Setting aside the food poisoning that I’m currently battling through, today has been one of those amazing days when I marvel at what I got to do today and wonder just how in the hell I’m privileged enough to do what it is I do for a living.  And today was one of those days when I absolutely love what I do for work.

My boss and one of my co-workers and I got to go to the Grammy radio showcase today — basically, people from around 75-100 radio stations from around the world come into town and are put in a big room, where they all set up on a bunch of tables.  Then a countless number of celebrities are herded through the room, going table to table, being interviewed by all these radio people, who record the interviews and then send them back to their stations so they can air the interviews “live from the Grammys.” It’s actually a pretty cool idea when you think about it, since it allows stations from all over the place to score a ton of great interviews at once, and they only need to go to one place to do it.  I got a chance to catch up with a lot of industry friends, which was great, but the exciting part for me was seeing the celebrities.  No, I still haven’t gotten over that.

Among the people there who I managed to snap some quick pictures of were Flavor Flav, Tia Carrere (schwing!) and Louis Gossett Jr. I also got a chance to talk to Randy Jackson (dawg); Emerson Hart, the former lead singer of Tonic who now has a solo album out, who I interviewed a few months ago for a column and who loves The Best Friend™; and Josh Todd, the lead singer of Buckcherry — I somehow didn’t have the heart/guts to tell him that I did Buckcherry’s big hit “Lit Up” at karaoke a while ago and got a standing ovation.

But the absolute best thing ever — what made me the Happiest Man on Earth and gave me Permagrin™ for the next several hours — was this.  A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how much I’ve loved Idina Menzel for years and how, the day after I saw her perform at a showcase here in Hollywood, I got the chance to interview her for a column for the magazine I write for.  Today, Idina happened to be at the Grammy radio showcase, and the issues of my magazine that my boss had brought along for us to hand out to the radio folks happened to be the issue containing my interview with her.  I was nervous as all hell, even though she couldn’t have been nicer about it, but I got to meet her in person and talk with her for a few minutes today… and actually hand her a copy of the column.  See that smile on my face?  Yeah, that’s not coming off for a while.