Finally, Spring has sprung. My mood is improving every minute! I was getting sick to death of all of this damn snow. There is hardly anything to do during the harsh Winter months other than drink and lament about how dry one's sex life has become. I swear, my one surviving "toy" is starting to do the sputtering buzz of death. Kind of like the low, droning sound a dying bee makes when it's desperately trying to escape the start of fall/winter. In any event I am finally going to post the conclusion of my Sundance Film Festival trip. Cat has been harping on me to do it, because she's anxious for me to relay how fucked up we got and the cool celebrity parties we got invited to. She's right. I need to post this information before it dissipates from my memory. New pics will soon follow when I download them off of my digital camera. If you're reading this blog, feel free to check out some of the pics that're posted in the archived journal entries. So, in the meantime... here it goes... folie a deux... So as far as I can recollect, the next day, Cat and I mapped out our Sundance plan: The movies we were going to watch, where to catch the free public transportation that was provided (I'm sure the locals took FULL advantage of this Sundance perk), what to do once we got into downtown Park City etc. Our first full day of the Sundance experience. I must say, although there was snow on the ground, the weather was beautiful the whole four days we were there. It was bright and pretty mild. Cat and I found our way to the box office, to purchase the day's tickets. I don't remember what movies we were buying for, but we got there fairly early. The line was extremely long! We waited in line for like two hours! Only to finally get in the box office doors to stand in yet ANOTHER line. We met some pretty interesting people, including two fellow Black girls from L.A. (one was a producer and one a fledgling actress) who had a film short in the festival. I thought it odd that they had to wait in line to buy tickets since they were part of the festival. I guess since they didn't have any clout... FLEDGLING just wasn't good enough, so they got no free vouchers. That's bullshit. Hollywood nobodysomebodies, i.e. Paris Hilton, had nothing to do with the festival and were getting perks left and right. They could've given some of the newer filmmakers at least one or two perks. Anyway, we stood in line for far too long. It was starting to get reaaal old real quick. I think we wasted a lot of valuable time standing in these ridiculous lines. We could've seen two movies by then. We finally get up to the box office desk (at like noon!) and purchased our tickets for the day. The suck part is we couldn't even buy tickets ahead of time for the next day unless it was for the first showing! This meant we had to get up early and go back to the B.O. to do this waiting shit all over again! I believe we purchase tickets for this arthouse film (fancyspeak for movie porn) called "9 Songs" directed by Michael Winterbottom and for umm... well shit, I don't remember, some other good movie. So we thought we were all set to go. We were to see 9 Songs at midnight that late evening. I will get to why thing snowballed out of control later. So after we tired of playing the line waiting game, we decided to catch a bus back to our lodge to make lunch. Cat and I spied James Woods walking down the street, saturated in a whole crowd of people. He looked super old. We sort of shrugged the celeb sighting off and continued to make our way down the crowded street. By the way, there were people from all over... mostly from L.A. though. It was then that I spied a liquor store! Now that sighting surpassed seeing James Woods doing the celeb saunter down the way. Cat and I made our way in and bought some few bottles of wine and some lemoncello. Stoked, we made our way back to the apartment to eat, drink, and then chart our next move. I believe when we went back out, we decided to get dinner (I don't recall, too much time has passed), or we went to a bar. I think we went to a bar. Anyway, we went into some hodunk bar where one of us had to pay a damn SPONSORSHIP fee of $5.00 (Utah law) to drink. That was our first and last foray into any local bars. Besides, we had booze back at the lodge. Anyway, we had a couple of drinks at this bar (where there was no smoking ban, apparently because people were lighting up left and right). The second bartendress who waited on us happened to be a Connecticut native, so we were excited, as she was. She said she was attending school out in Utah and was anxious to finish up so she could get back east. Needless to say, she gave us some lethal drink (I don't even remember the name of it, but it was some variation on the Long Island iced tea) in a rather large glass. After downing those drinks- (keep in mind we drank earlier that afternoon), we ventured out. We had at least another 2 hours until 9 Songs. (We're such perverts). Now, the kamikaze of booze hit Cat first. ... Lemme explain... Cat insisted on going into some cheesy shop that sold souvenirs, notwithstanding the fact that we'd already made our purchases for friends and family earlier that day at the Sundance Film Festival store. So we go into this shop and Cat is wastoid! She starts picking up all this shit and I'm trying to discourage her from buying any additional garbage and from wasting anymore money. The woman who worked there could clearly see that Cat was piss-faced and tried to take full advantage of that fact. She kept picking up all of these stupid looking and rather expensive t-shirts for Cat to buy, until I told her to beat it. She left us alone... reluctantly. Then, Cat proceeds to pick up a tinny-tiny t-shirt and says that she's going to purchase that for one of her co-workers. I said, "Cat, that's a toddler's shirt!" and she slurred, "No, I think Julie can fit this, she's really small." We went back and forth a couple more times, then I finally yanked the t-shirt out of Cat's hand and had to SHOW her the size was a 4T as in 4TODDLER. Aye-yi-yi. Wait, it gets better. So then Cat decides to buy a couple more t-shirts any-damn-way, and then she bought like 3 clear