Day 3...

It didn't seem early to me and it wasn't as cold as I thought it would be. I didn't expect it to be bright outside but the darkness that lingered surprised me as did the empty room where I thought the line would be.

So I was first in line one day after a day which I now think of as my first and failed day at Sundance. Nobody before me there in the line that I began and I was now in a position to officially begin my Sundance experience.

In this enormous theater with all these big tags hanging around the necks of all the important people and the not-so tags around the necks of the not-so important people, and all of them (people) taking off their scarves and positioning themselves with the promo running large and again and again on the screen, the lights dim and a different light spotlights a podium and I was back at Sundance again and I was here and for the very reason I meant to be here.

The movie started. And ended. And in-between the air separated, nearly sparking between the breaths reluctantly let loose, this warm and charged mist that we all strolled through in the morning dawn. Wonderful. Magical. Impossible. Somehow this first-time director pulled strength from stones, somehow she managed to convince this little movie to come to life, to surprise the class with personality, somehow she convinced this collection of thoughts to become a journey for us all to share.

...

I tried to step over the puddle but stepped on the ice just before the puddle instead and then my body flew parallel to both the ground and the long puddle which then surrounded my leg like a trough which my many layers drank up greedily. So, with one leg wet from fartbox to cankle I John Wayned my way to

...

Round two, movie two. Same promo. Same crowd murmur. Same scarves. Same spotlight. And a lanyard announces the director and thereby the film. We all clap. The lights dim to completion and I watch the people looking at the pictures their cameras have taken since they've been here (or there).

...

Here's the thing. The thing is, you can't help seeing all these films, these lush events that cater desire, that turn hunger into fashion and not feel the siren song pull. A tide that reaches all the way to the handicap seats in the back. You leave and you think that you deserve The Greatest Moment Of Your Life from now on. And, despite the tragic spiral for at least half of the other people, the red shirts as it were, you catch your focus in-between where the sky meets the ground, looking for scraps. You catch yourself being disappointed that 30 dancers didn't lift you into an unmistakable destiny. You find yourself just riding the bus and your feet aren't warm yet. But you know it now more than ever.

...

If's funny. Even though, for the most part, the people you meet here are done with their project, you still run in to that impetus for the next one. That sucking sound a vacuum makes when you prick the seal. So you can and can't have a simple conversation with somebody. You know what I mean? It's like the sentence begins with a period but ends with a question and everything in-between is just an adjective. No nouns. No verbs. The prepositions are crushed. Hyphens carry consonants back and forth and vowels spray themselves with fake tans.

Sundance: Day 2...

The girls in their SUVs, the girls with their straight blonde hair, highlights, all of them with highlights, unzipped jackets, one two fleeces, one shell, with their ski hats (rather, snowboard hats), as they answer their cell phones while rolling up their windows and putting their car in drive and then doing just that, away from me, they sure are cute.

There are so many people on the street, on the Main St. of this fantastic film festival. Like ticks on a country dog. Like apprehensions on a teenager. Like burrs on the felt stockings of a long distance runner who runs where there are tons and tons of burrs, or at least were.

I wondered why there were people standing there once when I was walking by them somewhere. 'What's up there, what's the big deal?' I wondered. Then I saw that there was a sort-of celebrity 100 feet in the air, on a balcony, smiling and talking to a guy with a huge camera on his shoulder while all the other small cameras pointed up, toward the sun and this almost-guy talking to a machine that made pictures to show later to a bunch of people looking up.

Their presence wears me out. It tears holes in my jeans, letting the air in. It cinches the muscles in my back, makes wicker patterns with led lanyard and suddenly I am wearing a sand and water filled jacket and what I mean by that is that it's all becoming heavy and a burden and my back hurts from it.

I have to take a bus. Away. To a coffee shop that might have less people. Or not. Let's see. It couldn't be worse. One mile away to, as it turns out, another crowded place. Okay, and so It's a Starbucks too but at least it doesn't have plastic wrapped cookies. I hate saran wrap on pastries. And on cookies. I'd rather see it stretched over a hairy man's face. I'd rather put aluminum foil on my incisors. I'd rather lick a chalkboard.

