Too Many Comic Book Movies? Your Mother...

"There're too many comic book movies!"

Or worse yet: "There's too many comic book movies!" (Seriously, you think it's ok to say there IS too many comic book movies? Cause that's what THERE'S means.)

Anyway, in all seriousness, if you've ever said either of the above lines, go fuck yourself - hard, and unpleasantly, with no lovingness or care for your own safety or pleasure.

Having lived through Howard the Duck (Marvel comic) and Superman 3 AND 4, I can say that we are in the Golden Age of comic book movies. Does it look too unrealistic when Green Lantern is in space with 100s of other Lanterns from all over the universe? FUCK YOU. Not believable when the X-Men history incorporates the Cuban Missile Crisis? EAT ME.

I know it's hip these days to bash everything to pieces and hate everything else. I did that most of my adolescent career. Now I am just pumped to go see guys in costume thrash other bad guys in costume. I don't love them all, but I like comic book movies, so I'll keep supporting them.

Captain America? Excellent. X-Men: First Class? Shades of brilliance. Green Lantern? Meh, fine - not the abortion everyone proclaimed it was by any means.

So either get on board or admit you don't like comic movies. Either way, shut your trap and strap in for Avengers by Joss Whedon...gonna be spectacular.

"I Remember" Exercise

This past December, I wasn't doing my best work at life, but was working on it.

Part of that time was spent in group therapy sessions; the exact context isn't essential here. What you need to know is that the group, with no preamble, was told to write for 60 seconds, and to write an "I Remember" tale.

At this point I had been 100% sober without so much as a cough drop for 23 days. I wrote the following in my 60 second allotment:

I remember the most horrible 36 hours of my life, the time my girlfriend, a girl I had been engaged to, nearly died in front of me. I remember we were having a last hurrah, a final drug experience that was supposed to be fun. The ecstasy and cocaine did not mix well for her.

I remember her seizing, and eventually finding out she had fractured both shoulder blades due to the strength of it. I remember calling an ambulance and trying to keep her focus on me.

I also remember dropping her at the hospital and watching her being wheeled away screaming.

I remember cabbing it back home and not knowing if she’d live or die, but knowing I needed to hide my coke, and do some more.

I remember cabbing around New Orleans for hours because I was too fucked up to remember which hospital.

I remember the looks of nurses, how I felt.

I remember doing much more blow in the hospital bathroom.

I remember the calls to her mom and dad, their arrival from Maine.

I remember the lunch we had when we found out she would live, and how I thought I shouldn’t order a beer as drugs were the cause of their daughter’s near-death experience, then doing it anyway.

I remember her recuperating in my apartment, her dad staying a week, the bruises on her arms from being restrained.

I remember her healing, and leaving me.

Next I remember increasing my cocaine use. I remember wondering if my heart would burst, realizing I’d never had a pulse this fast. I remember trying to kill myself with drugs.

And now I remember the salvation of a hurricane driving me from New Orleans and that life.

This exercise was a clutch moment for me, and my pivotal change in lifestyle this last year. I needed to get this out of me, and I was the first to volunteer to read that day, the first to share aloud, and the first to break down in tears.

Though it's impossible and unrealistic (and would be quite a downer) to keep your worst moments at the forefront of your thoughts, it's good to keep things in perspective. Bad day at work? That blows...no one you loved almost died though, right? Okay, then let's dial back the drama-meter (patent-pending), shall we?

JOURNAL ENTRY FROM 4 MONTHS I LIVED IN PARIS
(unaltered transcription from 5/11/04, 9pm)

It's amazing how light it stays in Paris in the spring. I know this phenomenon happens all over the world, but J and I found out it stays light until about 11pm in the heart of summer. Crazy French fuckers.

I finally started a new journal. I was waiting for something to necessitate committing my thoughts to paper. It's happened. Well, LOTS has happened to our intrepid wanderer, as we shall soon see...

I'm getting married. Can you fucking believe that shit? Gonna be in a little over a year, summer of 2005. Ahhh, my true love of all time, my J. (This goddamn space pen is running out of ink! FUCKER!!!)

THE ENTRY IMMEDIATELY BELOW ON THE SAME JOURNAL PAGE IS AS FOLLOWS
(unaltered transcript from 8/3/05, 4am)

So much has changed since last time, including me. It's the summer of 2005, and I'm emphatically NOT getting married. Christ.

J nearly died. I walk the line between living in a perpetual cycle of substance abuse and killing myself. I'm on the brink of pushing through this wall of introspection and drastically altering everything.

Bottom line - you're adapting to your environment instead of leading the charge.

You're not happy.

Yeah, so there were some dark periods of my life, yeah? I'm going to get some of this raw material posted, maybe get some feedback, and then start adding it into the longer narrative I have been working on. And yes, the second entry is literal...my then-ladylove could have died in the hospital int he time between these two posts and very nearly did, and I spent the next couple years selling and doing enough drugs to kill a mule - a large, HEAVYSET mule - as self-imposed penance.

I'm feeling ever so much better now, though, thanks for asking!