i HEART a winter break

i left the breezy warmth of socal today for the bitter cold. the transition from blustering 40-degree los angeles nights to the harsher 15-degree utah frigidity is not easy to warm up to. but, just like my accommodating self (who not too long ago joyously frolicked in the sub-freezing colorado mountains), i managed to wrap the scarf a little tighter, zip the coat a little higher, and muster a bit of winter-air callousness, making my annual trek to utah's renowned film festival in search of a new big-screen gem or an old washed-up celebrity.

i intentionally woke up after my 7:45 am flight had already departed today. even though the thought of an early—and therefore dirt-cheap—flight sounded fine at the moment of purchase, yesterday's late-nite romping, in additon to a busy work week and lack of packing time (not to mention sleep!), put the terrible decision into its proper context. 7:45 is much to early to fly.

at 1:30 this afternoon, the interminable line at the check-in desk didn't wrest from me any anxiety, because my flight had already left hours ago, and i would be waiting any number of hours for another one anyway. after waiting for days for the single attendent to finish with the 5 people ahead of me, i was given a standby ticket by a questioning agent; and with my "i guess i'm a little late, but i just got to the airport" reply, i made my way to the den of hell: the tsa gate".

for those of you familiar with i-HEART politics, you understand that the staff here loves the act of traveling, but it is those pesky details like security and metal detectors and tsa agents that undermine the experience as it was intended. however, in an unusually chipper mood, i stepped up to the gatekeeper of the denizen, the little korean lady who takes id's and checks them against boarding passes. i'm not sure who told her it was her responsibility to maitain the airline's standard of two carry-ons per passenger, but it was with proud defiance that she denied my two bags and another much smaller tote containing a few essentials such as a very long green scarf, a pair of shoes, a winter jacket, all my toiletries, a few more scarves, a week's change of underwear, two weeks' change of socks, and a hair dryer.

at first i balked, for only three weeks earlier, and under the stress of holiday traveling, i had been stopped neither by tsa personnel nor gate agent when i attempted, successfully, to board a flight with these three same bags. my atypical accommodating attidude, however, prevented my making a fuss; instead, i turned around and found the nearest bench in the ticketing area. in epiphany, i proceeded to empty the contents of the tiny tote and rearrange its contents into my other bags and onto various body parts. minutes later, the three recently filled bags were condensed into two bulging—nay, exploding—pieces of luggage, while i myself was wrapped in two winter coats, three scarves, a pocketful of socks and a toiletry bag tucked safely somewhere underneath both billowing pieces of outerwear.

needless to say, tsa couldn't say much about two carry-ons, regardless of their over-abounding contents, nor could they dissuade me from donning such ridiculous amounts of cold-weather gear. after all, both they and i knew that in just a few minutes i would strip down to essentially my socks and panties anyway.

it's safe to say i'll be warm this week. and regardless of what happens over the next few days, it's safe to say that i have arrived at the film festival, with it's hollywood hullabaloo and petty partying, with the proper (though often berated) attitude: there is always a back door.