What the hell Friday: dear diary edition

Once again, my thunder has been stolen. If I had a nickel, people.

Maybe you've heard of a little book called "He's Just Not That Into You," the authors, Greg Berhendt and Liz Tuccillo, have been featured on everything — you've seen them, you've heard them, you've seen the book in Barnes and Noble. I've read an excerpt of the book and I'll break it down for you: don't waste your time on men who aren't interested in you and – newsflash – guys like to pursue women. This is freaking genius, Pulitzer Prize stuff! Well, guess what? Now it's a movie. And I want a cut of the ticket sales.

Why? You may remember the theme of this movie from a little-known book called "my diary." What the hell?

Seriously though, I know I was no different than any other girl as a teenager and a single girl in my early twenties, trying to find my way in the dating world and thinking I must have "weirdos apply here" tattooed on my head. My high school friends can attest to the quality of some of my boyfriends, and college friends will tell you how I won over my hubs, Scott. Today I thought I'd tell some of the lesser-known stories that are pure entertainment, but at the time were pure torture.

Back when I was a naive cute-as-heck 16 year-old, I dated a series of losers. I'm pretty sure I could have won gold in the Psycho Dating Olympics. I would have at least gotten bronze (and I wouldn't have smoked pot afterward like some Olympians). So, here's a true story from my dating life circa 1991:

I had a ginormous crush on a boy year older than me, whom I was on the school newspaper staff with, we spent an hour together everyday, our journalism teacher even tried to fix us up, lovely. The short story: he was not remotely interested in me and started dating a girl with two first names a year younger than me, of course she was a beyatch, but teenage boys were stupid and couldn't see that kind of thing. Anymoron, he wrote me a note one day saying he knew I liked him and was not "interested in any extracurricular relationships." Well, me, being me couldn't let this go and had to write a note back saying he was an idiot for not using the word extracurricular correctly. Bold much? I remember telling my BFF of said note-writing, who said, "extracurricular dating? what a moron." Thank you.

So, since said genius wasn't digging my scene, I was totally on the dating market — look out boys! I went on to have a couple of perfectly dreadful relationships, one of which was with a boy who, after dating for two months, stood me up for homecoming. I was one of the homecoming dance planners so that was not superfantastic. Let's see, I went out with a Air Force dude who told me I wasn't experienced enough for him — again, nice! Being dumped for not being slutty was pretty confusing — a compliment? I didn't know. What the hell?

At Louisiana Tech, I met Scott and he fell head over heels for me, obviously, when I was a freshman — but he was older and graduated when I was a sophomore. We did the long distance thing, then took a break or broke up, whatevs. At that time I was an RA in Dudley dorm and had the best residents ever, 2 of whom were the cousins of my high school BFF, oddly enough; and they had a roommate with a guy cousin. I know, weird. Anyfamilia, the roommate's cousin developed a crush on me and asked me to have coffee one day after a library science class and I went. First mistake. His name was Guy (okay, not his real name, but close). We had coffee, he seemed normal enough, I said I'd have coffee with him another day, the next week, whatev. So, we go to the coffee shop again and a few minutes in, I realize he's a little odd. I few minutes later, I believe he's kinda crazy. I decided it was a good time to fake having to be on RA duty for the night and asked him to drive me back to my dorm and we left. I couldn't wait to tell my friends what a freakazoid Guy was and thought I'd made a smart move getting out of this before anything started. Go me!

As he drove past my dorm I realized I was being kidnapped. I thought, "now who would kidnap a chubby redheaded girl?" then remembered "Silence of the Lambs" and started to freak out on the inside. I reminded him that my dorm was getting further away and he told me he wanted to show me a house a few miles away. WTF? Great, I was going to be a person suit, just what I needed. I contemplated how injured I would get if I jumped out of the vehicle and looked around the truck for any weapons. No weapons. He drives to the middle of NoFreakinWhere, Louisiana (close to Ruston) and shows me this dilapidated house, tells me this is where he'd like us to live one day and I realize he is certifiable and he could probably outrun me, defintely run me over with his truck. I'm looking around for the well I'm sure Guy is going to drop me into and hope Jodie Foster drives by. And so eventually (after over an hour) I talk him into driving me back, using psychology, and when his truck came to a stop in front of Dudley, I run into my hall director's apartment and call the Tech police. I recount the story to my HD and the Tech cops, who do exactly nothing about the crazy Guy. I was pissed.

