I'd Like To Thank My Date, Bradley Cooper

My girlfriends and I all watched the Golden Globes, the entertainment awards handed out by the Hollywood Foreign Press. We watched the event ‘virtually’ together—we live-blogged the show on someone’s Facebook page. Almost 600 comments were exchanged in three hours, covering everything from movie lore, celebrity couples, fashion, long speeches, Tamiflu, terrorism, double entendres, tattoos and what the ‘F’ stands for if it gets misplaced between S, T and U.

The entry is a paean to fast-typed, quick-witted, sharp-tongued social commentary, by a group of women united by a love of pop culture entertainment and making one another laugh.

Sure, the closest any of us will ever come to a red carpet is the one that gets rolled down the suburban sidewalk outside the home of the friend who hosts an Oscar-viewing party in her Wilton living room. We can all pretend to fight over yesterday’s news, George Clooney, or our new fave, Bradley Cooper (catch him in Silver Linings Playbook, which was completely worth playing hooky from work one day last week.) But for sure, we know what we’re talking about when it comes to the game of armchair Hollywood.

Awards nights are must-see TV. I used to be the snob who didn’t want to go to an Oscar party because I didn’t want to be distracted by anyone else talking during the telecast. Now, who cares what’s actually happening in the Kodak Theatre between the opening of each envelope, when the commentary of the people sitting with me in that Wilton living room about what’s going on that moment in La La Land is so much more entertaining than if I’d been there myself. (Unless of course, I was Bradley Cooper’s date. But then my girls would understand if I stood them up and chose to go with him instead. I just hope I can say the same for my husband!)

I used to scoff at the boys in high school who knew all the lines from Beverly Hills Cop, Animal House, or The Terminator. Now I’m surrounded by women who can quickly quote lines and episode titles from Curb Your Enthusiasm, sing all the lyrics from Les Misérables, and remember exactly who won best actress in 2004 and what color dress she was wearing. And make me laugh when they talk about it.

That, I realize, is what I look forward to the most. It’s not seeing which film will win, or which winning best supporting actor will forget about thanking his wife in his acceptance speech and instead thank the co-star he slept with during the making of the movie. The joy of the evening is reveling in the laughter that these women inspire. Whether it lies in the email chains that get passed around at lightning speed with each one-liner topping the next and inspiring gut-deep belly laughs (especially when a husband unexpectedly gets copied on a ‘reply all’) these women all have award-winning talent for letting themselves be funny and smart and relying on their superb comic timing.

I’m just grateful they let me be a supporting character in their ensemble cast. I’m so thankful, that when we’re all watching the Oscar telecast at the much-anticipated viewing party, even if somebody speaks while there’s something happening on screen, I certainly won’t consider squeezing that ‘F’ in with S, T and U. And I will never forget to mention them during any acceptance speech I ever have to give. Not even if the music starts to play me off the stage.