Obviously, I didn’t. Get the memo, I mean. Twice. In one day. The memo was sent, and I, sadly, did not get it.

1. Hannah Montana. For someone in her 30s, I consider myself relatively well-versed in youth culture. I write for teens, starting with 20 BOY SUMMER. I have to stay on top of these things, right? That’s why I read other teen books, keep running up our cell phone bill to perfect my text shorthand (“IDK… my BFF, Jill?”), and do crazy things like experiment with blue eyeshadow. So yeah, I’d heard of Hannah Montana before. Lots of times. I even tried to embarrass Alex recently in a Denver video store by exclaiming loudly, “Honey, look—they have those Hannah Montana posters you asked about!”

   Imagine my surprise when I discovered, upon clicking through a story about Miley Cyrus (whom I just heard about for the first time ever while watching the CMAs with my MIL – see what happens when you don’t have cable?) writing her memoirs, that she and aforementioned Hannah-Mo are one in the same, and that aforementioned Hannah-Mo is actually a fictional character! I mean, I knew the name was made-up (no one’s parents are that cruel), but I thought it was like a nom de plume kind of thing devised by Disney to sell more tickets to young girls and their parents so they can get more people’s fingerprints. I mean, um, moving on…

2. Boys for Edward Cullen. Scott, my baby boo, was the first. You all remember it, right? Perhaps I didn’t blog about Scott’s unwavering Twilight devotion enough. I didn’t promote his Edward-hearting, me-time-taking, oreo-eating fervor with the attention it deserved. Remember?
   

   And out of nowhere, I was like, aww man, this is really cute, and suddenly I’m getting all emotional… I think I might need a Kleenex or some shit. So the next day, I was like, fuck it, my girlfriend isn’t coming over until later, so I got those Kleenex and a bag of Oreos and settled in for some ‘me time.’ I finished the whole book. And the Oreos. And I’m like, vampires, humans, cool, cool. I really liked it. I told my friend, dude, if you like vampire books, check it out. Now I have to get the next one. —Scott

   None of that matters now. Thanks to my late-memo-getter-doesn’t-get-jack curse, now there’s this guy*:

   
   

   And Scott, sweet little baby bird that he is, has to keep drumming for money (no, for reals. He literally plays the drums). I’m sorry, boo. If only I’d gotten the memo, I could have propelled you into Twilight fanboy stardom status and saved you from the depths of despair. Well, as deep and despaired as you can be when dozens of girls are screaming your name and throwing their bras at you on stage. But still.

Let this be a lesson for us all. What kind of lesson, I’m not sure, but there’s got to be one here somewhere.

*Post-post edit: I was too hard on Twilight Guy. TG is now officially okay in my book. I mean, not in my book that’s coming out next Spring—he’s not in that one. But my book, you know, the one I keep on hand for doling out random judgments such as this.

Anyway, since TG, also known as Kaleb Nation, commented below, I decided I would let him keep the credit for starting all that “Edward Cullen Fan Club for Reluctant Boys” stuff. I’ll be following his hot-boy-vampire reading and research endeavors closely. 🙂