The other night I tossed and turned with ideas for a dubious business swimming in my mind. I pawed around for my bedside pocket notebook and wrote in it in the dark, not knowing whether I was overwriting some previous thought, some great inspiration perhaps, and pausing to think and then not remembering what letter I was at in the word I was in.

We'd seen "Get Smart" at our local megaplex, the AMC Theater near Lincoln Center, which has a casino-like decor and quality - big fake plants, a perilous escalator, textured walls and tesselated carpets. The faint, not readily explainable stench of chlorine. The theater was warm - don't people see these movies in the summer just to be refrigerated for awhile? - and completely packed. I was thirsty and foul-tempered at first. I wondered if it would be OK to get up and get something to drink. I decided fuck it. People get up from movies, don't they? I made my way gingerly down the row but failed to avoid a woman's toes - I didn't step down on them but brushed them with my heel.

"Toes!" she said.

When I returned - with my Diet Coke, like some sad, fat fuck - I tried again my best to wind my way between the chair backs and the knees.

"Again with the toes!" the woman said.

I peered at her sinisterly - but uselessly, in the faint and inconsistent glow - as I sat back down. I muttered "damn you" and I don't know if she heard. But I felt much better and had a pretty good time after all.