I can’t recite times tables. I don’t know the Periodic Table of Elements. I’ve forgotten how to conjugate past tense verbs in Spanish, and I never learned French. I can’t follow a recipe to save my life and it takes me four attempts on average to parallel park. I have an embarrassing backhand and I don’t understand football. My temper has been known to get the best of me on several occasions and I’m short on patience. But I do have a few qualities that make up for (some) of this. I have a boundless sense of humor, I loan books and purses freely, and I play a mean game of bowling. But beyond these, I do have one extraordinary gift that many people don’t know about.
You want to know the Oscar winner for best supporting actor in 1998? The Golden Globe winner for best actress in a musical or comedy in 1996? The Daytime Emmy winner for best talk show host in 2003? Ask away. I am Miss Rixie, Queen of the Award Shows.
People who know me well marvel at my talent. Why Rixie, they gasp, why didn’t you ever tell us you can recite from memory the winners of the MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss, years 1993 to 2003? Why don’t you tell us about what happened backstage at the 2000 Soap Opera Digest Awards? Tell us, they beg, tell us everything!
You know those nerds who can tell you what happened on any given episode of Star Trek? Or the guy with a photographic memory who knows every question to every answer on Jeopardy? Or the one who can recite baseball statistics like the Pledge of Allegiance? I’m always amazed at these people. Sometimes a little frightened, too, but always amazed. Yet when I try to share my God-given talent with people, they pretend to not hear me—or worse yet, they try to compete.
“I love this song. I think it won an Oscar,” one friend of mine is fond of repeating about every song played over every list of credits at the end of every movie. I just roll my eyes and mutter under my breath, “Well, not in the years 1974 through 2003. My memory’s a little fuzzy on the decades before that” (as if!) “…but, I guess, anything’s possible,” I’ll admit grudgingly.
But I have to draw the line at whether or not Madonna has been nominated for an Oscar. “Puh-leeze!” I told an acquaintance lately (I cannot possibly befriend a person who is not even thorough enough to check this out. I mean, Madonna nominated for an Oscar? It doesn’t even sound right.) “You’re thinking of the year she won a Golden Globe for Evita.”
So in honor of the Academy Awards tonight, I have made a few predictions.
Miss Rixie’s predictions are:
Best Picture: Lord of the Rings
Best Director: Peter Jackson
Best Actor: Sean Penn (but I'm hoping Johnny Depp)
Best Actress: Charlize Theron
Best Supporting Actor: Tim Robbins
Best Supporting Actress: Renee Zellweger
So tune in tonight on abc to watch the winners wow (or bore) us all!
