i don't really know you, but...

(hannah and caroline and me, part seven)

never has any one image gotten me as stoked to see or do anything as this picture amped up my impatience to see the new batman movie coming out this summer. there is hype for something unseen as evidenced by the recent marketing campaign for cloverfield or what we've seen in the past for movies like godzilla, blair witch project or jurassic park. but the above image is something different. like the ads for the aforementioned movies, the image of heath ledger as joker implies a danger or a monster lurking in the shadows, but it also defines that danger with enough subtlety (or lack thereof) that our imagination is left with countless directions to go in as we, the moviegoer, must wait for months, still, before we see the new incarnation of an old enemy come to life onscreen.

today, heath ledger died. a bummer indeed even for someone like me that wasn't necessarily a heath ledger "fan". but a bummer still for with any loss, we are forced to race back into reality and be sad for this person we didn't know and ask who of those left behind will comfort the ones hurt most by his passing. we are ripped away from our art as escapism and view the scary image and coming movie for what they are, distractions.

distractions from hurt. distractions from confusion. from anger. from pain. from mourning. from the fact that life is way too fragile for us to actually comprehend most of the time.

hannah fell out of her chair tonight at dinner. she's ok. a little embarrassed, but she's fine. she was never in any real danger of seriously hurting herself by falling out of her chair, but the chair was just a metaphor. "listen to your parents or life will hurt you." after tonight, she can go one of two ways. she can remember the bump from the floor and sit on her bottom from now on. or she can remember the pain only lasting a minute, not being nearly as bad as we had led her to believe and now ask us for a taller chair to sit in during dinner because now she is looking for a new and more dangerous risk involved with not listening to her parents.

caroline hasn't had a brush with danger yet, but she will. it's really a wonder how parents ever sleep at night with as many things that "could" go wrong at any given moment of any given day.

please forgive my weak attempt to link the passing of a celebrity to the anxiety that comes with being a father to the want to never think about anything serious. i have to believe my head being in the clouds the last few weeks is as close as i'll ever get to being "hormonal". but today, for whatever reason, i'll attach a new and more significant meaning to the coolest movie poster i've ever seen aside from a young anakin skywalker casting the shadow of darth vader. and i'll think of my children. and never wanting them to leave the house. and forcing them to home school. and listen to nothing but veggietales. and only watch pbs cartoons. and v-chip mtv. and never cuss. and only watch fox news. and then...

i'll wake up.