Even if I took my time this morning, forming a plan, writing e-mails, sitting on the carpet of my room, mere feet away from the bed I had just spent the last 8 hours in; even if that's what I did instead of ripping the 8am balls off of the day, I still thought I could make a pass at sucking the marrow out of the day. No such luck. Instead I'm a flea in a flock of flea-collared dogs. Nowhere to land. Except for a less-crowded coffee shop and a bus.

I'm hoping that I'll catch up, make the early lines and make a few screenings. Or one. Still, there's a gaggle of people I could honk around with. But if feels funny to meet up with New Yorkers in Park City. We can't hook up at home so it makes sense to strive for it here?

As it turns out, I failed to make any movie at all. And I am sitting back in the same spot on the carpet where my butt and legs fell asleep a mere nine hours ago.

I am tempted to move it ten feet to the other carpeted room and play one of the very-commercial and already-seen-by-me movies that splash across the faux oak coffee table. Hurm.

I am really going to rip the shit out of tomorrow. I'm telling you.

sleeping and watching tv...

It really is amazing how quickly you can get your life back once you start sleep training your baby. One night of ambiguity and all the numbers become clear on the scoreboard and all the penalties are in your favor. It makes you wonder why in the good name of God you waited so long. Because you had to, is the obvious answer which somehow eludes you as you wonder.

My problem is that I'm getting drunk on all of this free time, all of this me-time. For the first time in months and months and months I had a day off. Now keep in mind that a day off is a complete day off, from work of course but also from the hustle for more work and also from the family and the park and drool and another iced coffee and other ways to pinch the boredom and repetition into the corner while tantrums loom.

I'm talking about a real live day off. One where you could F off and do just about whatever the H you D well please. S, you could go get your nails done or buy a rug or lay on the bug covered grass of a park or even eat a meal out and leave too much tip. The babysitter is coming and the wife has her own thing going on and you are a buoy what has lost anchor, my man!

And then that day was followed by another day off and another and another and then another and the astounding slap of fresh wind on a man's face became a repetition of its own and the freshness became uncrisp. Not for lack of joy for the freedom but for the plenty of guilt at the plenty of time. What was well deserved and S the F up already and have a good day a few days ago now becomes how much time for yourself are you going to take, you selfish MerFer. I mean for Pete's sake, are you the only jerk in the world all of a sudden?

I did join a gym but I said that already.

I really like the music on Weeds.

Sleep Meanies...

We started sleep training the tiny little almost nothing of a human that who could ever believe we'd be so cruel to and let the cries and wails scratch their way through the walls to our how-could-they-be-so-fucking deaf ears?

Two nights ago we put that little single digit month old in the crib and could the neighbors hear her desperate shrieks for nearly half the hour after we let her go? And then in the middle of the night she woke up again and didn't we think we'd ever be forever damaging previously sweet little Georgia but now vicious and serial murdering murderer in training while she couldn't believe out loud for an entire hour that her parents had abandoned her to the wolves and the hollow space between love and hope and not to mention the empty room that everyone used to sleep in until for some reason now? Well, that wasn't exactly relaxing for anyone, was it? Two beers each and still no.

Night two:

So, for all intense and heartlessness, we did it again, didn't we? But this time zero cries at first put down. Zilch. Maybe a few murmering urm urms, but beyond that, nothing. And then five minutes maybe when the night met its middle. Maybe. And that's it. Ha. Take a burn!

Now that little four month old toddler wanna be goos and gaas when we put her in that crib; like it's some kind of pal all of a sudden. An old best mate. Through thick and thin. Ya ya.

And Emily and I wonder why we weren't heartless any sooner. I mean, what's so wrong with a lady getting four or five hours of sleep...in a row even!

Bud Fuller...(for Liz, Joe and me)...

I went to a gym today. I don't go to gyms except that today I did. I'm surprised I can type. I'm surprised the fingers at the end of my arms can wriggle with any sense. I spilled my large iced coffee because these sort of muscles of mine are still stuck at the gym on that 2nd machine full of wires and weights.

