My friend (and contributor to the Judy Blume anthology), Kyra Davis, has a new book out. - SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING. In a departure from her light-hearted mystery series (which is great, check it out), Kyra tackles the subject of mental illness. With her usual wit and humor, Kyra probes a very serious subject, and one that is close to her heart: What happens when the man you love and subsequently marry turns out to be someone entirely different from the man you dated? How do you recognize the difference between mental illness and the usual marital problems that afflict all couples? How could a man who was so romantic and loving turn out to be bipolar ?

Kyra explores these questions as she chronicles the relationship between April and her soon-to-be husband, Tad, who is the man of her dreams: romantic, attentive and adoring who holds the promise of a normal, secure life. But on their honeymoon—Tad’s withdrawn behavior, his refusal to leave the hotel room, and other disturbing behavior—are cause for alarm. When they return home, however, and Tad reverts back to the man she knows and loves, April rationalizes his behavior during their honeymoon, but she can’t quite dismiss it.

SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING chronicles every step of April’s relationship with Tad, from the engagement and subsequent marriage, through the unraveling and finally the turning point. As April tries to cope with what is happening to her husband, Tad is grappling with the demons that are driving him apart from April and threaten to destroy the one stable anchor in his tumultuous life.

On Monday Vicki and I turned in our book, THE DIVORCED GIRLS SOCIETY: YOUR INITIATION INTO THE CLUB YOU NEVER THOUGHT YOU'D JOIN. And let me tell you, it's pretty damn funny. The majority of the book was written via email - Vicki would write the skeleton of a chapter and send it to me, then I'd finish it and send it back to her. Sometimes I'd get back a chapter and absolutely laugh out loud. Vicki also spewed her coffee onto her keyboard a few mornings after receiving my chapters in return. All in all, this was a blast to write. We fancy ourselves some pretty funny (yet wise) women.

One of the chapters we had the most fun with was Chapter 10 - the chapter on venturing out into the dating world again. Vicki's adventure began with a very, very sad profile on an Internet dating site. She let me read it, and after shaking my head and giving her a tsk, tsk, I asked if I could have a shot at it. I mean, I love Vicki, and after reading this even I wouldn't date her. BORING! She let me have a crack at it, and the result was one kick ass profile that had cyber suitors swooning. Thereafter I was given 24/7 access to her profile, which meant I could check out all the men clamoring to meet our girl. And let me tell you, there were some real crackpots. Screen names that no man in his right mind should ever type out and post for thousands of available women to see. In the chapter we even recount one particularly horrifying event that involved a "reply all" to an email that was decidedly only meant for one person's eyes - mine. Let's say Vicki never made that mistake again (only she did, and I had to promptly revoke her Yahoo mail privileges until she learned how to work the mouse properly).

We also researched several on-line dating options for a sidebar. In addition to the old standbys, we included a rather new site with a novel concept - meeting potential dates through a network of friends. Sort of like LinkedIn for the single crowd and their best buddies (who are needed to create said network). Check out engage.com and see what you think. I signed up so I could play matchmaker for my friends - cupid wings and bow and arrow optional.

The book won't be out until Fall 2007, so you'll have to wait a few months to read about other dating disasters, dos and don'ts - and to spew your own coffee onto the keyboard.

A reader emailed me and said that she couldn't wait to hear my stories of Black Friday. But I don't have any! I didn't do any shopping at all this weekend. Nada. Zilch. What did I do?

- I discovered that if you use the can of Reddi-Wip to shoot whipped cream directly into your mouth no one else in the house will want any whipped cream from that point on - which means more for you! Yeah!

- I also learned that once you begin spraying Reddi-Wip directly into your mouth while standing in front of the refrigerator, you better start figuring out how to keep said Reddi-Wip from appearing as lovely whipped topping bulges on your ass. So we joined the Y on Friday. And then I promptly went out and purchased another can of whipped topping to celebrate.

- I figured out that if you have Thanksgiving dinner at your best friend's house she ends up doing most of the work. And even if you've brought the salad, made the gravy, and whipped up some mashed potatos and several amazing molton chocolate souffles, you'll still feel guilty. So you'll have two of the molton chocolate souffles to dull the pain, and realize that no human being was meant to consume two sticks of butter, eight ounces of semi-sweet chocolate, brown sugar and regular sugar after downing six pieces of white meat. And learning that lesson is way more painful than the guilt that consumed you to begin with.

- Finally, I learned that after decorating a ten foot Christmas tree with a billion ornaments, your children will decide to create an imaginary world of snowmen and elves and other assorted holiday creatures with the ornaments. So your husband will walk into the family room, see 83 ornaments on the coffee table and ask, "Where'd all those new ornaments come from?" And you will have to tell him that they're not new, they're exactly the same ornaments the family had spent two hours putting up that afternoon. And then you'll head for the egg nog and Amaretto, grab the squirt bottle of whipped cream, and lull yourself into a creamy, high caloric coma.