bubble rings, one of which I took and kept for myself... it was cute. The cashier mentioned that they were giving away free energy bars. I graciously took one... Cat, in all her drunken glory, proceeded to pick up the REST of the bars and threw them in the bag rather aggressively. The cashier looked taken aback, but said nothing. We still had a little more than and hour to kill, so we found our way into an internet cafe. I ordered an espresso and Cat goes, rather loudly... "I think I'll have an earl greyer! YES an earl greyer sounds great! yeah, I want the earl greyer!" I wanted to cold cock her right where she stood. So then we pay for our drinks and our 'net time and get our passwords. I tell Cat, "I'm going to the bathroom, don't do anything stupid" and when I come out, she's already caused a scene. She was so drunk, she didn't know how to log in the password and insisted that something was wrong with the computer. The guy who worked there tried to help her, and I sat there shaking my head. I finally explained to her that she had to TYPE the password in if she was going to get anywhere. Geez! Um, Cat, Drunk much? Needless to say, it was shaping up to be a very interesting night. After we'd logged off of the internet, I told Cat I was going to go use the bathroom again. Much to my horror, she started yelling out "WHERE ARE YOU GOING??? I NEED YOU HERE! TIFFANI, WHERE ARE YOU GOING!! I NEED YOU! " I walked to the bathroom stiffly ignoring Cat's drunken outburst. Outside and in a cab, we were on our way to go see "9 songs." We get to the theatre, excited and pumped to see the latest trend in non-simulated sex only to be told by the guy at the door that the movie wasn't being shown at that theatre! He also told me, in a dismissive tone, that my ticket had the wrong information on it while Cat's had the correct info. Upon further inspection, I saw that my ticket said the movie was to be shown at 9pm the next day at that theatre, while Cat's said midnight at a different theatre! Apparently (according to Cat) the fucktard at the box office told her that it didn't matter that our tickets had two separate days on it, that it'd still count. After being dismissed and shrugged off by the ticket taker, I lost it. Suddenly, Cat sobered up and apparently, according to her, I threw the worse drunken diva fit ever. I remember telling the guy that that was totally unacceptable, but that pretty much all I remembered. Combine a lethal alcoholic drink and white-hot rage and it's over. Cat says that I said, rather aggressively, "I'M ABOUT TO THROW A BITCH FIT! I PAID FOR MY TICKET AND EXPECT BETTER SERVICE BLAH BLAH BLAH" much to everyone's (yes folks, there were onlookers) surprise. Cat also says that some woman offered to trade me my ticket for the ticket she had for some boring movie, and I said, "I don't WANT your ticket! WE are going to see 9 Songs and that's final!" And the woman looked a little shocked and initimidated. Cat also says that the doorman quickly went from dismissive to rather helpful and empathetic after my tirade. I was also told that I threatened never to return to Sundance ever AGAIN before storming off. All I can say is, the next day, after Cat relayed how I acted (much, TOO MUCH, to her amusement) I was shocked, embarrassed, and a little skeptical. So the next morning, we went out to the box office to get our situation rectified. One of the coordinators was a little peeved by the mistake and more or less said the guy who sold us the bum tickets was a moron. She said that I'd get a voucher at some other box office, and I was able to relax, finally. After watching an excellent French film called, "Lila Says" Cat and I hightailed it to the B.O. to get my free voucher. Luckily the line wasn't as long. 9 songs was sold out! But wait, there was hope. The guy at the ticket counter put me on a waiting list and gave me a voucher for a free ticket. I was little bummed, because I didn't want to wait in yet ANOTHER f'ng line. He told us that if we went early enough, the chances of us getting a ticket was high. He told us that there were at least 30 tickets left for people waiting on line. Afterwards, still enroute to find some lunch, Cat and I discussed my outburst somemore. I thought she was exaggerating events for effect, until some middle-aged woman in a fur coat stopped us and then asked, "Hi, did you get your ticket situation settled?" She then put her hand on my arm and said in a rather concerned voice, "I hope you decide to come back to Sundance." I was soooo embarrassed. My whole face felt hot. Cat was right! I did throw a bitch fit, just liked I'd threatened to do in my drunken rage. I thanked the woman and told her I'd been drinking and was tired and that I normally don't act that way. She shook her head as if she understood and walked off. Yikes. I'm still embarrassed about that episode til this day. All in all, Sundance was a great experience and I look forward to going again, perhaps next year. We got invited to a Queer Brunch, where we were saturated in gay and lesbian industry heavyhitters. We met some great people, we saw some great movies, and we even got invited to Kevin Bacon's party, where we met this cute gay couple. One was a director who worked at HBO and his boyfriend was a production designer. Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick are very nice, by the way. Anyway, this couple sort of adopted us and took us to yet ANOTHER industry party that was thrown by a friend of theirs. We hobnobbed with more celebrities. Three Apprentice 2 contestants just happened to be standing in front of us by the way, while we were waiting in line to go in. Bradford, I think Kevin, and one of the blond chicks... Jennifer I believe. Celeb stylist, Phillip Bloch scooched by us as did Benjamin McKenzie of the O.C. as they were leaving the party. Once inside, we saw that Jane's Addiction lead singer, Perry Farrell was the DJ and he was really good, I must say. Yes, I will forever hold fond memories of Sundance, inspite of my temper tantrum. While it is indeed a breathtaking sight, I would not go to Utah for any other reason than Sundance. It's no place for an epicurean individual like myself.