Situational Extrovert

"I'm not going to go to a movie by myself!"

So says the titular character in "Donald Cried," this weekend's brand spanking new film (it only opened in D.C. Friday and here it is already at our little arthouse theater) at the Bijou, and with sufficient disdain to make it sound like going to the movies alone is akin to going to prom alone.

Not that I'd know, since I didn't go at all.

As it happened, I heard that line sitting in the theater where the only other two occupants of the first row with me were, like me, at a movie alone.

I don't get it. You're not supposed to talk during a movie anyway, so why is going alone such a cringe-inducing option? Besides, when it's just me, I always get to choose which movie to see and when.

Before tonight's screening even got started, I joined the three solo film-goers in the lobby - two familiar, one new to me but nothing that an introduction didn't take care of - to talk about (what else?) movies, while the Shins played on a nearby turntable.

One admitted he has a habit of devoting entire Tuesdays to catching up on mainstream movies at Movieland, although he learned early on that if you start with something heavy like "The Green Room," you'll have zero emotional energy left to stay for further screenings.

He also assured me that I'd appreciate "Logan" even with limited testosterone and no interest in the "X-Men" franchise whatsoever, although he didn't fully convince me. Being guys, they seemed to think that because it's Hugh Jackman's final turn as Wolverine after 17 years, that's reason enough.

If you've got a "Y" chromosome maybe.

And on the subject of holding on to a man's younger self, tonight's screening of "Donald Cried" provided a tragicomedy about a 30-something man-child still living with Mom who has more unresolved issues than could possibly be dealt with in 90 minutes, many of which were exacerbated by his former best friend metalhead coming back to town when his Grandmother dies.

Because apparently boys will always be boys, there was the requisite rough housing, snowball fighting, weed smoking and thinly-veiled, long-simmering resentments bubbling up. It seems certain things don't change for some people no matter how old they get.

That first time director Kris Avedisian wrote the screenplay and also plays Donald (as one guy tonight said, "Because who else could fully inhabit that part and make him seem human?") only added to the believability of the character and his stunted life.

That he shot it in a crowded snow-covered suburb that felt formless and constrained mirrored the lives led by those who had stayed there.

But the strength of the film was that it wasn't a continuous pity party for Donald (though he certainly deserved some) because so often the audience's sympathy landed squarely with his best friend Pete, who while seemingly more successful in a conventional sense, had a fair number of issues of his own.

And that's not even counting dealing with Donald after two decades.

Much as I appreciated the movie, I had no frame of reference for it since I'm not from a small town and I've never once run into someone from my 1000-person high school class since graduating. So afterward, back in the lobby and talking about what we'd just seen, all three of these guys attested to returning to their small towns to find former classmates virtually unchanged since high school.

They knew guys like Donald, while I didn't. The movie necessarily resonated differently for them, especially the one headed back to a small town in Colorado soon.

So, let's see, how many movies have been made about men resisting growing up? Let's start with "Peter Pan" and go from there, shall we? Man-child fascination aside, what I'm truly curious about is, are there actually still grown men who wouldn't think of going to a movie solo?

I have to say, the three tonight represented well for those men who can not only venture into a darkened theater alone, but for those with civility as well. When we left the theater, I asked if anyone was walking my way and wound up with company for all but the last two blocks.

Sure, I could have walked by myself. But why would I not want to continue a conversation with a guy capable of solo movie-going?

Apparently, they're not as commonplace as womenfolk might hope.

Feed Your Head, Warm Your Hands

It requires a friend of at least 7 years to know my hot buttons.

Perhaps that's how long it takes to know which compliments are going to resonate most with me. Refer to my lifestyle as bohemian? Thank you for noticing. Speak well of long, graceful fingers? I'm gobsmacked. Mention the dimples? Bonus points.

But walk into my living room - not for the first time - and declare that it looks like a salon, well, now I'm eating out of your hand. The fact that he's part of a group holding salon-like events only adds to my pleasure in the comment.

Among stacks of books written by and about women that I've pulled out for rearranging, he points to a copy of "Truevine," asking how I liked it and making a case for how it might have been better accomplished as a work of fiction (agreed).

Seems he went to school with the author back when neither was certain they'd write the books they wanted to. Now they both know better.

Because it was such a beautiful evening, we began with a walk over to 821 Cafe for the sole purpose of introducing him to my favorite black bean nachos and catching up after nearly a month. With the students away for spring break, it was like walking through a ghost town and even 821 seemed like a shadow of its normal state with so few tables and stools occupied.

An ideal place, in other words, to linger over a platter of well-layered nachos and talk about the novelty of simple food, community building through restaurants and the really big news that there's been interest in his book.

Rapid and enthusiastic interest, possibly the best kind.

Stuffed and in need of a walk, we made it as far as Saison Market's patio, understandably hopping with today's warmth tempered by Sunday's forecast of snow, where I amused my visitor with stories of dumb things his people have said to me.

It was somewhere after a story about the western hemisphere that he decided what we needed was some steps to sit on, the better to enjoy the Richmond air and notable citywide quiet.

Conveniently, my house has some and we took up residence there, first on the wide wooden steps of the house and then on the narrower brick steps leading to my door. Every time even a hint of breeze would lift a stem of the rose bush, the scent of hyacinths wafted up to perfume the air.

It's for that reason alone that I plant them.

People walked down the sidewalk a few feet away without even noticing us sitting in the shadows. Mainly, it was only my laughter that gave us away (my grandmother used to remind me that people could hear me a mile away) and got us a wave or two.

The shame was that he had to drive back tonight - the bohemian was not able to convince the smart mouth to stay for an LSD experience - so we called it quits after five hours of constant conversation, comparing memories and all around fast processing, just the way we like it.

With no one to talk to, I need something to talk about, so I made my way to the Bijou for the late screening of "Sunshine Makers," a documentary about two chemists making 750 million doses of "orange sunshine" LSD in the '60s as part of their plan to turn the world on with acid and raise everyone's consciousness.

Turn on, tune in and drop out, preferably rapidly and enthusiastically.

No one could say they didn't have lofty goals trying to change the world through psychedelics. Check that, Ronald Reagan was shown circa the late '60s excoriating LSD makers and users, but what else is new?

What was even more surprising was that these guys had an established distribution network in the form of a commune-turned-hippie-mafia called the Brotherhood of Eternal Love. The footage shown looked like every happy, hippie commune I've ever seen, full of long hairs, granny dresses and barely-clad children. Not a bra in sight.

Equally fascinating were the interviews with the women who not only dropped acid with them but assisted with their drug-making operations. To a person, they rhapsodized about the mind-expanding qualities of the LSD experience and the noble goals of trying to make LSD therapy available to the masses.

Now in old age, one of the women is again the girlfriend of one of the sunshine makers, although she makes it clear that, "We're partners and lovers, but not under the same roof."

Proof positive that LSD doesn't fry your brain. Speaking of, seems to met a little space doesn't hurt a good friendship much at all.