john waters at the movie theater

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

My mom may have dropped me off at the side of a road. It was a warm, grey day. I walked down a grassy slope and into the parking lot for a shopping plaza.

At the edge of the shopping plaza was a movie theater where I was planning to go watch a movie. The entrance to the theater was at the corner of a shopping plaza. The sidewalk bordering the plaza was under a porch-like covering.

I looked at the movie showings, which were listed on some orange, plastic sign over a ticket booth that kind of columned out near the corner of the building. None of the movies looked like anything I wanted to see, and all the times seemed inconvenient. Plus, the movie price seemed way too high. So I decided not to see a movie, after all.

I was about to walk away from the theater when I noticed, to my right, a cluster of people standing around the filmmaker John Waters. Waters was wearing a suit, which was all covered up by a blue velvet bathrobe. He was relaxedly talking with all the people around him like they were all involved in some creative project.

I remembered having seen Waters before, at some other movie theater where I'd decided not to watch a movie. But at that theater Waters had been wearing a red bathrobe. I thought it was interesting to see John Waters, but I didn't know what I would say to him, so I didn't go near the group of people surrounding him.

Now a few people were filtering back behind the movie counter -- like this covered walkway had blended somehow with the interior of the movie theater, so that, even though we were still outside, we were also inside.

A woman who looked like one of my co-workers, VP, was standing beside me and talking with one of the people behind the counter. VP worked here. She and the woman behind the counter were complaining about some other woman who, as usual, hadn't showed up for work.

I got the idea that I could fill in for the woman, not for any money, but just to help out. Seeing that John Waters was standing behind the counter, just within earshot of the conversation, I thought I could impress him with my offer. But I didn't really want him to hear me making the offer.

So I kind of made the offer to VP low, under my breath, but still loud enough for Waters to hear me if he was listening. But I said it in a weird way, something like, "Have you ever thought of having people work some of these shifts on a volunteer basis?" But VP said that that wasn't necessary. Everybody who was here could pick up the slack and fill in for the missing girl.

Since I didn't want to watch a movie, and since I wasn't going to help out the people at the movie theater, I decided to head away, maybe to walk home. I had somehow been inside the movie theater at this point. I walked out the front door. I walked along a wide, uncovered sidewalk leading away from the building.

But then I remembered that I had left the book I'd been reading on the table I'd been sitting at (???) inside the theater lobby. I had to turn around and get it. So I turned around. I was kind of annoyed. I quietly said, "Fuck!" and gave an angry facial expression.

Just as I did that I noticed that John Waters was out on the curb, still in his bathrobe, fumbling through a bunch of cardboard boxes. I didn't want Waters to think I was coming back to the movie theater because I wanted to hover around him all the time. I thought his having seen me annoyed at having to come back to the movie theater might illustrate that. But I also wondered if he'd thought I'd been annoyed because I'd seen him out here.

Now Waters stood up and began walking toward the movie theater. But he was purposely walking very quickly, and he was heading toward a private entrance about halfway along the left wall of the theater. I could tell that Waters was doing this because he thought I was following him, and that it was creeping him out a little.

I went back into the theater lobby, to a tall, long table where, apparently, I'd just been sitting with a group of friends, all of whom were working on this movie theater project. We'd all had a little meal party before the work shift started.

I saw my book sandwiched between two empty, dirty plates. I quickly snatched it up, hoping I could just make a quick dash out of the movie theater so I didn't freak out John Waters anymore.

But now VP saw me and asked me some question. It was obvious she wanted to start a conversation with me. I didn't want to let her down. So I sat down with her to have a conversation. The conversation may have ended up being about some annoying person at work.

But right in the middle of our conversation, VP grabbed some little candle off the table, used it to light a cigarette, and walked away, saying she was heading outside to smoke, but that if I held my thought, she'd be right back. As the smoke from VP's cigarette lighting cleared, a tall, heavyset man across the table from me, whom I may also have recognized as someone from work, said, "Isn't she annoying? She does that kind of stuff to people all the time."