Was "The Dark Knight" a better movie than "The Dark Knight Rises?"

That isn’t a fair question at all.

All three Nolan Batman movies work together. It’s an epic in the truest definition of the word.

There’s the shocking beginning, the smart and speedy middle, and the harrowing conclusion. And these movies both break the rules and follow them to a capital T.

Had DKR been the movie before DK, you’d hear the same complaints. “Nolan couldn’t keep up with himself.” “There’s no way he could have reached the impossibly high bar he set for himself with the last movie.” “This chapter is too Hollywood.”

The problem isn’t Nolan. It’s human perception. And we’re wired to look for discrepancies. Molded and trained to criticism.

Seeing as DKR hasn’t even released yet, I’m not going to spoil anything. Instead, I’ll say that it relies heavily on the stories told in the preceding movies. Although all movies could work independently, they are so much stronger as a unit. There are, as far as I can look, no lose ends dangling from the end of this story because of the last movie. Every shot seems painstakingly thought out, and every tiny conclusion has a firm basis in one of the many central themes and story arcs from the entire saga.

No, it isn’t flawless, but only because nothing is flawless.

Besides, flaws are what makes things truly beautiful.

Anyone can argue until their last breath that one of the movies is better than the others, or the end wasn’t what they wanted. But expecting anything is the true mistake, not Nolan’s. 

You can’t look at the movies individually, because even if they’re all telling the same story, they really aren’t. DKR is the conclusion, taking the pieces of the first two chapters and conforming them into a crescendo of light, color, and fire. That is the purpose of this movie. To take what has been done, make it rise, explode, and end.

The second movie wasn’t given the same task, and therefor can’t be rated on the same scale.

So as people keep asking me if it was the best one, or if it holds a candle to its predecessors, I can only tell them that the more I reflect, the more I love it. Because it made me realize what a wonderfully complicated yet elegantly simple story it has all become. And for that, I love this trilogy.

Holy heroes, Batman!

For months, I’ve been planning on going to Dallas Comic-Con for one reason: Meet Batman. Meet Adam West.

All of my friends know I’m a Batman fanatic. I love it all. The campy 60’s stuff. The dark Nolan stuff. The Frank Miller comics. Tim Burton’s fantastic take. Even Joel Schumacher’s butchery still gets me excited.

But no one really understands how deep my love goes. And even I can’t really explain why, even with so many Batmans and so many different styles, Adam West’s Batman and Burt Ward’s Robin mean so much to me.

Was it because I just loved the show while I was a kid? Or perhaps it was because after watching it at night during the summer, my dad would take us to go get root beer floats?

How my sister and I played Batman and Robin all the time.

How we referred to every black sports car as a Batmobile.

How my first car, a black sports car, was a Batmobile in my mind.

Or maybe it’s because I was picked on as a kid, and I always could escape into my fantasies where I was a special crime fighter who would fight alongside the caped crusader.

Regardless, my happiest childhood memories involve the Dark Knight (even if he wasn’t that dark all of the time).

So as Comic-Con came closer and closer, I got nervous. Because I really WAS going to meet Adam West. And then at the last minute, Burt Ward got added to the roster. And then I really got twisted in my guts.

I couldn’t handle that! I couldn’t really  meet these men who molded my childhood almost twenty years before I was even born. I’d lose my shit.

Well, I met them both today as a 29 year old woman but really as a nine year old girl. And despite all of my best efforts, I cried a little and blurted out, “You’re my hero,” and “I watched your show every day after school,” and “I’m so excited to meet you.”

And they’re both such sweet men. They smiled and thanked me and shook my hand and signed my poster. And I held onto that poster for hours today, never letting go.

It was the best. Meeting them was THE BEST! And they’ll never know how much that brief interaction meant to me. Hell, I barely understand it.

What's my name again?

I go by my middle name. Always have.

It's not unheard of for anyone to go by their middle name. However, it's much more rare for a woman to versus a man.

But as I collect years, I discover more and more ways that going by my middle name is a gigantic cluster fuck of shit.

Did you know you're supposed to sign all legal documents (that means checks, too) with your first name? Even if you go by your middle? Sure, it sounds easy to you first-namers. But trust me, it isn't.

My driver's license. My passport. My social security card that I signed when I was eight years old. All proudly display my middle and last name in my spiky scrawl. Not my first and last and certainly not all three names.

