Hey! Young people! I just thought of the best idea for you. Why don't you move to South Lake Union? Seriously. Move to South Lake Union. Do it. Do it. Come on. Do it! Aren't you having fun? Don't you like it here? Look at all these condos we're building! Aren't they cool and tall? God, it's so great hanging out here in South Lake Union and doing stuff like watching totally cool cinema on a lawn with other young people. Hey, look—the Big Dipper! The stars really are brighter over South Lake Union. Except when the outdoor movie is playing (Paul Allen has the stars dimmed for the outdoor movies). Listen. I'll tell you what. If you move to South Lake Union, Paul Allen will personally guarantee you ONE free hug. Wait, what? Okay, if you'd prefer, Paul Allen will personally guarantee never to hug you. Ever. No hugs. Dooo it.
What I'm trying to say is that I went to South Lake Union's Cinema on the Lawn on Friday. It was fun, I guess. The movie was Heathers, which I don't think I'd watched all the way through since some time in the '90s (back when Heathers and PCU played at least 17 times a day on Comedy Central). I didn't realize—not how fucking awesome Heathers is, because that's eternally obvious—how subtly it infected my impressionable preteen brain. "So, what was the first day after Heather's suicide like?" "Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?" "Fuck me gently with a chainsaw." "Save the speeches for Malcom X. I just wanna get laid." That stuff's in my DNA now. Just hearing Christian Slater say "Greetings and salutations" gave me a funny feeling.
We brought a bag of cheesecake and some silly illicit liquor (airplane-size bottles of Kahlua and Malibu that'd been taking up space on my spice rack for at least two years). We had blankets and good company. Even the endless line for the Honey Buckets (fucking gross inside) was kind of fun—mavericks peeling off right and left to pee behind fences, in bushes, on the wall of the South Lake Union Discovery Center.
But my one problem with outdoor movies is that I just don't like outdoor movies that much. Sitting on the ground is uncomfortable. There are so many people everywhere, and you have to climb over them to get to the steaming Honey Buckets, and there is public groping, and their FEET are all NEAR YOUR CHEESECAKE. Plus, Cinema on the Lawn feels unmistakably like a sales pitch. Admission is free. Stacks of flyers urge you to buy stuff and "Make the Emerald City Emeralder" (WTF). Half-constructed condo buildings loom on every side. Everyone is fucking friendly. But, um, South Lake Union: Next time you try to sell me on your (honestly, not unappealing) neighborhood development, how about you don't make me pee in a plastic doodoo incubator. And get your toe off my cheesecake. 
