You adjust your jacket awkwardly as a white spotlight shines directly into your eyes, like you're a criminal under interrogation. The carpet beneath your shoes feels less glamorous and more like a velvet trap you can’t escape without being noticed.

The cameras follow you as if you were the famous one. But you're not. You’re nobody, as you keep reminding yourself with a touch of resigned irony. A regular human being, with human needs, anxiety tightening your throat and your stomach twisted in knots.

You’d rather be on Everest. Seriously. A thousand meters above sea level, no oxygen, freezing cold slicing your face anything but standing here, still smiling through every click, every flash, every shallow comment. But here you are. Dragged along. Holding Damon Albarn’s hand.

He looks charming, as always. Sunglasses, that shy smile. He strokes your hand with his thumb as if that’s enough to calm you down, as if he doesn’t notice the anxiety rising in you every time someone mispronounces your name or tells you, “Look over here, please.”

You had to swallow the urge to say no. You had told him no. You had explained a thousand times that this isn’t your thing that you have no interest in being some accessory hanging off his arm. Even your daughter, Missy, warned him:

“Dad, don’t make him go if he doesn’t want to. I know him we know him. He won’t enjoy it.”

And she was right.