How to Spend a Day

Pretty much my favorite thing ever to do is go to the movies...on like, a Thursday afternoon or morning, when the theater is mostly empty and feels even darker and more like a big, perfect cave than usual--when I will be surrounded by rows and rows of empty seats, when I can put my feet up or lie across the seats (you know how you can make a couch by lifting up the armrests? I do that.), when I can gorge myself with popcorn and Cherry Coke and not be judged, when I can watch a sex scene without my mom or dad sitting next to me, when I can cry so much my T-shirt gets soaked and not feel like people are watching me, thinking, Does she know this isn't real?

That's my favorite thing. So on Thursday I decided to skip school and do just that. I drove the 30+ miles to Michigan's mall-extravaganza, Great Lakes Crossing. Great Lakes Crossing is a huge outlet mall. The stores are arranged in a big circle, which according to mall literature is a mile all the way around, and like a Las Vegas casino there are very few clocks at Great Lakes Crossing. But there are a lot of places to purchase soft pretzels and Orange Juliuses, and who needs clocks when you've got a belly full of chewy pretzel dough and creamsicly goodness? Also at Great Lakes Crossing: the mall speed-walkers...you know, those people who race-walk the mall instead of getting a gym membership? They deftly weave in and out of foot-traffic, knocking iced coffees out of ladies' hands and babies out of their strollers without even noticing.

Of course, Great Lakes Crossing also has a Cinema--an AMC sandwiched between a Rainforest Cafe and a Johnny Rockets. After getting my ticket, I purchased my requisite huge bag of popcorn and bucket of soda, drenched my popcorn with butter for about 20 minutes (they have a self-serve butter pump!), and then went in to see The Reader. Now, when you go to the movies at an odd time like Thursday morning, there's always the chance you may get the whole theater to yourself. This has happened to me. But it didn't happen to me with The Reader. When I walked in, there was one man in there already--an elderly fellow with salt-and-pepper hair and Marlboro-man skin, wearing a tan windbreaker. I felt bad for ruining his chances at getting the theater all to himself and simultaneously hoped that more people would show up, because while getting the theater all to yourself is awesome, sharing it with just one other person is super awkward.

The movie started and I was immediately captivated. Maybe it was the delicious scent of popped corn drifting up my nares, maybe it was the delightful largeness and darkness and coolness of the theater, or maybe it was the tremor of rebellious glee I got from skipping school--but I think it was The Reader. For those of you who may not be familiar with the film: it's about an affair between an impressionable and passionate young boy and a mysterious older woman. That's all I'm going to say. Oh--and that it's the sort of movie that...well, to quote Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets, "makes me want to be a better man." It's dark, it's sad, it's passionate, it's beautiful, it makes you ache inside, it makes you feel. And as an added bonus, you get to look at this handsome fellow a lot:



I swear I'm not a pedophile. He's 19. I looked it up.

All in all, I'd say: an afternoon well spent.