2mg of melatonin plus two Simply Sleep is the long-sought solution for knocking both Jess and me out through an entire red-eye flight.

I still feel like crap the next day.

Even after two Prontalgine.

There’s a big difference between ‘in shape’ and ‘able to walk eight to ten miles a day through a city, several days in a row, without excruciating soreness’.

French people have so much fucking style.

Also, they will eat absolutely anything.

What idiot came up with the European system of leaving your room keys at the hotel’s front desk each time you head out? Even if I’d never seen one of the many receptionists before, showing back up with a smile and a “due cent due” was enough to score the corresponding room key.

If I had endless money, I’d dress in Lanvin every day.

Eating freshly baked baguette reminded me of a quote I once read from a French chef, who described the taste of US bread comparatively as ‘like eating a towel’.

I should really learn to speak French.

As planned, I am now thirty, in Paris with Jess, and drinking Cognac in our hotel bar.

Realize I should have mentioned as much before going AWOL, but I’ve been on the road nonstop of late, hitting Maine, Denver, and now Boston, with barely enough time to sleep, much less to blog.

I miss my bed.

48 hours, 800 miles, one trip down to Frederick, MD to serve as a groomsman in my good high school friend’s wedding.

According to the best man, for tomorrow’s rehearsal dinner, the groom has requested the groomsmen wear “Khaki and Polo… we gotta look sharp you know.”

Toto, we’re not in Midtown any more.

Despite a lovely stretch in LA (marred substantially by only an unexpected car-towing at the very end), I’m more than glad to be writing this from a New York-bound airplane. (Even despite the scent coming off the old codger next to me who drank seven – yes, seven – small airline bottles of cheap red wine.)

A few things I learned on the LA part of the trip:

1. No wifi = no productivity.

2. Jess and I are waaaay to old to do multiple ‘pre-game’ tequila shots before a night of back-to-back business drinks.

3. Los Angelinos can’t drive worth shit.

4. Especially when it rains.

5. I no longer get even vaguely star-struck.

6. While you can’t make good sushi from bad fish, you apparently can make bad sushi from good fish.

7. Despite the national infrastructure efforts of Whole Foods, California produce still wins.

8. Though, conversely, while LA may have more Kosher delis than New York, they all make crap pastramis on rye.
And, resolved: Still seems like a nice place to visit, but I still wouldn’t want to live there.

Yes, I lived all the way through Sundance, and even managed to detour briefly further west, all without blogging about any of it. Shame, shame.

But, really, it wasn’t my fault. I had no wifi in Park City, and the supposed wifi here at the brand new Thompson Beverly Hills is dodgy at best. (Though, on the upside, the rooms are $150 a pop while the place is still working out the kinks, and the hotel is clearly the new hotness: Marky Mark was at the hotel restaurant [the West Coast incarnation of my long-loved Bond St.] on Tuesday evening, and last night celebrity stylist / drug dealer Rachel Zoe was smoking out front.)

How’s the trip been? In short, excellent. After a 2007 of not enough forward motion for Cyan, we’re jumping into 2008 with terrifying velocity. And after a 2007 of (unwisely) fading from the film-word schmooze-circuit, I (and the rest of the company) have already glad-handed everyone from directors, producers and actors, to bankers, hedge fund types, and the heads of the DGA and the MPAA.

Back to it.

Newark Liberty International Airport : What a way to start a trip!

++

Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport: A step down from even Newark!

++

Our flight to Salt Lake City is delayed, so I stop in for a burger and chicken fingers at Dairy Queen. Probably not a wise choice.

++

Seated next to a woman named Tiffany from Mississippi who’s meeting her mother and sister up in Park City for a ‘girl’s weekend’ at Sundance. Strange that the festival is equal parts industry conference and tourist destination.

++

Salt Lake City International Airport: We’ve got mormons!

++

Taxi up to Park City to join the rest of the Cyan delegation, at the house we’ve rented just off Main St. By the time we all head off to grab dinner at 10:45, nearly everything is closed, and we end up at Butchers’, a less than mediocre steakhouse that still charges $45 a filet.

“Let’s get some business done this week,” says my CFO, “so I can amortize these steaks.”

I haven’t owned long underwear since I was about six, the point when I concluded that, while it was warm outdoors, back inside it was itchy and uncomfortably hot.

By now, I’m not sure if I feel any different. But I’m nonetheless headed off this afternoon to Paragon to pick up a pair. The temperature in Park City, Utah, is currently one degree, even without considering the windchill, and I’d ideally like to return to New York still able to have kids.