Dating Owen Wilson

I have a confession to make. I've been secretly dating Owen Wilson since last May. It started out very innocent. Of course, I had toyed with the idea for some time, but it never really got started until about mid-May, and I honestly didn't know I was dating him until one night I woke up from a dream (a very innocent dream) and realized that he was the man in my novel. His blue, blue eyes were the eyes I was envisioning, his voice the voice I was hearing, and his nose, oh God, his crookedly imperfect nose was the nose I was fantasizing about when I created one of the characters for my book. He was already a big part of my life before I awoke from that dream, but that dream gave me the name to go with his face. He's certainly not handsome in the George Clooney kind of handsomeness (George is Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Cary Grant rolled into one magnificent package), but Owen has that something - sweet, bad boy, innocent, naughty texture of character. And I've had the good fortune of dating him inside my little head. [In case you're wondering, my hope is that you'll fall in love with the character in my book as I did, and when it becomes a movie, and Owen has the lead, you'll look back on this blog post in delight!]

I am quite happy dating Owen Wilson. I have no desire to date anyone else at the moment. There are two reasons for this: One, despite what others may do or think, I am still married, albeit, quite unhappily; and two, the thought of dating someone makes me vomit in my mouth a little bit (thanks Cliff for that term - it's funny and describes exactly how I feel). I've been asked out on dates since separating and I've kindly turned the askers down - it has nothing to do with them, I'm just not interested; and if they're nice guys, I'm definitely not interested because I am too emotionally neurotic to date a nice guy. How utterly distasteful and disrespectful to go out with a nice guy given the state I am in.

Yet, Owen is a nice guy. He was the voice of Lightning McQueen in the movie CARS - my kids' favorite movie right now. And aside from that, he's fantastic! He opens doors for me, he lets me run my pointer finger along the big knot in his hugely fantastic nose, he smiles that crooked smile at me and his eyes well up whenever he notices my inner and outer beauty. I am a pawn in his dating game. When he attempted suicide, I prayed for him. I put aside all my woes and selfish prayers and sent well-wishes out to him that he would recover from this emotional upset just as I am recovering. I figure if he was messed up enough to attempt suicide, we're about even in our healing process because although I'd never attempt to kill myself, a part of me was close to death. We both need reviving and some time for healing.

Tony received a wonderful gift for Christmas. It is a Lightning McQueen car with four buttons on it. The first button makes the revving noise of the car, the second says, "I'm Lightning McQueen", the third says, "Ca-chow!" and the fourth, I don't remember. I am pathetically lonely sometimes, and I have been moving through this loneliness without realizing it. That is, until I found myself pushing the second and third button just to hear Owen's voice. One night, after the kids were tucked into bed, I discovered the car had been carelessly left on the deserted side of the bed by Tony. I rolled over on my pillow to face it, and reached up and pushed the second button.

"I'm Lightning McQueen!"

I giggled and said, "You're not Lightning McQueen, you're Owen, my sweet, darling Owen..."

Then I pushed the third button and he said, "Ca-chow!" And we laughed and laughed.

My loneliness abated in an instant. I slept cuddled up to that car and fell into a wonderful fantasy... me and Owen, hand in hand, cured of our mental and emotional instability... running barefoot on the beach, our hair wrestling with the wind... sigh...

I am not quite ready to start dating, but by the time the Oscars roll around... who knows? I am a fantastic date, when and if Owen gets up the nerve to ask. Ca-chow!