My checks don't even have my first name on them. I've been paying my taxes and/or bills with those checks for over 10 years. The electric company and the IRS had no problems taking them.

But now that I want to contribute to my retirement, my middle name doesn't cut it. And the bank is throwing a hissy fit because my first name appears nowhere on my check.

It's me, I swear! I've got a quarter of a century of shit with my name, face, and signature on it to prove I am who I say I am. There's my Wet 'n' Wild season pass from when I was 10. There's my first driver's license when I was 15. I have countless friendship documents from elementary school that proudly feature my name and school photo. I have the title to my car. Two passports. Credit cards without my first name mentioned.

What do you want from me? I'll give you anything.

Except for a check with my first name on it.

The beard is gone.

Every winter, Cooter Brown grows a scraggly beard. I made a gif of the removal, but Facebook doesn't allow for gifs. So it shall live here.

Isn't that Pinteresting?

Pinterest is the latest social Internet sensation where everybody (read: mostly women) post cutesy things that make them giggle with glee.

It's also the latest thing to fill me with hate.

I tried to like it, I really did. I gave it an honest go. But the sugary sweetness of it all just left me bitter. I can only take so many exclamations of "yum," so many "things I must try," and insane examples of nail art.

Pinterest makes you follow tons of people upon signing. There is no way around this. So all of those dumbasses on Facebook that you won't unfriend (but won't pay attention to either) are assaulting you on Pinterest with their love of toned tummies (despite their out-of-shape profile photos), beachside lounge chairs (in their "Places I Want To Go" boards), and pictures of cake balls.

Oh God, there are so many cake balls.

I hate cake balls.

And it's all so ... cute. Where's the sarcasm? The bitterness? The clever comedy? 

I love me some DIY, don't get me wrong, but I really can't take another lampshade made out of ribbons. It isn't cute! It looks like shit! Why are you saying it's cute and that you want to try it and it'll look good in your child's bedroom ... when you have kids someday ... by the way you're not dating anyone and I don't think you've been shopping at the sperm bank,  have you?

That's the other thing. Why are there so many posts from childless, single people about their weddings and children's outfits? I find that really creepy. If you have a secret when-I-get-married book, cool. Fine. Stuff it under your bed or hide it in your closet where it belongs. Don't put it on Pinterest where everyone you knew in high school can now see it.

And judge you. And know that I am fucking judging you. I'm not even going to fake nice about that.

Oh, and add to all of this that Pinterest is basically a legal nightmare with copyright responsibility. But I won't even get into that. I'm just going to listen to another one of my clients ask me how they can increase online interactions within their preferred customer base using Pinterest.

While I stab myself with a pin under the table. So I feel something other than anger.

My parents have been divorced for over 20 years.

Of those 20 years, my mom has been with her husband for at least 18. My dad has had a few partners, but his current partner has been around for a decade.

They just got engaged.

And for some reason, it weirds me out.

It seriously weirds me out.

Mom getting married didn’t bother me one bit. It felt like the thing to do. It felt normal. Her husband already felt like a dad to me.

But Dad getting married?

Maybe it’s because I’m older now. Maybe it’s because I’m married myself. Maybe it’s just because I found out about the engagement after everyone else.

Yeah, that has to be it. I feel left out. Not included. Cast aside.

Unimportant. 

One carries keys. One carries people. Guess which is worth more.

This is the value of my car according to Kelly Blue Book.

This is the value of a fucking purse.

Can someone tell me why a purse is worth $3,634.99 MORE than a car? A FUCKIN PURSE! Just for the record, they're the same color. So that's not the reason. I mean, does the purse have a power seat and a rear defroster? I didn't think so. Or an MP3 player? Or fucking wheels?

To quote an internet meme:

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

"Don't screw it up."

My old boss knew how to motivate me.

Right after every assignment he'd give me, he'd always say, "Don't fuck it up," or "Don't screw this one up," as I walked out the door.

He'd always deliver the line in the most jovial way, too. And it never failed to make me smile and, most importantly, give a shit.

Because I always wanted to hear him say, "Thanks for not fucking this up." Or even, "Nice job."

And you know what? Most of the time, I did.

You have to find out how to work with others, and discover how to make them work. It's key for your success, their success, and overall contentment in the workplace.

I respond well to a) being told directly what to do with b) a smirk and c) cursing.

