The event is more laid back and filled with big names in the world of horror. It takes place at The Globe Theater on the Universal Studios lot and signals the grand opening of their yearly Halloween Horror Nights. After the awards, we'll also get to go into the park and see all the new mazes.
Sounds glamorous and fun, right? Well, it can be, and getting to tour the mazes will be a blast, but prepping for these things, especially when you're not a college-educated journalist, can be nerve wracking as hell. You stand still on the red carpet for 90 min., wait for people to grace your presence (and if you're not with Entertainment Weekly or something similarly large, you get overlooked a lot) and hope that you know something about the people who DO want to be interviewed - like their names, for instance, and most of all, you hope that you don't end up looking like an ass in front of someone like Guillermo Del Toro (who is getting the biggest award this year).
Let me emphasize that a lot of this fear comes from the fact that I am not a professional journalist. Almost anyone can write for Examiner.com. That's great for someone like me who loves to write, didn't go to college but has a Type A personality when it comes to grammar and spelling and loves to attend Hollywood events. It can be terrible for Examiner, who seems hell bent on letting people write who can barely spell their own names, plagiarize other people's work and generally bring the class level down to white trash for their publication. That means I spend a lot of time proving to publicists and studios that I am the real deal, that I will actually PROMOTE the things they want promoted and do so without making them, or me, look like an ass.
Therein lies my dilemma. I am terrified, all the time, that an ass is exactly how I will come off. My husband is the BEST at telling me how great I am at things, but our marriage license makes him required to do so, so I never quite believe it coming from him. My best friend on the planet and sister-from-another-mother, Donna, tells me the same thing, but she is also the kindest person I've never known in life - truly - so I believe her a little more than Anthony but still not completely. This is my baggage and has nothing to do with whether or not THEY believe what they are saying. I know they do.
My father thought I was worthless in every way and took every opportunity to tell me so. My mother was a robot whose only goal in life was to take care of my father and be at his beck and call 24/7. So there was no role model there. Plus in her generation, you didn't disagree with your husband. So if he said I was worthless, she did nothing to step in and say otherwise.
Thus why I am still figuring out what I want to be when I grow up and not entirely certain what I am good at - if anything at all. As I'm getting older, I am realizing how narcissistic and awful my father really was, and obviously, he was wrong about me. It's that loop you get stuck in. It was like an internment camp. He said it over and over in those formative years, so it got stuck in there like glue. But I'm whittling it away more each day.
Where I find most of my confidence is from total strangers. They have no stake in the outcome, know nothing about me except what I am putting forward, and when they hand me the brass ring for my efforts, I realize it's only because I have done something to make them believe I am worthy of getting it. That is a boost to my confidence I can't even put into words.
I am learning that there is something about me that people respond to. Anthony has been telling me this for years, and I am really starting to open my eyes to it, though giving myself any praise for the ability is difficult.
An example. I started Tweeting actress Pauley Perrette (NCIS) last year, like thousands of other fans. She has around 600,000 followers and only follows about 300 people. One night, she began Tweeting about being in support of gay marriage. I Tweeted back a photo of a dog with a sign around its neck that said, "Dog Loves Fags" (a play on the hate signs "God Hates Fags"). She's also a huge animal lover, and she responded to me directly about how much she loved it and began following me. Fans beg her daily to follow them, or even respond, and there she was, following me. I sat with my mouth open in front of the computer. Eventually, we began chatting more and more, and I ended up going to a charity event she was at, and we became friends. She's a lovely gal, and I am really honored to know her. She told me I was her first-ever Twitter friend.
Fans began Tweeting me afterwards and wanted to know how I got her to respond, telling me how lucky I was and wanting me to get her to respond to them. I didn't answer any of them and respected what had happened as something you don't use in that way, but if I had wanted to answer, I don't know what I would have said. I wasn't setting out to get this result, but there it was. How did I do it? I have no clue.
It's happened with other celebrities as well, and I never know why what I'm saying resonates. So I just keep doing what I'm doing.
Thus, my approval to cover the Eyegore Awards. I am nervous like I always am, and if Quentin Tarantino ends up in front of me on the red carpet for an interview, I just hope I don't blather and say nothing but "hi" over and over again.
When I vented my fears to beautiful Donna, like I always seem to do (sorry, Donna), she responded with wonderful advice, as she always does:
You will look beautiful, you will be poised, you will remember
you are there because you are fabulously good at what you do…that’s how you got
invited, and that is your future.
This time, I am going to choose to believe her 150%. That's a hard step for me, but I printed it out and taped it to my computer monitor to see for the next two days. If she believes it, then I will believe it.
Quentin, here I come baby. And if I start to lose it, I'll just take off my shoe and show him my foot. I hear he has a foot fetish, so maybe my size 11's will distract him long enough for me to get it together. That's called "thinking ahead." :)
--Rene'
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