I just saw the film "Waking Life" yesterday for the first time. It left me pretty frazzled, in a good way. All human contact for about an hour afterwards though was freaking me out. It was like I was coming down from a psychedelic experience which had erased all certainty in my mind about what is real, and what is not, and what the definition of the word "real" even means, which is maybe the scariest thing a human being could ever contemplate.




This morning I talked on the phone with my friend Ana from Belgrade. I asked if she had ever seen that movie.

"What is that?"

"It's this movie about whether or not we're awake when we're dreaming, or asleep when we're awake," I said. "It's crazy, you really can't tell me that you know for certain that you're not dreaming right now."

Ana does not live a dream life. She has a much harder life than I could ever dream of.

"I promise you, I am awake," she said. "You wanna know how I know I'm not dreaming? Because in my dreams, I have a fat joint and a big house and lots of a money and a beautiful boyfriend, all to myself. And I don't have any of those things, so I am awake, man."

Those Serbs. No time for fluffy philosophicals like "Are we dreaming or awake, man?" They're awake. They know this because they don't have any money. I miss Serbia.