When I win this fucking award, I won’t even know what award they’re talking about at first. “No, I’m serious,” I’ll say. “What award?” Because I haven’t even been following the nomination process, not because I think I’m too good for it, but honestly just because this kind of thing doesn’t even register with me, like I don’t even notice when people win awards. I mean, if it makes them happy, that’s great, I just don’t even hardly notice it.
It’s not that I think I’m above this whole thing, because I don’t. I’m just in a really different place from it, a place that’s separate and slightly higher up from the place everyone else is in, but not above them.
When I win this god damn award, I’ll say things like, “I don’t even own anything formal enough to wear to this awards ceremony! I’ll have to wear hamburger wrappers and rags, I guess, because those are the nicest clothes that I own, because I never win awards or have clothes to wear while I accept them.” And it will be so refreshing, the way I win this award, which will be different from how everybody else normally wins them.
When I win this shit-helling award, people will have to explain what kind of award it is, and what exactly I won the award for. “What award did I even win,” I’ll ask, and people will laugh helplessly. “You’re impossible,” people will say to me, the award winner who is so unaffected by awards and prizes and accolades that she doesn’t even know what kind of award she won, even though it’s actually an incredibly important award.
I’ll try to run into a cave, and inside of a hollow tree inside of that cave, and even more inside of a cozy little bird’s nest inside of the hollow tree inside of that cave to get away from all my accolades, but the more lonely choices I make, the more my friends and well-wishers will insist upon following me there, because they’ll know I only want to be alone so that someone can find me. “You look so beautiful hiding in this cave,” they’ll say. “Please let us give you just this one award.”
“I didn’t even want this award,” I’ll say when they give me my award. “You should probably give this to someone who wanted it more than I do, someone who’s maybe really wrapped up in superficial things like this and who would think it was a really big deal to win this award, which I don’t think it is, no offense to the people who made this award.” And the people who made the award would get it, they would get that I didn’t mean what they did didn’t matter, just that it didn’t matter to me.
Jesus fuck, when I win this christing award, I won’t even know what to do with it, because I’ve never even thought about awards before. Do I hold it with my elbows, or…? I’ll fall over onto the floor, because I didn’t take the weight of the award into account when I tried to shift my center of gravity, probably.
After this first award, I’ll probably win a whole fucking boatload of more awards for the same thing. Colleagues in my field, whatever it is, will start to rib me good-naturedly at all the ceremonies, which I didn’t even want to come to and am still wearing hamburger rags at because I forgot to buy formal wear. They’ll say things like “why even bother to read the card” and “we all know you are going to win this fucking award” but they won’t really be angry or even jealous because they all know how much I deserved this award and that they’ll have their own turn at other awards, maybe not quite as good as the award I am getting now but it doesn’t even matter because they would never even consider themselves as being in the same category as me when it comes to awards, in the future.
Honestly, if anything, once I win my award, people will say things to each other (not to me) like “Wow, had she really not won an award before this?” and “I can’t believe this is her first award, like maybe they gave it to her honestly a little late because she should have had another award or maybe two awards a while back,” and “I’m so glad she has this award now. She never even mentioned not having an award before, because I guess she just didn’t care about having one.”
I honestly don’t even know what award you’re talking about? I’ve never even won an award, I don’t think. Are you thinking of somebody else?
Tags: awards, dreams, i honestly didn’t even know there was an award for this, this fucking award, when i win awards
Yes, this is exactly how it’ll go. I definitely do not have an acceptance speech already planned which consists solely of a double bird directed at the people I hate and the words “neener neener.”
This is not how I plan to accept awards. I plan on accepting awards wearing a tiara and getting my makeup done by one of the makeup artists who gives you the lipstick that they just used on, so you have it for the rest of the evening.
That scene in All About Eve is the closest a film has ever come to capturing my college theatre experiences.
but then you’ll thank Hitler.
I hear they had to sit her down and explain, carefully, the entire concept of an award. In the extremity of her innocence, she had literally never developed the language centers of the brain necessary to process the concept of an award, or of merit-based competition in general. They told her about it, and to her it just sounded like the teacher from the Charlie Brown cartoons. She merely sat there, head tilted in earnest puzzlement like the RCA victrola-listening dog. Ultimately they were forced to approach the topic by constructing a highly simplified pidgin, incorporating crude pictograms, symbolic gestures, and various expressive dolphin-clicks and whistles.
Too bad they ain’t got no awards for that.
That she didn’t recognize her own beauty made her even more beautiful
Shouldn’t it be thou ignitest?
Yes, ok, fine, I suppose the rhyme is more important.
Mallory has selected the best picture choice to go with this one. It is worth an award. An additional goddam reward.
Probably worth a milkshake too. A GOOD milkshake where they give you the metal mixing cup along with your glass. (Yes, milkshakes are more fun than martinis)
The Best Picture Award?
Probably worth a milkshake too. A GOOD milkshake where they give you the metal mixing cup along with your glass. (Yes, milkshakes are more fun than martinis)
I sort of feel like Gwyneth Paltrow has this kind of speech ready to go at all times.
Truly you deserve all the awards, and you deserve them more for being so unconcerned with awards in the first place.
I give you this ‘most unconcerned with awards’ award.
Oh, I envy her so much for being able to look forward to receiving an award. For me, the experience lost all its joy and lustre years ago, because I was in a school—several schools—where they gave awards for every damn thing. Square the circle: have an award! Trisect an angle: here’s your award! Cure cancer: take this award! Achieve peace between the Jets and the Sharks—well, you know the drill. Another damn award. And it didn’t stop there. All I have to do is show up, solve some silly-ass intractable problem, and blammo, another award (or two!) that I have to go and find some room for in the award room.
Larry Correia, is that you?
Did anyone watch The Sisterhood on Lifetime? Because this has snooty Claire written ALL over it.
I’m pretty sure this is Kelly Bensimon’s award acceptance speech, etched into pieces of seaglass she throws at Bethenny Frankel.
This must be what people mean when they say they’re “humbled.”