How to Watch the Oscars in Four Simple Steps

1. Turn it on, and do something else. Do the laundry, clean the apartment, write really bad poetry, watch another show on a competing laptop. The point: if watching the Oscars is the only activity performed while watching the Oscars, I will hunt you down and spray paint R.I.P. on your forehead.

2. Remember that no matter how famous or beautiful these people are, they will all die – just like you. They know this, which is why the award ceremony is so valuable to them. The Oscars are a funeral for the living – designed for a specific creature whose present adulation is not quite enough. Sadly, perhaps, it never will be.

3. Understand that even there, in that room,  exists a pecking order that affects the anxieties of everyone present.  A movie star of sizable stature can be made to feel like a seat-filler by another movie star of greater stature. Few people go to award ceremonies and leave feeling substantiated.

4. Try to spot the nice people, just to remind yourself that they exist.