Awards season

February 6, 2016

Ah, late winter – a time of hot chocolate, fluffy coats, valentines, and… celebrities congratulating themselves for being awesome.

Yes, this is the time of year we have all been waiting for, when we are bombarded with online photos of tiny women in gowns that cost more than our cars and men whose chiseled abs can be seen even under a white tuxedo shirt.

I used to look forward to awards show season almost as much as holidays.

It celebrated so many things I loved – movies, pretty dresses, dramatic displays of grandiosity and unreality.

I was never one to dream of being a movie star… Well, maybe I did when I was a child, but it was short lived.

My dream was to take the stage to accept the Best Oscar for screenwriting.

Every year I’d daydream about the dress I’d wear, the speech I’d give, the people I’d thank.

Maybe if I’d done less daydreaming and spent more time actually learning the craft of screenwriting I’d have had better luck.

And thus, each year I joined millions of other people as a TV spectator, sitting on my couch having a calorie fest, carefully critiquing the dresses of people I pretended I knew because I’d seen them on Oprah.

Those days are ancient history now. Life got real and I grew up (better late than never, right?).

My family grew and so did I, and I forgot all about awards shows.

 And so it was a surprise to me when I sat down to catch my breath last Sunday and discovered I was watching one.

I thought I had stumbled upon an old episode of the Carol Burnett Show, which was often shown in rerun during my childhood.

I let the channel settle there, and I snuggled in for a brief moment of escape from laundry.

But it was not to be. The clip ended, and I was watching the Screen Actors Guild honor Carol Burnett with a lifetime achievement award.

I love Carol Burnett, so I kept watching. And it was lovely.

I may not consider awards season my favorite time of year anymore; I may not consider awards season at all one way or another. But I am not a celebrity hater.

Celebrities are just people, like the rest of us. Some of them are nice, and some of them are jerks, just like the rest of us.

And Carol Burnett seems like a really nice person. I know because I saw her on Oprah once.

I still consider awards shows a guilty pleasure. I still watch them if I happen to discover one on TV.

I still like a good movie now and then. And although my idea of dressing up nowadays usually involves khakis, I still appreciate a beautiful dress when I see one.

The difference is that I no longer wish I were there. I no longer accept the fantasy that life in Hollywood is better than my own.            

Because, quite simply, it is not. It is just life, and it is good and bad and beautiful and ugly everywhere.

This article first appeared in the Lewistown News-Argus and the Sidney (Mont.) Herald on February 6, 2016.