My boss knew that.

And to this day, no matter who I'm working for at the moment, before I ever type a single word, I always tell myself, "Don't fuck this up."

And I don't.

Takeover ads suck balls.

Study after study shows that people are very impatient when they're using the Internet.

We click the first link we see. We leave a page if it takes more than three seconds to load. And we have no tolerance for ads that cover up the stuff we're looking for.

As a person who works in advertising, I love a good ad. And if it's awesome enough, I might not mind it taking up a valuable fives seconds of my day. The problem is most ads are terrible, boring, and don't reward me for my patience.

Like this piece of shit, which unveils itself without my permission.

This yogurt ad takes up my entire freaking window. In fact, I had to expand my window to find the close button, which is tiny and slammed as far into the top right corner as it could possibly be. Piece of shit ad is right justified, too, making it even harder to click.

Urgh.

Then it plays a boring ass commercial. BORING BORING BORING. I know it's yogurt, but yogurt can be fun. If only the marketing directors at Yoplait has let the ad agency do something fun. Like throw yogurt on the page. Or put yogurt mustaches on every photo. Or something that would have made me smile and given me a positive experience, instead of pissing me off and making me want to eat cereal.

At least the sound was off. Otherwise, my laptop might have ended up on the floor.

iMiss Steve Jobs, even though iNever met him.

iAm not a brand-loyal person.
iBuy a different toothpaste every time.
iCould care less about who made my TV.
iCouldn't tell you what company produced the shoes on my feet.

But my way of keeping in touch with the whole world? iCan tell you exactly who's responsible that.

Today, iFeel sadness for a man I've never met, but who has aided my creativity and career for so many years.

Thank you, Steve, for bringing us all into the future.

Designers can be real dicks.

I'm an advertising copywriter, which means I work with tons of designers and art directors.

And they all have their quirks. Most of them have very unique qualities. Many of them fall into stereotypes.

And many of them are assholes about other designers.

Being a freelancer, I oftentimes will work with several designers on the same account. And I'll never understand why they'll view a piece I've worked on, and then knock it in front of me. But in particular, the designer that worked on it.

"Ugh. That looks like shit. That tiny little spec right there. I would have magicked that out and used Pantone whatever. That color right there is so cliche. Any why is it on paper? I would have used leather."

I always want to scream at them.

"Dude, that's my fucking work, too!"

"Hey, asshole, I didn't ask for your opinion."

"You should see what this guy said about your piece!"

There are many times when I see shitty writing, and although I bitch about it a lot, I probably only express my opinion half of the time. Because I know how bogged-down-depressing being a professional creative can be at times—always having your work under an electron microscope by people that constantly profess "I know I'm not creative, but ..."

... but lick my ass.

So I would think that designers, knowing damn well what other designers go through, would be a little nicer. At least to my face seeing as I know the guy they're insulting and I probably like that guy, too.

Although, most of the time, it's the inferior designer bitching about the better designer. At least in my opinion. I mean, I'm not a designer, but ...

Burts Bees lip balm is no joke.

After my usual morning makeup routine, I opted for the honey-scented/flavored Burt's Bees lip balm instead of whatever it is I normally use.

There's no reason why I chose honey over mint. Except maybe to attract bees. Because that's what the freaking lip balm did.

Not fifteen minutes later, I was pumping gas into my car when I noticed a bee buzzing around. Usually, I don't bug out when there's a flying insect because my Daddy Lou always told me that bees won't bother you if you don't bother them.

This bee, however, was different. This bee kept coming right at me.

As I slowly backed away, the bee circled and came closer, then further, then closer, then further. By this time, others at the gas station had noticed my strange behavior, but I'm confident they couldn't see the bee.

I must've looked like I was about to have a seizure.

I backed away from the pump and the bee. It seemed to work. The bee took off and was out of site.

Then, it swooped in from behind me, darting between my calves and bumping one as it circled me again.

I didn't swat at it, but I might have jumped and spun in a circle. And I might have said, "Fuck." I always say, "Fuck."

A this point, it was obvious people were watching me now. What wasn't obvious was why I was stiff-armed, moving in a serpentine pattern, and spewing four-letter words.

That's when the bee decided to go for my face. He got so close, my eyes crossed.

It hit me then ... an idea, not the bee. That bee can smell my lip balm.

