Awards night

The Grammy Awards are tonight. I have never really been a big fan of them; the whole music world sort of lost me somewhere in the 90s. Which is odd for a person who likes to make her living singing; but that’s beside the point. This point, anyway.
What I always think of when the Grammys roll around happened about the time I was newly thrust into the world of on-line dating. It was relatively new, and not quite as, well, lascivious as it is now. I had been chatting, for only about a week, with a photographer—I think his name was Peter—who lived in New York, when one day he told me he had to come to LA for the Grammys on assignment and would I like to join him. I sat back in my chair and stared at my computer screen. I had been married for nearly 15 years, divorced, been a recluse for a year, and had no idea what the protocol of the dating world out there was in this case. Do I drive up there and meet him at a hotel? Do I get my own room? Was I expected to spend the night with him? Would he pay for my parking? There were way too many questions. I didn’t ask any of them.
I never responded to him.
Though I have to admit, if it had been the Emmys or the Oscars, or even the Golden Globes or the SAG Awards, I might have given it a second thought.
Indeed, a few years later when I started seeing a producer (also someone I met online), he invited me to the Emmys. I even got a dress for the occasion. And was about to buy a pair of shoes the next day, when, unfortunately, during a rather heated phone conversation, I couldn’t stop myself from giving him a loaded piece of my mind when he, being such the arrogant, blatantly bigoted individual he was, insulted not only a good friend of mine, but the entire African-American population.
I never made it to the Emmys.
But I did get to wear the dress years later at a friend’s 20th anniversary re-wedding, as her Maid of Honor. I borrowed a pair of her shoes.