This was the weekend of the 48 Hour Film Project, the brief nationwide fit of insanity where amateur filmmakers are given--go on, guess how long--to write, shoot and edit a movie in an assigned random genre, which must include Project-dictated elements: a line of dialogue, a character and a prop. It starts Friday night at 7 p.m.; the clock ticks over at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, and then you fall over and die because holy crap, that is not a lot of time to do a movie in.

On Friday evening, J. and I showed up outside the very beautiful SLC library to collect our genre, and to find out what elements we would be forced, reluctantly and at gunpoint, to include. It was a courtyard full of really astonishing people; the number of male ponytails took my breath away. 1987 called and asked for its aesthetic and self-loathing back, and the guy heading up the project was wearing Birkenstocks with socks. Could you ask for more from your 48-hour film project? You certainly cannot.

We ended up with road trip as our genre; the line of dialogue was, "Just wait and see," the character was an instructor named J. Simon, and the prop was a jewel. So of course we had to write the heartwarming tale of a young man's odyssey to find love, to really come to understand himself and come to terms with his sexuality. We used the word "poon" a lot. I'm sorry.

E got out of work, and then, through the streets of Salt Lake and looking for parking and waiting for dinner and eating it and dessert and heading back to the car, we brainstormed our story. On the way home, in the back of the Explorer and under the dome light, I scribbled an outline on our legal pad, a scene list, and a shopping list. We got home, ate really a lot of Oreos, and banged out a script that felt hilarious that night, on very little sleep and a lot of adrenaline and panic.

It was still funny the next morning. J. was up at ridiculous o'clock, and shopping for props. We woke up, got out of bed and started calling around to beg people to show the hell up, please, and come loaded for bear. There is nothing like calling someone up and saying, "Hi! You're going to be in a movie! Bring a tie, and also something that makes you look like a douchebag. Awesome! See you in an hour!"

I helped write the movie, ran around like a crazy person, did some paperwork, carried many things, made lists, and had a tiny, embarrassing part. Everyone else did many brilliant things, and everything felt frantic and wonderfully unstructured and a little manic and exhilarating. In a backyard, a basement, a coffee shop, a Bronco, a convenience store, a bar, and a train station, we filmed a wedding, a self-discovery, a beautiful moment of human connection, the perils of friendship, the joy of toy surprises, a waste of time and a triumphant new beginning. We used the words "meat curtains." I'm sorry. There were a lot of rude jokes. Some of us kept looking at the camera. Some of us kept giggling. A surprising number of us remembered our lines, hit our marks, ad libbed credibly and even exceptionally.

At the end of the day, we were exhausted and irritated and completely energized and pretty sure we should win an Oscar. On Sunday, we shot emergency footage, and J. and Xtine spent the day finishing the editing, J. dropped in Jayrad's perfect music (including a freshly-written techno song featuring Jayrad's limited Spanish skills) and by 5:30, it was finally finished. After some close calls, we turned it in not too much shy of 7:00 p.m.

The movie is...well, frankly, it is possibly the most rude, crude, obnoxious, disgusting, offensive thing I have ever participated in the creation of (and I had a guilty hand in a goodly number of those incredibly offensive lines), and I am pretty sure the end product is brilliant and awful in equal measures and that we will be massacred at the screening. It goes pretty far, and I love it a lot. I will never, ever share the thing with my mother, my (hypothetical) pastor, my (hypothetical) children, a potential employer or possibly anyone, ever, but I am incredibly exhausted, totally burned out, and so proud of my talented friends. I kind of wish I could make a movie every weekend. Maybe next time, a movie that doesn't use the word "cooter" so much.