Alanis Morissette seems like she needs cheering up

Did you see Ryan Reynolds at the Oscars?

[Damn.]

I feel about Ryan Reynolds the way I feel about Brian Urlacher. I have been trying for about six years to "run into" Brian Urlacher. I ask around. I try to find out where he hangs out. People think I'm joking, and I am. But also I am not. I think that if Brian Urlacher met me, he would really take a shine to me. He has three children with three different women, so I figure, why not a fourth? I wouldn't make him marry me, but I would change my last name to Urlacher. I'd do it for the baby. Also, I'd do it because I have this very real-seeming fantasy about walking into a court room and saying, "Good morning, Your Honor. Jules Urlacher representing the petitioner. Yeah, man. THAT Urlacher."

I'm pretty certain that I cannot achieve the kind of celebrity I'm looking for on my own merits. But being Brian Urlacher's Fourth Baby Mama is an obvious best end-run around doing anything of note without exerting much effort (my friends keep insisting that epidurals make it seem like you're not even having a baby). Anyway, I believe that, like Brian Urlacher (and, while I'm at it, Vince Vaughn, especially if he's really coked up and not totally certain what city he's in), Ryan Reynolds, if he had the opportunity to spend a little time with me, would really like me, and so, in my head, we're kind of dating, and may I say, I really liked the way he looked in the tux I picked out for him for the Oscars.

It is easy to picture myself dating Ryan Reynolds, because he never goes anywhere with his wife. His wife, as you may know, is Scarlett Johansson. I'm not going to bad mouth Scarlett Johansson. I realize that doing so would be futile. Undercutting Scarlett Johansson, with her puffy lips and her booby boobs and her husky voice and her blond extensions and her curvy rump, will only make me seem petty. So what can I say except, Scarlett Johansson is just fine. But something I know for certain is, Scarlett Johansson isn't the one for Ryan Reynolds. For one thing, she's like 48 years younger than him, and for another, Ryan Reynolds dated and was previously engaged to fellow Canadian Alanis Morissette for four years, yet he was married to Scarlett Johansson within a year of breaking up with Alanis. It doesn't smell right. And besides, it's Hollywood and they're both actors and no relationship can survive in that town, so they are doomed. Doomed. I'm so sorry, Scarlett Johansson. I wonder who will be your second husband. Or your third. You're so very young. You have lots of time to fit in a baker's dozen of failed marriages before your ass falls into ruin. But I harbor no ill-will towards you. It's not your fault that Ryan Reynolds doesn't want to be seen with you. It's just, you would take away from the sun glinting off of his hairless abs.

Why though, should I care?

I know that, whereas I might run into Brian Urlacher one day, I am never going to meet Ryan Reynolds. That's OK. I'm never going to do a lot of things. Like, I'm never going to play the harpsicord for the queen or fly in a space shuttle. And I'll never get a chance to make Ryan Reynolds like me. But just imagine if you had dated Ryan Reynolds for four years. Imagine if, when you started dating, you were already famous for singing songs that go into elaborate detail about your sex life and your heartbreaks and your past lovers (you can see why I like Alanis so much) and no one had ever heard of your new boyfriend (except people in Canada, but, I mean real people). Imagine then that Hollywood got a hold of him, and he wasn't just wonderfully hilarious in movies like "Waiting" and "Just Friends" (in which you had a very funny cameo that got cut), but then he buffed up into an action hero (Ryan Reynolds and Parker Posey are wildly wildly funny in "Blade: Trinity"), and became as consistently shirtless and bankable as Matthew McConoughey in romantic comedy after romantic comedy.

And then imagine if after he became very famous and very chiseled and you were very happy together, he dumped you and married a young girl less than 12 months later. Well. Of course you had to write a song about that. Take it out on us. We understand. Oh, and then your butt tripled in size and People and US Weekly wrote articles about it and you had to go around telling everyone, "I love my new curves!" And no one believed you. So then you started appearing in Weeds and all of a sudden seemed sightly again, but no one gave you credit for it, because that iced-coffee hose, Mary-Louise Parker, is so impossibly skinny.

After plowing through the meat and Twinkie department somewhere in Vancouver I presume, Alanis wrote a song about Ryan Reynolds called Torch, which is not even nearly my favorite song of hers, but, as with most of Alanis' songs about relationships, it is gut-wrenchingly honest and it makes me feel actual pain when I listen to it. It also makes me feel as if I too dated, and got dumped by, Ryan Reynolds, so I feel like we're in the same boat, Alanis and me. I miss Ryan Reynolds' smell too. I can still smell him. He smells like a combination of Brian Urlacher's baldy-bald head and Vince Vaughn's dirty flannel cocaine-encrusted shirt. God, I love that old familiar scent.

Alanis, I'm so sorry that this happened to you. I don't understand why Ryan Reynolds didn't want you. I want you. Maybe not as much as I want Brian Urlacher or Ryan Reynolds or Vince Vaughn, but just the same, I am so sorry that you are sad. And that when you are sad you grow saddlebags.  I am sorry that even though you are a comedic genius, people don't really know about it.  So, as a gesture of my tremendous respect for you, let me tell you some things that I hope will cheer you up:

You have a nice head of hair. I don't have much hair to speak of, and I may in fact be balding. I can't tell. I'm trying to ignore it. But when it's time for me to buy a wig, I will buy a wig made from your imported Canadian hair, I promise.

You have an interesting way of pronouncing words. The only artists worse at pronunciation are Tori Amos and the lead squealer of Sigur Ros, but at least you know that there are two other people out there who can't talk as good as you.

You apparently visited India once and became moved by it. Maybe go back there. My Fazio's children's encyclopedia tells me that 95% of the world's population lives in India, so the odds are good that there is some fine chap there waiting for you. I bet you could get a gazillion dates on match.com/India. Like in the USA, most of the dates you go on through match.com will be with dullards and perverts and seemingly charming fellows who are massive disappointments in person, and men who say they are 6'1", but are actually 5'4", but it only takes one! That's what my mom always says. This is the same woman who married the man with whom she went on her first date, but she knows what she's talking about. She's always telling me so. Doesn't your mom give you good advice like this?

Well, does she??? If so, then chalk that up as something in the sunny column. Even if you never fall in love again, your mother will still love you, and you can always move into her basement. My mom is always reminding me of this, too. It's so comforting.

According to your own account, you give angry head in movie theaters. I think this kind of thing is widely appreciated by men, and you will go far if you keep reminding people about it. Be proud of yourself! Some ladies don't like to do blowjobs anywhere, least of all in public, and while instilling raw fear in movie-going penises.

You have a twin. I think that's neat! His name is Chad. Maybe don't mention that part.

Even though you are a woman of incredible talent and fame and you have plenty of money and you are quite beautiful, you are the same age as me, and you are a never-married, childless spinster, like me, so if all else fails, come to Chicago and be my friend. I can teach you what the word "ironic" means, and we can go out looking for Brian Urlacher together. I will even be your wingman and will happily yield him up to you. I like you that much, Alanis. But I call dibs on Vince Vaughn.