The year I was nominated for Up in the Air was fun because I knew I wasn’t going to win. I know that sounds like bullshit, and of course the best iteration of an award season would be to win everything and make yourself an impractical but fabulous headdress with your many statuettes. However, that year, Mo’Nique won almost every award for the absolutely harrowing performance she gave in the film Precious. I won the National Board of Review, but in that instance the winner is announced before the ceremony.
There was never a “and the winner is” type show where I was going over a potential acceptance speech. I can’t imagine the stress of a close call, hearing your name at some events and someone else’s name at others. Doubly fun was that all of us in the Up in the Air gang were destined to be losers. George was up for Best Actor, which was always later in the program. After my category was presented, he would turn to me and whisper, “I’m still a nominee and you’re just some loser.” Knowing you weren’t going to win wasn’t what you wanted, but at least you could drink.
The only time I’ve been genuinely happy to lose an award was when I was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Rocket Science. I didn’t stand a chance anyway (I was up against Cate Blanchett), but I wouldn’t have been able to make a speech if I had won because—drumroll—I was high off my face.
The afternoon before the show, I’d felt a tingling sensation in my nose. Actually, it wasn’t quite in my nose, it was behind my nose. By that night it had become painful, and in the mirror my face looked swollen and slightly warped. I thought maybe I was having an allergic reaction to something, but I didn’t think allergies were so painful. Whatever was swelling in my nose was hard and it was putting pressure on the area above my lip, making it uncomfortable to smile. The ceremony was the next afternoon and I hoped that it would be gone when I woke up.
In the morning, it had gotten significantly worse and I walked across the apartment to wake my roommate Alex. I knocked on his door.
“You need to take me to the hospital.”
He opened the door, half asleep. “You look weird.”
We went to the emergency room and, much like my parents, no one there had ever heard of the Independent Spirit Awards. Where are the film fans in this town? They did not seem moved to bump me to the top of the ER’s priority list. I sat in the waiting room staring at my face in the reflection of my smudged metal purse handle. Whatever was happening was painful, too painful to touch, but when I wrote nine out of ten on my form’s pain scale, even the admissions nurse knew it was a lie. Somebody fix my face!! I had an award to lose!
After a while a doctor took me into a hospital room and told me I had an infection that had created a cyst inside my nose. Charming. It was minor, but still serious because of its proximity to my brain.
I chose this moment to say, “Have you ever heard of the Spirit Awards? They’re like the Oscars of independent film.”
He put his hand on my forehead for leverage.
“Stop talking, I have to lance it.”
Lance, as in, cut open. That’s right! The hard, unbearably tender thing behind my nose was about to be stabbed and drained. And the way in? Up my nostril! He told me he was going to numb it with something called “freezing spray” and proceeded to stick a nozzle into my nose and spray in a cold liquid. Funny thing about your nose, though: it rejects fluids being shot into it, because your brain thinks you’re drowning. It’s the same principle as waterboarding. I involuntarily pulled away several times and spluttered wildly when he held my head.
The doctor looked at me, as disappointed as he was frustrated, and eventually said, “Well, if that’s the best we can do, this is going to hurt.”
I didn’t want to be stabbed in my still-throbbing nose, but at that point anything seemed like a better alternative to more freezing spray.
I was wrong.
You know when a doctor says “This is going to hurt” and they do whatever they have to do and you think, This is un-fucking-believable I can’t stand it fuck fuck fuck, but you just sit there grimacing in silence? This was the only time I have shouted in front of a doctor. It was totally involuntary, and once it was over I was surprised to find tears had already reached my neck.
In terms of medical ailments, I count myself extremely lucky to have had something immediately treatable that had no long-term repercussions. But once he hooked me up to a drip of painkillers and the world came into logical (but loopy) focus, between the fact that I hadn’t yet brushed my teeth, I wasn’t wearing underwear, and pus was still draining from a cyst in my face, I abandoned any hope of making it to Santa Monica in time for an award show ninety minutes later.
Alex came into the room. I whimpered a little, both exhausted and stoned.