The love that cannot speak its name.

Over the years I’ve had numerous crushes on women who are, to varying degrees, less than real. For the most part, these fall into two categories: sitcom characters (Bailey Quarters, Elaine Nardo, Lisa from NewsRadio, Pam from The Office) and movie stars (Marilyn, Jessica Alba, Drew Barrymore, Scarlett Johansson). The nature of TV is such that one tends to conflate the actress with the character, and I’m not sure if that makes the crush object more or less real than a movie star, who has the name of an actual person but is experienced as a series of identities that change from film to film. And I’m not sure how to categorize feelings you might have for the image of someone who died before you were even born (technically speaking, that does fit the definition of necrophilia).

I also have a strange, longstanding attachment to the character Trillian from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, who started out as the smart, sexy, and I’m pretty sure brunette voice of Susan Sheridan in the BBC radio series, became a literary character for many years, morphed briefly into a blonde bimbo for the TV series, then turned into Zooey Deschanel in the movie—which was doubly confusing, because I like Zooey Deschanel very much, but I hated that movie.

Anyway, this whole thing has reached a new depth lately, because my latest inamorata is not only unreal in every sense, but doesn’t even have a name. She is the female Wii Fit yoga trainer, and although she has a funny way of talking where her words don’t match her lip movements and she is sometimes brutally critical of my attempts to balance on one leg, I am smitten. She has an impish smile and a killer bod, and I find her presence at my training sessions equally distracting and motivational.

I tried to learn more about her on the Internet (only for the purposes of this writing, I swear) but came up oddly empty. (Instead I kept coming across references to the Wii Fit Girl, who is also wonderful, but a whole different kettle of pulchritude.) One lady blogger referred to her as “Wiilma,” and while that name is clever it really doesn’t fit her; she seems more like a “Maia” or something else kind of new agey.

Well, I’m not really sure where I’m going with this. I guess I just felt like embarrassing myself in public today. Carry on.