This guy Joe I know is trying to bulk me up. A few months ago he came right out of a blue thing and said "You should hire me as your personal trainer. I'll get some muscles on you."

At the time I had little interest in bulking up. But, as these things sometimes go, a little seed and mustard and big tree and so on and what not. So now I'm more than a little interested. Jury's out though, really. I mean, I couldn't commit to a year from now being a bruiser at Bombay Bicycle Club with a tight or see through shirt sheening itself over my massive muscle culture. I've joined the gym before. It never lasts. I usually get bored and stop with all the interest and determination after, say, a session or two.

But this time I'm hoping that something has changed. For the first time in my life I actually do want something more than these skinny but slightly defined muscles I sort of have. For the first time in my life, I want muscle mass. I want to be able to make my tits dance.

That, and I'm not old exactly but I'm not un-getting to the age where it isn't a bad idea to start taking care of the body I'm still in. Anyway, I'm hoping that I'll be able to maintain a good enough amount of interest and see this thing past the (figurative) lobby with all the displays about a better life (analogy cont.) and maybe work myself and it (the exercise et al.) all the way to my hotel room (stay with me) or even all the way home (aka: future & permanence). And it's all Joe's fault.

Joe can make his tits dance. (Although not very well from what I saw).

Bed Time Rituals...

I have this ritual in my hotel room and it keeps everything here sane. I wash the coffee press pot what I did buy when we all did go to the Hy-Vee once upon a time. I wash out the coffee cup. I throw away the beer bottles. I put the things all away into the places they're supposed to go. Washy face. Brushy teeth. Music.

I don't go to sleep to music. Something about how I'm about the only one in the room who likes the notion stops me when I share the room with somebody. Something about being alone here in hotel lonely-ville which doesn't stop me.

Last night I couldn't decide. Really you need to make a playlist but who has the time? Bratty kids, that's who.

I still listen to the same sleepy music from college. Cocteau Twins again?! Sheepers! So I finally decided on The Blue Nile. I know, I know. But at least I stopped changing it and went to sleep.

Too sweaty in the sheets. I'm not letting the buggars come into the room and clean it while I'm gone. It just seems like such a waste - all that linen and water and soap and what not. But it's been over a week and I was thinking about sleeping on the other side of the bed. Dirty, etc. I just don't want to. Clearly there's something good and glorious about this side of the freaking enormous bed.

Time to throw the bottles away.

I think I don't use the right soap. I think the residue gives me morning dyspepsia. Here we go again.

Good night.

Shooting Rochester...

While I was standing today for endless hours, trying ever so slowly to move a plastic ring back and forth so as not to be noticed in a sort of a noticeable way, I realized that yoga wasn't the beginning and ending for my back pain needs...no, I needed pilates. I don't even know if I HAVE a core, but if I do, I certainly wasn't standing with it. I'd rest a hip against the wall or collapse my legs into a swish but there was neither any compressing nor any lifting.

So I worked out for ten minutes the other day and now I feel like I'm a workout genius/king. Of course I couldn't do too much or I'd get the quakey muscle thing the next day when I really needed to just hold the hell still. So I lifted a few black rectangles once or twice and I ran on the ellipses of dreams.

At least I didn't watch the tv. I'm not sorry for Eric Bogosian most of the times except for sometimes when he's in dumb movies with dumb dialogue and dorky terrorist scenarios. But then again, I'm not sorry for the money he made...money that probably quintuplelbamillioned what he makes on his one man shows.

Does anyone even have one man shows anymore? I mean, who cares, really? It seems like we maybe should have moved on to the "expose" or the "movement."

Robert went to the "Business Center" the other day - just another of the lush accomodations here at the Raddisson Plaza Hotel - and the two girls in there were playing rap music and painting their nails and singing and making a general ruckus. No no, girls: not in the business center. There ought to be a way to keep these places safe from chats and disc burning party time. Oh, I guess there was. He told the front desk and that seemed to help.