I quickly tucked my lips in and covered my mouth with my hand. After four seconds, the bee flew away. (After about thirty seconds, my face started sweating it's over 105 degrees here today.)

My crazy idea had worked. Sure, I looked nuts covering my face while pumping gas. But at least I wasn't dancing around screeching, as I was two minutes prior.

I'm doing it myself.

So now that the King of Awesome and I are homeowners, we're tackling a few projects without the (direct) help of experts.

Because I'm cheap and able.

Hopefully able.

Regardless, while we're taping corners and drilling holes and unscrewing pipes, we keep noticing little spots where previous workers just said, "Fuck it." Like with the paint on the inset windows. The beautiful wall retexturing that's been done throughout the entire house is shoddy at best in the parts of the window you don't see unless you're leaning against the wall and uncomfortably looking back at it.

Yeah, exactly. You have to get in strange, Twister positions to even notice. But still, there's evidence of someone else who was probably an exhausted five-hours in just saying, "Fuck it."

And I feel their pain, because I feel like saying, "Fuck it," when I'm in the same spots. Like the itsy bitsy spots of paint that were missed. Sure, we say we'll get them later, but will we really?

Fuck it.

Or the switch plates that are an ugly color so we painted them and stuck them up temporarily. At least we painted them. But will we really replace them?

Fuck it.

Or that teeny bit of blue paint that's now on the ceiling in the corner that you can't see unless you're standing on the toilet. Are we going to fix that? Hopefully, but in reality? Fuck it.

At least we're doing the quirks ourselves, though, instead of paying some other folks hourly to say, "Fuck it," when we're not looking.

9946 Parkford Dr. in Dallas, Texas, has black mold.

9946 Parkford Dr. Dallas, TX

That's the house my husband and I were days away from owning when our lender told us to get a mold inspection.

That's the house that ended up having black mold in the walls.

That's the house owned by the out-of-country people who kept saying they couldn't afford to keep it and tried to get us to pay their mortgage when the closing was delayed.

That's the house that they kept telling us would go into foreclosure.

And it's also the house which I saw is back on the market.

I don't like to post things like addresses here. Or bad mouth anyone specific. Or ruin stuff for others. Or put up such blatant real-word stuff from my life.

But I have a feeling that whoever is in charge of 9946 Parkford Dr. in Dallas, Texas, won't disclose that the house has black mold.

So all I can do is post the address, 9946 Parkford Dr. in Dallas, Texas, enough to make the house climb in the Google searches. And then hope someone searches for the address. And then save that person thousands and thousands of dollars and heartache.

9946 Parkford Dr. in Dallas, Texas, has black mold. And I have the extremely expensive reports to prove it. It also has a slow water leak which caused the mold and is destroying the structural integrity of the kitchen. That's not the only leaky thing, also.

We were planning on putting a lot of money into that house to get it up to par. But the discovery of black mold made us realize we were going to spend way more than we anticipated. That and the bank wouldn't give us the money after discovering the 9946 Parkford's little, spore-spreading skeleton.

If you're interested in that house and you found this blog, I'll be honest and forthcoming about the Parkford house's history. I'll tell you everything, including how it broke my heart.

Let me sleep.

The writer had finally fallen asleep after no less than two hours of twisting the sheets between her ankles and adjusting the pillow multiple times. Her eyelids finally stopped fighting gravity and her mind finally quit racing through the following weeks.

It was sometime around four in the morning. Really too late to be getting to sleep. And far too early to be waking up.

But the gentle hand on her shoulder brought her back up through the dream levels, undoing all of the great effort that it took to get her to sleep in the first place.

She opened her eyes. Slowly. She wasn't sure if she was awake.

"Now?" she asked. So quietly.

"Yes," the Muse gently answered as she brushed hair from the writer's face.

"But I'm so tired," the writer nearly cried. "I don't want to get up."

"But you must," the Muse cooed as she raised a delicate arm in the direction of the computer.

The writer rolled onto her back to look at the ceiling, which she had been staring at before finally sleeping.

"I'd rather rest." But her mind began racing again. And the ideas were popping like kernels of corn inside of her head.

"It's your decision. But I'm here if you need me." The Muse rose from her spot beside the bed, walked over to the writer's chair at the desk, and delicately sat down.

The writer sat up, turned, and placed her feet upon the cold floor. She groggily made her way to the computer and began to write.

