The Awesome Girl's Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men by Ernessa T. Carter

starring in a new biopic about your father.”
    I did a double take. “A biopic. About my father,” I repeated. “You, Mike Barker, are planning to play my father in a film.”
    “Yes, he’s an amazing man and I think it’s time he got his due.”
    Reason #2 that I didn’t date black guys: They were dumb. I mean soooo dumb. For example, they were forever choosing the worst men and making them their heroes. Name any strutting basketball star, swaggering rapper, or unevolved football player, and you’ll find a black man hustling to be just like him. I could only stare at this actor who had stomped all over Tammy’s good heart, who had just told me that my father deserved a biopic because he was a great man.
    “I want to ask you a few questions about your dad, and possibly bring you in as a script vet,” he said. “Call me.”
    He pressed a business card into my hand, and I continued to stare at him, the shock of what he had told me rooting my tongue in my mouth. Iwatched him shake Caleb’s hand again and murmur something. Then, with a squeeze of my shoulder and a blindingly white smile, he was gone.
    Leaving Caleb to turn to me with a very confused look on his face. “Who’s your father? And why does Mike Barker want to play him in a movie?”

December 2010
    Why continue to date a guy who’s not excited about being with you? If the enthusiasm ain’t there now, it definitely won’t be there later.
    —
The Awesome Girl’s Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men
by Davie Farrell

EVERYBODY
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    T he majority of Americans list Christmas as their favorite holiday, but this isn’t the case in Los Angeles. As anyone who has lived in the city for even a couple of years could attest, Halloween is the absolute number one holiday. Angelenos take it very seriously, spending enormous amounts of time planning their costumes and coming up with overly considered, precious party themes like “Silent Movie Stars Who Died Too Young” or “Zombie Pirates” or “Jimmy Buffet Was Here.”
    There was no holiday Los Angeles took more seriously than Halloween. Which was why, in many ways, New Year’s Eve, the second most popular holiday in Los Angeles, was considerably more fun for everybody involved. Like clockwork, a hysterical optimism took over the city, with every model, former comedian, musician, and accounting partner alike believing that the coming year would be the one in which everything they had previously hoped for in the current year would HAPPEN! in caps and with a big exclamation mark.
    2011 was also the year that Risa, Sharita, and Thursday would all be turning thirty, so their hopes and dreams were kicked into overdrive by the prospect of another full decade of their lives having passed them by.
    “Your thirties are going to be so great,” Tammy, who was thirty-two, assured them throughout 2010. “I remember this calm coming over me when I turned thirty. I didn’t feel anxious anymore like I used to in my twenties. And I became so much more accepting of my flaws.”
    “What flaws are you talking about, exactly?” Thursday asked her. Life was Tammy’s silver platter: she had looks, millionaire money, a spokesmodel job for a worldwide brand, and such a friendly, upbeat personality that it was hard for Thursday to begrudge her the first three—even though Tammy had never worked particularly hard to receive any of them.
    “Oh, I have them,” Tammy said with a tinkling laugh. “I just don’t dwell on them. That’s why I think my thirties have been going so well. You’ll see.”
    Back then, Thursday had answered Tammy’s optimistic prediction with the most cynical of “harrumphs.” But when December 31st rolled around, even Thursday, who had recently grown despondent about her career, allowed herself to get caught up in the mass delusion that was a New Year’s Eve spent in Los Angeles.
    However, as much as their group enjoyed being on the same hopeful page at this time of the year, they found