Sundance Diary: Finally, that EW party blog

All right, PopWatchers! I have gotten my jeans back from the laundry (thanks for ironing in that Mom Crease, Marriott friends!) and I've got time for one last blog post before I crash. It's like 2 a.m.; I gotta be up to see Black Snake Moan at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow, and I am determined not to sleep through another morning screening, dammit, because I am a professional and now's as good a time as any to start acting like one.

Also because I am a professional, I am way late with this EW Party wrap-up. I'm really sorry about that -- blame the celebrity-blogging hijinks, as well as all those damn movies I keep having to see -- but better late than never, huh? You knew I'd come through, didn't you? After all, I made a promise, and I keep all of my promises, PopWatchers. Except for that one tonight where I promised I'd beat someone at Ms. Pac-Man, and then got my ass kicked. (All I can say is the crappy resolution on the machine at  Pizza Hut really threw me off. I can't work under those conditions.)

Anyway, without further ado -- and oh, has there ever been ado here at Sundance! -- I present to you: Whitney's Night Out At The EW Party Fun Time Happy Place!

Um. It was packed. The thing I've learned in my two and a half years at this magazine (besides how to be a fine entertainment journalist and semi-tolerable blogger) is that we throw great parties. Additionally, I have learned that because they are so good, everyone wants to go to our parties -- and occasionally, "everyone"'s presence means the actual staff of the magazine has to start throwing elbows just to get a drink at their own damn shindig. I'll never forget a Must List party a couple years back where the entire edit side found ourselves relegated to the balcony, staring in awe at the chaos and assorted shiny people spinning around the packed floor beneath us, so how happy was I to get to the Sundance party and discover they had blocked off an actual VIP-esque room just for us?? Yes, please!

Still, who wants to stand around talking to their co-workers when, say, Nathan Fillion is in the other room? Not I, said this firefly, and so out I went, joining EW's Marc Bernardin and Adam "B Stands For Box Out" Vary to take a lap. Our first sighting? Mr. Fillion himself, a very tall, dashing sort, here at the festival with Adrienne Shelly's Waitress (which I finally saw tonight, btw; stay tuned for more on that). Behind him sat Paul Rudd, he of yesterday's blog dis (that's right, Rudd: I'll just keep calling you out until you come back and fulfill your promise), nodding his beard along with whatever mid-'80s song guest DJ Nick Cannon elected to play. I ran into the darling Elizabeth Banks (Scrubs) and made eyes at Jeremy Sisto; I spotted Scott Speedman and Kevin Bacon; I somehow managed to completely miss Diddy's appearance altogether but had no trouble picking out Rashida "Karen" Jones and David "Roy" Denman, two supporting Office actors (which should tell you something about my priorities). I think Nick Nolte's people jostled me again, only this time to get to the sushi platter.

Perhaps most randomly, me and Yul from Survivor (pictured) bummed a cigarette from Kate Walsh (Grey's Anatomy) and headed outside where we stood under heat lamps and talked about his plans for the future. Best I could get out of him was that he's looking into a lot of "exciting opportunities," which was kind of a lame thing for such a smart dude to keep saying -- but if you think about it, it's exactly that sort of vague diplomacy that helped him outwit, outlast, out-etc. in the first place. And at least he cleared up my big question from this season: Did the producers decide not to hand out rice to the teams in order to avoid the sight of Asian folk huddled around a pot, cooking rice? (The answer is no.)

The weirdness had really escalated to dangerous heights -- I was being caressed by Access Hollywood's Billy Bush -- when I got this text message from my coworker Jennifer Armstrong, who was out in Pasadena at the Television Critics' Association winter press tour: "Sundance sounds like a really weird dream sequence."

She couldn't have been more right. For some reason, Cy Young Award-winning southpaw, recent recipient of the biggest pitching contract ever in the history of Major League Baseball, and Whitney's holy grail of men, Barry Zito, was also at our party. (Yes, I am talking about sports again now.) And after slapping on some lip gloss, chugging a beer, and suffering a small stroke, I felt prepared to handle the pressure of meeting the man with the most beautiful curve ball in the game, a man whose picture adorns my office wall, and in search of whom I watched 3 consecutive games at the Oakland Coliseum this spring, praying I'd gotten the rotation right and could see him pitch live. Our time together at the party was brief -- and at least one of us had consumed entirely too much tequila, and was very open and honest about this fact when not staring blankly into the screen of his cell phone -- but I'll never forget the way he hugged me on his way out the door, and I refuse to believe the hug was completely motivated by his need not to topple over just then. No, I'm convinced our Sundance connection meant ever so much more, and that Barry and I will go on to become great friends, if not earth-shakingly in love with one another.

I'm also certain I'm deluding myself.

But that's the thing, PopWatchers: The really weird dream sequence of Sundance -- in which I bum cigarettes from network TV stars to give to reality show stars, or sit in an office typing as a Baldwin brother dictates an essay on swag -- requires a certain amount of self-delusion. I mean, we're deluding ourselves that the celebs aren't using us for our free publicity (and free booze); meanwhile, the celebs are deluding themselves that we're not sometimes just as excited to see them as the throngs of autograph seekers downstairs. The autograph seekers -- and, worse, the packs of wannabe-famous wankers who pack the parties and swag lounges and talk too loudly on their cell phones while on board the shuttle buses -- are deluding themselves that somehow they've got a chance to become a part of it all. And I think ultimately everyone's just a little deluded about the actual point of Sundance. Sure, Redford can ask us to "Focus on Film" all he wants, but so far I think this week has really been about fighting through the dream to get to the reality... and sometimes the reality turns out to be just a little drunker than we'd like.

We shut that party down, us EW staffers, and then 10 of us piled into an SUV for the ride back to the hotel. We're not sure who thought that kicking it clown-car style would be a good idea; we're also not sure who started the massive "And I Am Telling You" singalong that we launched into halfway home. I lay horizontal across the laps of my friends in the back seat and laughed so hard my head unlocked the passenger side door... and even though I was back to just hanging out with my un-famous, un-glamorous, already-exhausted co-workers, that moment was my real festival highlight so far.

Best of all: That story requires no name-dropping whatsoever.