship? Florida? Or the ghostly face of a hammerhead shark?

The second sip leads to a third and then a forth. Helps to fend off the image of a ghostly hammerhead shark. As the drink begins to absorb into the system, the desire to see the imagination in the lacing fades. Maybe it was the shark. More likely it was the end goal all along. Each sip is savored. Yet the lacing begins to go unnoticed. The imagination and dreaming left behind.

Eventually there is a burp, a gastronomic moment that belies any inspiration or purpose. And then as I cover my mouth in shame. I glance at the glass. The lacing catches my eye. Is that a deer? A giraffe? A friendly llama - as if there is another kind. And for a moment again the imagination, the wonder is present again.

I turn the glass, examining the lacing again for mysteries and symbols. On the back side I see an aqueduct leading to a sea monster, it’s long arms lashing at the ancient waterway. Above it, birds of prey, trydactles or some other kind of scavenger wait to pounce and enjoy the impending buffet. As I turn the glass, it appears that there is a beam or a vein of energy or even lightening flowing toward the sea monster. I follow the stream back to its end, in the shape of a bat or perhaps when taking perspective into account, a dragon. Here on the other side of the glass is an aqueduct under attack from a sea monster with long limbs and his scavenger pals in tow that is being protected by a dragon spouting fire. What could be a more natural battle, water against fire.

The music distracts from the story being told in the lacing of the glass. I look away. And then instinctively take another sip. The scene changes. Gone are the sea monster and the dragon, the aqueduct has vanished. In its place a skeletal structure reminds. The bones of the dragon? Of the monster of the sea? I will never know. My inattention and haste took a portion of the story from me. And from you.

I lift the glass and the liquid catches the light from above. Still hazy, still blocking truly seeing through but weaker, damaged, at a level of distraction. Something makes me uneasy - either that I missed the next part of the story or that I destroyed it with my thirst.

The glass is empty. The lacing a scattered history of the story and of the waste left behind.





I tell myself that it doesn’t matter. But deep down I will always wonder.





Was the wreckage the sea monster or the dragon? And did I cause it all?