And so it was almost the end of the quarter and I moved my stuff into Kidd dorm, where I would be an RA during the summer. Crazy Guy had backed off and I learned he wouldn't be attending Tech during the summer, so I was able to relax. That was until he started showing up at the dorm almost everyday and Crazy Guy became Guy the Stalker. It got to where I was pretty much trapped in the dorm because he would wait at the front door until I would leave for class. I didn't want to risk becoming a person suit so, I began to spend my afternoons safe in the housing office, hang out off campus at my friend Carole's, and would return at night to the dorm to sleep. There would be dozens of messages on my machine when I got back to the dorm and I was miserable. One night "Silence of the Lambs" came on and I don't think I left my dorm room for over 48 hours. Being away from Scott and having the crazy stalker was taking its toll on this chick. I'd dropped two classes and gained twenty pounds, awesome! So, summer wound down and Stalker Guy backed off again until fall when he started the stalking again. At that point a male friend got involved and Stalker Guy never darkened my doorway again. I don't know what was said or if fisticuffs broke out, but I knew I had never been so glad for a guy to never call me again!

And that's the story of how Kerry learned that bad boys may be bad boys, but then again, they may be psycho crazy kidnappers. So, I won't be seeing "He's Just Not That Into You" because I've lived enough of that, thank you very much.

for when you want to smell like a vampire

Unless you've been living in a van down by the river for the past few months, you've heard of this "Twilight" phenomenon. If the book had come out when I was in a tween or teen, I would have been all over it, but having heard so much about the story, I can't see reading the series. The novel centers a round a couple, Edward and Bella and guess what? Edward's a vampire. Teen girls went crazy over the book, I'm thinking the reason for that is every girl wants a bad boy at some point in her life (thankfully for most of us, we get over this) and vampires rank pretty high on the bad boy scale. I dated a few bad boys, no vampires, although one was questionable, but probably more wolfman than vampire.

Anyfang, seems girls are bananas over this Edward dude and they all saw the movie, bought the t-shirts — it's Twilight madness. Well, if that wasn't enough and you want more Twilight, get ready.

It's Twilight, the fragrance.

You know, for times when you want to smell like a vampire. I don't know when those times would be, but just in case, here ya go. I'm pretty sure it's not to be worn to ward off vampires, but to draw them to you. If it were for warding off vampires, I assume it would smell like garlic, but as you can see, the perfume comes in an apple-shaped bottle. I kind of doubt the perfume smells like apples. From seeing the trailers from the movie, I tend to think it would smell like hair gel and glitter. Them is some shiny vampires. Looks like Edward fell into a lake of fabulous! and came out all glisteny and shiny, like when I dusted myself with the shimmer powder from Smashbox and didn't realize just how shimmery it was. For a man, even a vampire, there is a thin line between shine and fabulous! — Clay Aiken being on the latter side.

From what I understand from reading the author's quotes, the apple on the cover of the novel is to symbolize the forbidden fruit, because people and vampires generally shouldn't date. At least that's what I've always been led to believe, and having seen a lot of vampire movies, I would tend to run away from one.

But, of course the Twilight generation didn't grow up with The Lost Boys and Anne Rice's vampires, Lestat, Louis, or Armand. So since they haven't been properly educated, I guess we have to let it go. And going out on a limb, I assume the kids today haven't read Bram Stoker's Dracula either. If (and I know this is not the popular view) one had read the novels or seen the movies I've mentioned, a vampire wouldn't be the man of one's dreams. Trust me, I've read a ton and I dated a few bad boys back in the day — and I tend to believe bad boy + vampire = kiss of death, literally.

The Secret Life Of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is one of my favorite books. Read it while I was in a book club with a bunch of great women in Canada. Love that book, so I can’t believe this one got past me. They went and made a movie out of it! With some of my favorite peeps, too! I somehow can’t see Dakota Fanning as Lily, but I’m sure she’ll be great. She’s grown up in the past few years. Queen Latifah is August and Alicia Keys is June, 2 of the sisters in the book. They’ve aged down the Boatwright sisters and that’s okay with me and according to what I’ve seen on the interwebs, Sue Monk Kidd loves the casting. So, here’s the trailer. The movie’s out next month, but do yourself a favor and go get the book and read it first.