The Washing Machine Inside

Just as I was wrapping up Sundance I began to grow overwhelmingly obsessed with my belly. It seemed to have suddenly poked out so fast that I was convinced I'm having twins. My pants are starting to feel tight, and though I've barely gained a couple of pounds, the belly does seem to stick out more. All the better for belly fondling. Here's me trying to stick it out.

Yesterday Tyler came with me to meet my midwife. I can't think of another time in my life when someone ever went to the doctor with me. It was fun having him there and listening to the heartbeat, like a little washing machine inside of me, going 160 beats per minute. We only picked up one baby heartbeat so I'm probably in the clear regarding twins.

Sundance 2008 Part 2

Day 7 (Thursday): After a busy day at work, we have another fairly slow night at Sundance, despite the films having some big names in them. After the first show, an older gentleman comes up to talk to me. He tells me that he'd really like a McDonald's hamburger but he doesn't walk 3 blocks down the street. I recommend that he go to Squatters across the street and tell him the food is great, but it can be real busy. He tells me he doesn't drink, and I assure him he doesn't have to, the food is great. He comes back an hour or so later, in time for the next show. He thanks me for the recommendation and tells me that the food is great, and that he got escorted to the back room where there was a private party and didn't even have to pay for his dinner. This makes me feel great.

Day 8 (Friday): I have the night off for the festival and do very little. I'm exhausted so I take a nap when I get home, then eat some dinner and watch Pulp Fiction with the HB before I go back to bed again.

Day 9 (Saturday): I sleep in late and barely make it to my shift at the theater by 11. I bargain with the other manager to sit in the first movie, one I really wanted to see. We work it out. It's called "Incendiary" and has Michelle Williams and Ewan McGregor in it. I absolutely loved it. True it was kind of depressing, but even it was beautifully done. The story of a woman who loses her husband and son to a terrorist bombing at a soccer match in London and the aftermath. About 10 minutes before this movie was over I stood up to text the HB back and prepare for the patrons to exit. But momentarily I felt that all-too-familiar sensation that I was going to faint. And like vomitting, I thought I may be able to control it, to hold it back. I sank down to the floor and sat in the aisle leading to the box seats in the balcony. But everything was still going black and suddenly I was sweating everywhere. I think I laid down there for a minute, but kept telling myself I couldn't be there when they came out. I crawled up a few steps and was at the entrance to the regular balcony seating when I laid down again momentarily. Then I made it to the top of the balcony entrance and into the bathroom where I again laid on the floor. And after a minute there, I made it into a stall and sat on the seat for about 10 minutes, resting my head on the wall. I heard the patrons leaving the theater, and some come in and use the bathroom. I had my radio on and just wanted to let the volunteers know I'd be down soon to help out, but I was too exhausted. So I waited there until finally I could feel my body going back to normal. And I walked out and found a chair at the top of the stairs and sat there. Soon, Tyler and Caiden were there with some lunch for me and they helped me get down to the green room where I could take a break out of the public eye.

I soon felt better and resumed my duties. After my shift I stayed to watch the movie "Assassination of a High School President" with Bruce Willis and Mischa Barton. What made this movie great was a killer soundtrack (some Band of Horses songs), and good performances. Plus the director, writers, and some crew members came. Having the filmmakers come for a Q&A is really what makes the experience of seeing a festival movie. The director was so excited to finally have an audience watching his film rather than himself in a dark editing room. It was his first movie and he gave us some great insight into how he was able to get the deal.

Afterwards I headed over to my bro-in-laws to meet up with the HB and some of his family as they finished filming some scenes for his zombie movie. It was a late night.

Day 10 (Sunday): We had a big showing for the first film of the day, a Crosby Stills Nash & Young documentary-type. Other than that, an easy day for us as the festival winds down. Heard some reports from the awards party I didn't attend and finished up some paperwork. I got off at 4 and just enjoyed the rest of the day at home.

Day 11 (Monday): The festival is offically over, but tonight we'll be showing 3 'Best of Fest' screenings at the theater I'm at. Since my shift starts at 2, I took the whole day off work so I could relax a little more.

Me and the Naked Cowboy

Sundance 2008 Part 1

Day 1 (Friday): My shift starts at 2pm so I leave work around 1:30. I'll be there until midnight. It's the opening night Gala and will be very busy. Both showings are the same film--"The Great Buck Howard." For the first couple of hours, we're not sure what we're supposed to be doing. The movie begins at 6:30, the starts are supposed to show for the press line around 5:30. The governor to arrive at 6 pm. But there's already a few die-hards for the waitlist and we let them line up downstairs. Skip a few hours. Myself and the other volunteers do crowd control while we watch John Malkovich, Tom Hanks, Colin Hanks, and Adam Scott go through the press line and do some quick interviews. Malkovich has on a killer velour orange blazer type of jacket. And a green scarf. He can wear anything and be cool. The HB brings me some spaghetti with mizithra cheese and I sneak him into the second screening of the movie and he loves it.

