My first blog. Ever. In my life. 46 years, to be precise. I feel nervous. Breathy. I felt this way before. At sixteen.

My flight leaves first thing in the morning and I am unbelievably stressed out. Why, some have asked. Don't I "just" have a short? And haven't I been to Sundance before with one? GET OVER YOURSELF, FILMMAKER BOY!, they say to me.

Little do they know what a sensitive creature I am deep down. My stress has nothing to do with the film and everything to do with world economic, environmental, political, religious, social and psychological instability. Plus my beloved Broncos will be playing for the AFC Championship right during one of our Shorts Program 3 screenings.

But I think I prepared well. Dan Ligon ("Ha Ha Ha America") and I rallied the other filmmakers in our shorts program and somehow convinced them all to chip in on a compilation DVD, posters, postcards and a party (Wednesday, Jan. 25th 6 p.m. at 136 Heber Ave.). He designed all the stuff and I got it printed/burned. Dan is amazing. He's a get-shit-done kinda guy. A talented one. If I ever go to war, I want Dan in my platoon because he'll design the most kick-ass DVD art, posters and postcards any platoon could ever dream of. I then mailed out some of the DVD's to media types for review. I pushed and pushed to get our program filmmakers in a big agency party. Why? I hate agency parties. I don't know. They might like it, even if I don't. Is that co-dependent?

I would guess it's pretty unprecedented to get filmmakers to come together like this. Our Shorts 3 filmmakers ROCK! So, we're having a well-deserved party for ourselves. Luckily, Ellen at the Queer Lounge is such a lovely, generous being that no work will be involved in it. I can just walk in and do what I will be doing 75% of my waking hours during Sundance - get drunk.

Next, I proceeded to obsessively RSVP to more parties than I can possibly attend and set up interviews with the NPR affiliate and Park City TV - as well as a few more with print journalists. I also set up meetings with production companies and producers (but no agents or managers, than you very much) who might be useful to a couple of projects I'm developing. Did I say I was obsessive?

And why did I do all that? I'm not sure. The real reason gets kind of blurred. Is it a practical, albeit aggressive, nurturing of my filmmaking life? Is it my ego's desperate cry for attention? Or is it a mindless exercise in futility that I do strictly out of mechanical impulse because I somehow came to believe it is what I should be doing? I suspect it is all three.

It doesn't end there, though. I'll also be representing Withoutabox in Park City, of which I am the Chief Community Guy (nice title, eh?) and Filmmakers Alliance - the filmmaking collective I co-founded with my wife 13 years ago. FA will have an outreach table at the Sundance Filmmakers Lodge on Wednesday and Thursday. And Withoutabox will be launching a brilliant new audience-building tool for festivals and filmmakers that I'm proud to stump for. I'm also prepping theatrical release of my feature "The Dogwalker" in mid-summer through a combination of Landmark's Truly Indie program and an innovative grass-roots marketing campaign spearheaded by political marketing genius Melissa Sweeney. Finally, I'm bouncing from Sundance to Clermont-Ferrand and then Berlin with this same little, lovely, demanding Super8 short.

So, I am a bit stressed. And world events aren't relaxing me. Nope. Planes don't relax me, either. Although mine stops in Vegas. Gambling relaxes me. And writing this is relaxing me. In fact, it's exciting me, although not in the way other internet destinations excite me.

Tomorrow we all crash into each other on the hill and when we untangle after 10 days, we will definitely be left with something we can't get out of our heads....