And then she woke up.

She had never left the bed, choosing (perhaps not deliberately) to sleep instead of creating.

And the Muse had left her nothing.

The writer prepared for another daytime of searching for ideas, fearing that they would again show up in the night.

"It's just a house."

Cooter Brown and I were in the process of buying a house.

A really cool, funky house surrounded by trees and nice people and gentle hills.

The house needed a lot of love, and we were willing to give that love.

But fate, or whatever it is, intervened and we lost our little house. Days before it was officially ours.

And it feels like a death. It's crushing, really, how badly losing a home feels.

A home that, like I just said, wasn't even ours yet.

I pride myself on not being super materialistic. If my apartment burned down, I'd miss my shoes and my jeans and my computer, but I'd live.

I'd mourn for my iPhone, sure, and I'd be sad having to replace my "[Name of High School] Class of '01" coffee mug with something generic from Target. But I'd live.

And I'll live after losing this house. But this hurts so impossibly much.

I'm no stranger to mental pain. I lost a job when the economy was shit, while I was unmarried and living with a guy. And I was frightful that he'd leave me if he had to support me. I've lost family members and friends, and nearly lost my mind at the same time. I even faced being crippled when my surgery went all wrong and had to deal with the fear that I might not walk right, get in and out of cars easily, or run ever again (I still have a slight limp today, but only a few have noticed).

But losing this house hurt in a new way. It was a failure. I failed. I failed that little house and the future we would share. And now it will sit there and continue to rot away and die.

We dodged a bullet, everyone is saying.

It happened for a reason, we keep hearing.

It wasn't meant to be, people have repeated ad infinitum.

Blessing in disguise? Maybe. Divine intervention? Arrogant to think that my life is that important, but whatever. Fucked up coincidence that happened in the nick of time? Most likely, although that blows, too.

Anyway, I'll just keep on keeping on. And eventually I'll get off of this sad little roller coaster and onto the platform of another home. Hopefully a better home.

Those aren't words.

In the book "Who Censored Roger Rabbit?" by Gary Wolf (which is where the idea for the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" came from), comic characters speak in word bubbles.

Some of the more famous characters, however, suppress their word bubbles and actually speak. Jessica Rabbit is one of these characters.

During one part, she is so distraught and borderline incoherent that garbled mess appears on busted word bubbles over her head. And her speech is unclear and full of blips and bobs and nonsense.

She's mixing the two together and unable to express her feelings.

I feel like that right now. Just thought I'd share.

I want a work proposal.

I've had a work husband. We shared a cube. Ate lunch together often. Bitched about our jobs together.

We were totally married. Just not for real.

And when we both left our jobs, we joked about our splitting up. How we were amicable. And to this day, we remain friends. Now, we call each other "ex work wife" and "ex work husband."

It works.

Having a work husband was great. So great that I would really like another one. But there's one problem ... no one has work proposed to me.

I mean, I have work crushes. There are some great candidates around my office for work husbands. Heck, there are great candidates for work wives, too. I'm not a work homophobe. You could even call me a work bisexual. I'll work marry anyone, really.

But I'm too shy to initiate any work dating.

Oh well. I guess I'll just fill my office with pictures of cats and become the work spinster.

I remember.

The terrorist is dead. And I'm watching the world celebrate on TV and on the Internet and in the streets.

And I remember the famous incident of the towers falling. And I remember watching parts of the world celebrate on TV and on the Internet and even in the streets.

Because parts of the world felt we were evil. And we deserved what we got.

But their celebrations made us even angrier. Their merriment hurt.

And I promised myself that if "justice" were ever served, I wouldn't celebrate. Because no matter how ignorant, how sinister, and how evil a man is, I can't praise his murder.

It's hypocritical.

So I watch my peers raise glasses, hold signs, and cheer for the death of a man who killed millions. Their celebrations no doubt making others angrier. And their merriment hurting.

I will not celebrate. Because I refuse to sink to the level of those who sunk so morally low at our pain.

And I will never publicly cheer the death of anyone. 

After all, "thou shalt not kill" is fairly straightforward.

I'm shamelessly self promoting.

I'm not anywhere near famous or popular, but I have a Facebook fan page (or whatever it's called now).

There's really no point to it, unless you want to know what I really look like. Anonymity is dead, anyways.

Like the Queen of Awesome on Facebook.