and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

So I'm a bit of a schlep for being so late with this review, right? I mean this internet thing - always on and breathing right there next to you whether you're in your car or in your bed it's right there right there next to you and you're ignoring it? I'm ignoring it? I dare see a movie and then, gasp, not write about it instantly so as to qualify the good, the bad, the ugly? Reduce it to a review where I have to admit that yes, there was a few things wrong? How beautiful. Super. I'll do that right now.

But I lied. This isn't really a review. It's a "you know when?".. Like sitting around with friends late at night with the lights turned off maybe after watching a movie or coming back from the bars and someone pipes up "You know when you first wake up in the morning and your eyes are all foggy and.." and everyone else says "yah, yah.. I know" as if the same thought - the exact same thought - was coursing through each person individually, but connected. Possible? This is maybe one of these, maybe, if you can have the same thought. Okay, let's try, shall we?

I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind tuesday evening for $4 at the Nickelodeon. Some people in this world should be so lucky to get to watch $4 movies at the Nickelodeon so I shouldn't complain, right? Anyhow, without giving much away the main character Joel is thinking of memories of his ex-girlfriend Clementine but she is half-way in his head and making those memories semi-dynamic and interactive:

She picks a drumstick off of Joel's plate.

        CLEMENTINE
     I'm Clementine. Can I borrow a piece of
     your chicken?

        JOEL (to himself, sort of, in his head)
     And you picked it out of my plate before
     I could answer and it felt so intimate
     like we were already lovers.

And in that intimate way I remembered her, while I sat in that anonymous movie theatre, while she sat in her car or in a motel room somewhere in the midwest half way to Alaska. I remembered how she used to drink from my beer as if it were hers. I remember thinking how incredibly rude I would find that gesture from anyone else, how I would normally defend my food/beer against such pillage, and I remember how sweet it made me feel, that gesture from her. I remember how it made me feel like there was something there between us that was unspoken but real. I remember how warm it made my insides with the thought that there was a very real comfort between the two of us that spoke of so much more.

I remember stopping myself. I remember thinking how ridiculus individual unstrung thoughts are - like notes with no song.

I remember thinking that if I were an only child maybe I'd be used to grabbing at anything on the table. Maybe I'd assume that people are okay with me eating off their plate. Maybe I wouldn't have that social barrier/rule/idea implanted in my head - the one that says "ask and ye shall receive". I remember thinking that maybe the gesture wasn't for me or anyone, maybe it was her gesture - the one she makes when she wants a drink of beer - not special or specific or meant for me uniquely. Maybe it meant nothing at all.

        CLEMENTINE
        (eyes welling)
     This is it, Joel. It's gonna be gone
     soon.

        JOEL
     I know.

        CLEMENTINE
     What do we do?

        JOEL
     Enjoy it. Say good-bye.

She nods.

Maybe it meant nothing at all.