This is what happens when Mom no longer has her kiddies to teach: she starts taking the lovesick rants of Tom Cruise seriously. A sane Today show producer might keep Cruise off the morning news programs ever since his stare-down with Matt Lauer, but it seems like instead they're pretending that everyone's favorite Scientologist actually raised some important issues by dissing Brooke Shields and her Ritalin. Now, it's not even eight in the morning, and I just woke up, and I've gotta leave for work in half an hour, and for Christ's sake Mom, I need some hard news.

I can only hope the summer isn't going to be one big insipid Oprah and The View and Regis & Kelly fest. But it will be a nightmare. Mom leaves her junk all over the kitchen, and I still haven't fully trained her to respect my privacy. Hopefully, Mom will spend lots of time with Grandma, balancing her checkbook, going food shopping, taking her to Dress Barn where they can discuss the quality of ugly old-lady clothes together. (They used to take me with them to Dress Barn and then they'd bitch about how impatient I was when we were there.) Whatever it takes to get her out of the house so I can throw some of my sexy parties, which mainly consist of me downloading porn off the internet.