I read in “Us Weekly” the other day that Jon Gosselin was at some after party for the Emmys. What? What’s he doing at any after party, Emmys-related or otherwise? Jon Gosselin! I thought you said you hated the press. Don’t you remember? Why are you suddenly big news in the gossip mags? And why do I read it so fervently?

BrickBreaker is awesome. IT IS AWESOME.

I give up. I read mysteries. I love them and I don’t want to read anything else. And you want to know why that’s ok? Because I did my time with the great works of literature. When I was a teenager I stayed up all night reading Thomas Wolfe and John Steinbeck novels like they were crack cocaine for the soul. And when I read “The Sorrows of Young Werther,” I underlined pretty much the whole book, thinking, every five seconds, “That is exactly how I feel, that’s just how I feel!!!”

I also want to read the new Dan Brown novel like you wouldn’t believe. I heard you can buy it in the grocery store.

Speaking of BrickBreaker, Nora practically had a nervous breakdown when I wouldn’t give her my BlackBerry today. It was one of those parenting situations where I tried to do the right thing in not giving it to her, thinking, “This kid has to learn that she can’t have whatever she wants whenever she wants it.” Then her little face crumpled and she let loose one of those cries that consists of a huge sucking in of breath and then “WawawawaWAAAAAAAAAAAH.” But don’t feel sorry for the little one just yet because guess what. She’s a faker. And it worked. I gave her my BlackBerry and the “crying” immediately ceased, replaced by the smug, ultra-serious look she adopts when she is emailing all her business associates or whatever she does with that thing.