Day 2 (Saturday): The HB and I watch the Animation Spotlight before my shift begins. They are great, my favorite is the first one, a sort of eerie stop-motion called "Madame Tutli-Putli." I head over to my theater for my shift 5-midnight. I see some friends from my day-job at the screenings. I get frustrated at volunteers that just want to watch the movies on their shift and not help out. I think I must be a really bad manager even though I always thought I was good with people. I say hi to a member of my former singles ward bishopbric who is there to see the movie "Good Dick." I think he was hiding from me at first, but he should know I'm not about to judge another person for their film choices, and from what I saw, it was a great movie.

Day 3 (Sunday): I bring the HB to watch "In Bruges" before my shift starts again at 5 until midnight. It's totally hilarious and full of obscene language. We love it.

Day 4 (Monday): I have the night off and decide to go see a show with some work friends. We see "What Just Happened?" and I"m not that impressed. Plus I can't stand it when movies end with the main character giving a quick run-down of subsequent events in the lives of the other characters. It seems really weak, like the ending wasn't good enough and the directors have an urge to sort of "wrap things up" more, even though the audience has no need. Just make a good ending.

Day 5 (Tuesday): Shift begins at 5, ends at midnight. One of the box office volunteers quit because she was offended by the nature of some of the films in the festival. It's our first slow night, the first screenings that we haven't completely packed every single seat of the theater.

Day 6 (Wednesday): I'm pretty exhausted at work. My baby is now the size of a lime and I'm 12 weeks along. I go to the Outdoor Retailer show at the Salt Palace during the day with my co-worker. I get my picture taken with the Naked Cowboy. After work I meet my sister, mom, little brother, and little sister at the Broadway for a documentary. It's called "Stranded" and is about the rugby team that crashed in the Andes mountains in the 1970's. My sister and I have read both the book "Alive" and "Miracle in the Andes" and are huge fans of the movie "Alive." We're excited to see real interviews of many of the survivors, but unfortunately don't get into the showing. Out waitlist numbers were 26-30 and they cut it off just before we could get in. I'm mad the movie was so popular that we couldn't get in. My first couple of years at Sundance I worked the Broadway and I thought the first 30 in the waitlist line were a sure bet. I feel like I let them down after convincing them to come.

legitimately sick

Tonight I feel really sick. I woke up stuffy and with a sore throat. My eyes feel sticky and my head heavy. This is not a good way to go into the beginning of a 10-day sleep-deprivation event (Sundance Film Festival). It was also not a good way to start the day I spent in Vernal for a business presentation. However, I did make the sale of a new website design for Dinosaurland. That felt good. Then I rested a little as soon as I got home.

The last few weeks have been really rough. I've been feeling sick nearly every evening. No doubt it can be attributed to being pregnant. But I've been trying to keep that info on the down-low for now until ready to tell the new employer. Which makes a sickly ironic situation. The twisted world that is corporate America makes it so that women in the early stages of pregnancy, when most prone to nausea, exhaustion, and complete lack of interest in food, etc., are unable to really express any symptoms of illness. So by evening I'm purging while cutting chicken breasts, by day I'm consumed by thoughts of food that sound good until any of it is actually placed in front of me.

My next temporary goal is to just survive the festival. I'm excited for it, but am hoping that right about when it's over is when I'll enter that blissful-sounding phase of 2nd trimester, supposedly devoid of the current conditions. What I can say is that this time around I'm taking full advantage of the unabashed self-fondling that's permitted during pregnancy. I have no reason to feel ashamed of this bump.

Project Prom Dress

Last night the HB and I were watching Project Runway. Heidi announced the challenge to create an outfit for the most important day of a woman's life. It turned out to be some high school girls' prom. At that moment I paused to express my utter bewilderment and outrage at the suggestion that that's the most important day of a woman's life. Surely these women will go to college? Surely we've realized that reinforcing the importance of being beautiful and sexy is far more damaging than pointing out other opportunities in life available to young women? The HB could hardly agree though, he said that for them it probably was everything. I'm sure that many high school girls are only obsessed with clothing, makeup, looks, and friends and boyfriends. However, I don't think we should encourage that attitude. Maybe I look down on it because in high school there was nothing I wanted more than to get out of my house so it's hard to imagine being comfortable enough there to obsess over clothes and friends. But I'll also admit that I did go to the prom, that it was one of the worst dates of my life, and that I wished I'd had the chance to ever go to a dance and feel beautiful with someone I love (went to one in college, also awful). I asked the HB to go to my University's homecoming with me the first year we were married, but he didn't want to. I guess the 5 or 6 times he went to prom and all of the other high school dances did him in.

Up All Night 'Til Two

The HB wanted to have a Halo party for New Year's Eve, so in all efforts to maintain my reputation, I totally sucked on the round I played. Besides my sucking though, it was a great time until I started to feel royally ill and exhausted around 12:30, so I wasn't up much longer. The next day when Caiden's mom brought him over I asked him how late he was up. Caiden proudly reported that in fact, he'd never been to sleep, but what had happened was that at 2 a.m. he closed his eyes for a second and then a huge blast of light hit him and it was the next morning. Even as I tucked him in last night and reminded him he'd been up very late the night before and had school today, he reminded me that, "actually, I never went to sleep last night." I'm glad he thinks he's such a party animal.