and we both learn a lesson

I am angry, shocked and pissy that the office where I work has begun blocking websites they feel hurt productivity. It might be just a matter of days before I can’t access this page there anymore. I don’t want to talk about it. I only have another week here, anyway.

I rarely have good dreams. I’ll have the occasional normal dream or a boring dream, but it’s not too often where I have a dream where I wake up laughing or smiling. I tend to remember those because it shows me what I enjoy in my life.

And last night I met John Cusack.

For some reason I was in the car with family and we were driving through Austin and came to this giant road block in the highway. We stopped the car and soon realized we were stopped for a movie that was being shot right then and there. As I looked out the window, John Cusack stepped in front of me to shoot his lines.

Somehow I suddenly wasn’t in the car anymore, and instead was standing on this bleacher thing and the shot was finished. Because they didn’t want all of traffic to be pissy about having to wait for a film to shoot a scene, they had John Cusack do this “talking to the audience” thing to everyone standing around. Basically he charmed them for a little while and then once they were all laughing they would forget that he made everyone late for their meetings. And since I was in the front he was using me to bounce jokes off of, like he was bombing at trying to pick this girl up. He was holding my hand and trying to get the crowd to cheer him on and trying to make them convince me to date him. Once the antics were over, he grabbed my hand and asked if I could go inside the hotel lobby with him for a second. I looked at my parents who were still in the car and they were beaming proudly at me. “We’ll just wait here,” Mom said.

Yeah, it’s a dream. Of course they don’t mind waiting in traffic in the middle of the highway. Dad was looking at me like the dad in Sixteen Candles when Jake Ryan shows up in his Porsche at the end of the wedding.

Inside the hotel hallway we were attempting a conversation but people kept coming up to John and asking him questions or discussing the other shots they still had to do that day. Eventually I got brave and asked if he’d like to get a drink with me later. He took down my phone number and said he’d call my cell phone when he was done for the day. I told him that I could pick him up and take him to the Bad Dog. I figured that since it was a Wednesday night we could find a pretty secluded table on the second floor. Somehow, in the dream, that made sense. Like Jon and Matt would be like, “Let her and Cusack have some space, man.”

So, I realize that my parents have now been in the car for about an hour, because John and I were making jokes about films and stuff and I was following him around the set so we could continue our conversation while he was finishing little tasks, but they didn’t seem to mind at all.

I picked him up later and took him to the bar. As we sat and flirted and discussed moving to LA and what kinds of things I should expect, I saw Eric sitting at the bar with Matt and Becca. Because it’s a dream, my point of view shifted, and I was suddenly watching the three of them while the other me was still chatting it up with Cusack.

“What are you gonna do, man?” One asked Eric.

“What can I do?” he said. “It’s John Fucking Cusack. Of course she’s allowed to sleep with him if he asks. He’s like, one of her list people.”

And I got this strange feeling in my stomach. The me with Cusack grabbed his hand and said, “I really like you, John, but I don’t want to lead you on. I have a boyfriend. I love him an awful lot.”

“Oh, that’s very forward of you to think that I wanted to sleep with you,” he said.

I stared at him for a second.

“Yeah. Yeah. I figured.” He took another sip of his beer.

“Why are you still single?” I asked him.

“I’ve been waiting to let go with someone,” he said. “Do you let go with him?”

“Let go?”

“Just be yourself. Not worry about what he’s really thinking about you because you know it’s good things. Not try and impress him, not feel like he’s trying to impress you. Just enjoy being with each other. Look forward to the mornings and the evenings and the weekends because you get to be with him. You just laugh and talk and the rest of the world melts away when you’re together. You look at him and you know. You feel stronger because of him. You can do anything… like how you guys are moving to LA together. Like that. Like it’s okay because he’s going. Not that you couldn’t do it without him, but that it seems like it validates the entire act of moving because he’s going too. I don’t know. I’m just talking. I’m not making sense.”

“No, you are.”

“I’m looking for the girl that makes me feel like I’m doing the right thing. The girl that sees things in me that I didn’t see before. Who brings them out in me and makes me want to be even better than I am. I want to make someone see how incredible they are. I guess I have to find someone that’s incredible. Or maybe I’m just not looking around enough. Fuck, I found you sitting on a car. Surely there have been others I just didn’t notice that were right there.”

He kissed me on the cheek, and said he probably should go home. He shook Eric’s hand and did that back-pat thing guys like to do. And he walked out of the club.

I was still sitting at the table on the other side of the club. I looked up and caught Eric’s eye across the room. He smiled at me. I smiled back.

And I woke up.

I was still smiling when I woke up. I put my arm around Eric. “I shouldn’t tell him that I totally just had a make-out session with John Cusack,” I thought. Then, “Wait a minute. I totally didn’t have a make-out session with John Cusack. I totally turned him down and made him feel lonely because I wanted to be with Eric. Dammit! Why can’t I even have a little fling in my sleep? Who is it going to hurt? Man!”

I must have wiggled or something in my anger at screwing up my one chance at screwing John Cusack. Eric mumbled, “You okay, baby?”

“Yeah,” I pouted.

“Okay. I love you.”

And then he was asleep again. Take that, John Cusack. But feel free to stop by and visit anytime. I still owe you a beer.