Here are some photos of Katy Perry and John Mayer (and his wacky boots) leaving a Hollywood restaurant on Friday evening, and look — they’re holding hands! If you’d have told me last summer that they’d still be dating, I’d have laughed my ass off. I mean, I’m still giggling right now anyway, but it’s a different kind of chuckle and an incredulous one as well. But I guess Katy and John are “serious” now that he spent Christmas with her family and dressed like a pervy Santa. (Although he’s probably cheating on her.)

John’s wandering wang is likely of very little interest to Katy at present. For the moment, she’s very pumped up about “Wide Awake” being listed as one of 75 songs eligible in the Original Song category for an Oscar. Other possible contenders include Adele for “Skyfall” (Skyfall, obviously) Rick Ross for “100 Black Coffins” (Django Unchained), and Fiona Apple for “Dull Tool” (This is 40, can you imagine her acceptance speech?). To me, Katy’s song comes nowhere near any of these other examples, but we’ll find out whether the Academy agrees when nominations come out on January 10. One nomination from another category has already leaked though. Thanks to a glitch on the Oscar website, it was announced (way too early) that costume designer Sharen Davis is up for an award for her work on Django Unchained. Now that nomination would be a well-deserved one, but Katy Perry getting an Oscar nod for anything? That would be crazy, but Katy thinks it’s possible:

Katy Perry. Oscars. Visualize it.

The pop star is on the Academy’s short list of songs eligible for an Oscar nomination in the best original song category.

Perry penned the song Wide Awake for [last] summer’s concert film Katy Perry: Part of Me.

While the 28-year-old Perry has been nominated for nine Grammy awards, the Oscar nomination would be a very different honor.

“It’s like a dream’s dream,” Perry tells USA TODAY over e-mail. “When I was growing up and working on music, it was always a dream to win a Grammy, but Oscar was so far out of my dream sphere.”

“This would be a nomination of a completely different caliber,” Perry continues. “One that is more impressive than many other ones I’ve had. It’s interesting to step out of your playing field and to be recognized from a different angle. It would be an honor.”

The Academy will announce the five best songs, along with the rest of their nominations, on Jan. 10.

Perry vows that if she were to ever win an Oscar she would make the statue a permanent part of her world travels.

“I would never let it leave my side,” she writes. “I’d take it on tour and take pictures of it with me around the world.”

Either way, a nomination would be enough to get the flamboyant Perry on the most famous red carpet in Hollywood.

“If I had business being at the Oscars, I would make it my business to rock the red carpet,” Perry writes. “Basically I would dress like a winner.”

[From USA Today]

While I do admit that it would be mildly interesting to see what Katy would wear on the Oscar red carpet, I think common sense and decency win out over curiosity on that end. For the love of all that is decent, the Academy just won’t go there, right? If it did, we’d have to hear “Oscar nominee Katy Perry” for the next several years, and that’s just not a world in which I care to live.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet