Did you see Waking Life? I took myself out on a little date to see it when the night it opened in Seattle a couple weeks ago. First I did this, then I walked down to the Egyptian, got myself a ticket for one to the 5:30 show, and picked up this cool mini movie poster that most of the characters from Waking Life on it, each with a quotation. I was stoked on the poster–only those of us who came the early show managed to get one. It was a prize!

It’s neat going to a movie by yourself. You can eat all the popcorn. You can sit where-ever you want. But when you get up to go the bathroom before the movie starts, it’s sort of strange because you have to leave SOMETHING so someone doesn’t gank your seat, but you have to take your valuables, so THEY don’t get ganked.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Loved it. Adored it. Was totally entranced. The visual production was just amazing, and I’m all about lucid dreaming. It was fantastic.

When I stepped out of the Egyptian, it was drizzling. I carefully rolled my little Waking Life movie poster into a newspaper to keep it dry, and took myself out for a beer at The Elysian (I was sort of hoping that if I got drunk I could take advantage of myself later). When I left the Elysian it was raining even harder, and I rolled my Waking Life poster into a copy of The Stranger and hurried the five blocks home.

I got home and unrolled The Stranger to retrieve my poster…and found it gone! After a few seconds of deliberation (I’d really gone WAY out of my way to protect it, and had already decided where I was going to hang it), I turned around, walked back out into the pouring rain, and retraced my steps all the way back to the Elysian.

I found the poster not thirty feet from the front door of the bar. It was completely saturated and stuck to the sidewalk. I carefully lifted it up, ran home, and dried it between towels. It’s a little haggard, but you can still read the awesome quotations like “When we community with one another and we feel that we have connected and we think that we’re understood, I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion. I think it’s what we live for,” and “There’s only one instant, and it’s right now, and it’s an eternity.”