Death of a Dream Girl

... comes into my gym today. No makeup, toffee skin. I glimpse her at the front desk. Double-take. Backtrack. My desktop wallpaper of over three years. In the flesh. And oh what flesh it is.

I'm to the point now where I'm pretty much celebrity-desensitized. Dustin Diamond was the first celeb I saw (at Sundance last year) and I flipped my shit. I took a picture with Scott Speedman. Was awestruck by Gary Coleman. Now Djimon Hounsou can walk past me without receiving so much as a compliment lauding his Oscar caliber fence-rattling. New celebs usually yield an "Oh, cool." Examples of late: Jason Statham, Malcolm In the Middle.

But every once in a while...

It's usually a rapper that gets me all "Holy shit!" Jim Jones. Ghostface Killah. Jay-Z. This probably speaks to my (sub)conscious need to be validated by the black community. I don't know why, but I want the brothers to like me. Spike Lee would probably label me a racist for saying that.

Alessandra's in a loose hoodie and white terrycloth-ish pants. Her ass pops out like a sliced-in-half WNBA basketball, each hemisphere glued tight. Her neck is long like her legs. She reminds me of a sexy dinosaur -- a little bit of brontosaurus mixed with some velociraptor and a dash of T-Rex.

I'm in to work out, so I stalk my way behind the front desk to validate my parking and make idle chatter with my coworkers. Alessandra is busy filling out a guest form. I take a medium breath and approach her.

"Alessandra," I say a bit too confidently, like a veteran used car salesman. It's because I'm feeling good. Fresh off nine hours sleep, my hair is perfectly mussed and my arms look huge in my red thrift store t-shirt. Motherfucking G style.

She looks up absently.

"I'm a big fan." I offer my hand. She shakes it reluctantly with a semi-creeped look on her face.

"'Sank you," she manages in a voice more husky and exotic than I imagined. No smile. Nothing. She goes back to her guest form. It is at this moment that I feel like an idiot. I'm a big fan. Big fan. Big. Fan. What the fuck? She's famous for having pictures taken in her underwear. Does "I'm a big fan" translate to "I jack off to you"? Because I don't. I mean I'm not going to lie: I've sprung semis to her on my mother's toilet (she keeps a lot of catalogs in her bathroom), but I have never stroked in her honor. My masturbation habits have come a long way since beating it to nipple-slips and mostly-nudes.

I tell everyone what I did. My manager shakes his head and spouts a bunch of trite maxims that really don't apply to this particular situation. Something about me doing for me instead of someone else. Then Foreigner comes on and he mentions how much they rock.

I do my cardio and dwell. How the hell are you supposed to tell your favorite Victoria's Secret model that you think she's amazing? I still don't know, not that I've been sitting around and brainstorming answers or anything (just a little).

But dream girls can't coexist with reality. The fantasy has died.

"Hi, Jeff. I'm here in my underwear, the ones you like from page 8A. I wore them just for you. There's a big ray of light behind me and I can't stop smiling because you're so handsome and I think you're a genius and love your dimples and want you in the worst way possible. Let's hop on a jet and go to the tropics and fuck in the breakers. Condoms aren't necessary."

That will never happen. And now I can't pretend that it ever will. Sucks, doesn't it? It's alright. I'll find someone else to worship. I'm thinking...