T-Shirt Tuesday Tales: Apparently Movies Aren't My Big Thing

T-shirt tales—Because every t-shirt tells a story, don't it.
And I have so very many of them. Shirts. And stories. ---- Tell me more. or Read all t-shirt tales

SUMMARY: Not a guilty pleasure. But then, once, I gave in.

Remember my unduly long post from a month ago,  T-Shirt Tuesday Tales: My Guilty Reading Pleasure...? The first-ever guilty pleasure t-shirt that I can recall buying about a book--or about anything, for that matter?

So, abandoning all hope at a good segue, here I am to discuss 50 Shades of Gray. Which, back in 2011, I had hoped would be a guilty pleasure. But the book--erk. Couldn't stand another word after about the 3rd chapter. Ever. My curiosity completely extinguished. And I didn't even feel guilty about it (see what I did there?).

But then they made a movie. And you know how I am about movies.

Screen Rant Pitch Meetings, three years ago, showed how the Pitch Meeting for the three Gray movies probably went. I loved the post back then, and I just stumbled across it again. So I watched it again and said:

I might have commented 3 years ago, but since these movies are some of my "favorites" and Pitch Meeting definitely highlighted some of their highlights, I'm commenting again.  

(1) I tried to read the book but my brain imploded by about chapter 3 and I never wanted to try again. 

(2) I figured the movie couldn't possibly be as bad as the book, so on a dull weekend when I had seen all other movies that were playing, some of them more than once, I went to this one.  Turns out I was wrong. So so so so horrifically wrong.  

(3) When the 2nd movie came out, a couple of critics said that both actors had improved since the first one, and for some inexplicable reason, probably brain damage from the 1st one I decided, I went to see it, too. I'm so so so so sorry, everyone, for tossing my money their way for content that would be lucky to ever be elevated to even "pure junk" and I regret every penny even though it was a discount matinee. So-- 

(4) --you nailed it again. Thank you, Pitch Meeting!

Therefore, Gray never became a guilty pleasure and I never (duh!) bought a t-shirt for either the book or the movie. (I'm glad, because my Captive Prince guilty pleasure is so so so so much better. IMHO.)  

In fact--to use another poor excuse of a segue--to the best of my recollection, I had never bought a t-shirt for a movie or movie characters at all, ever.  Until last year when, apparently, I started buying "first-ever" t-shirts.

 And it's because of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Loved. Those. Movies. Saw most more than once. And yet, couldn't find a shirt that rang my bell until I found this one. It particularly appealed because I've often commented about how, maybe, if some of those female characters had been prominent when I was a kid, maybe I'd have grown up not quite wishing I were Batman so much. And about how lucky girls are now, to have these movie characters.

... And I strongly recommend that no girls use the heroine in 50 Shades as a role model. What a milquetoast, idiotic, poor excuse of a character. 

IMHO.

All are characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Black Widow.
Captain Marvel. Valkyrie.
The Wasp. Pepper Potts. Mantis. Gamora.
Scarlet Witch. Nebula. Okoye. Shuri.

Appendix: 

Me hangin' with my favorite buds... because my real guilty pleasure here is that I have crushes on most of the male characters (Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston (not included here), Chris Pratt (ditto), Benedict Cumberbatch (ditto))... I mean, who wouldn't?

Simple Thoughts About Hard Things

SUMMARY: Simply written.

This is the year when everything changed.

Maybe not everything.

But it feels as if it were everything important.

My old dog who knew how to do the dog jumping and climbing game very well is gone. Because she was old and sick.

My younger dog who also knew how to do it very well suddenly became very, very sick with bad things growing inside her that killed her very, very quickly.

And both of these girls could walk and run without a six-foot holding thing between me and them and still be good girls.  And would come when called (mostly anyway). And knew how things worked in the world and loved to be out in the world and checking everything out. Now I have dogs who know or do none of these. And I miss my girls so much.

My father, whom I have known for more than half a hundred years--that is, my entire life--had bad things growing inside him, also, which also killed him quickly and also made him angry because, being human and not dog, he knew what was happening and didn't like it much.  And he knew so very very much that I can't even begin to say what.

The set of bones running down my back have decided to go in different directions than they should go and do other things that make the sensing-feeling things in my legs and back hurt so much that some days I can barely walk. Or sit. Or stand.  Lying down is usually pretty good and I like that part. But it's hard to do that and do any of the other things that I want to do--hard to do almost anything, in fact, when lying down.

So my dream of ending working for money and traveling the world and walking through and up and down many forests and hills and mountains and very dry places seems to be fading. And of taking photos of many creatures and places and things from many points of view such as lying down or on my knees or back seems to be fading. And of playing that dog jumping and climbing game until I turn eight times ten years old is fading. And also of staying in this house in this area for several more years until I have carefully thought things through seems like it cannot happen. Which means that I must be faster at getting rid of many of the many things in this house, and that is something that I find hard to do.

So. I am getting up every morning and doing the things that I must do and finding ways to still enjoy life and trying to slowly come to know the truth of my life and what I need to be doing within me, not just in my head.

These are all hard ideas to grab. And yet, in many ways, it is quite simple.  To help me think simply about it all, I have written this story-thing using this thing that helps people to write using only words from a simple word set*. It is hard to be simple.  Maybe that is why I feel so tired so often.  Trying hard to be keep things simple. Being simple is hard. And so many simple things are hard.

------

*I thank xkcd for creating this Simple Writer thing.   Here is a good one of his funny drawings that I think uses the simple words.

("The thrower started hitting the bats too much,  so the king of the game told him to leave and brought out another thrower from thrower jail.")

Speaking of dogs being scared of fireworks

SUMMARY: Can laugh at it now--

Added a 3rd & 4th, July 5.

Comics of dogs and fireworks and being scared. What can I say?

http://theoatmeal.com/

Dog Agility in Today's Sunday Comics

SUMMARY: From Get Fuzzy, observations about dog agility plus free advice on how to come home with a blue ribbon!

[Note: If the comic doesn't appear, click here.]

Inexhaustible dogs

Yesterday's comic: Does this look familiar?

Cathy by Cathy Guisewite

Cathy Aug 26, 2003, Universal Press Syndicate