I Know More About Celebrities Than I Do About My Sister-in-Law

Why is it that I can't remember my sister-in-law's birthday, but have no problem recalling the names of all of Angelina Jolie's children?

What could be the reason for forgetting a dentist appointment, but remembering that today's the day that Weird Al Yankovic is being interviewed on CNN?

How can it be that I have no trouble retaining useless information about celebrities and extreme difficulty in memorizing my driver's license number? (I finally learned it by heart last year - after having a license for, oh, 30 years or so.)

Memory is a strange and wondrous thing, and I find that the older I get, the stranger it gets.

I really don't quite understand why it's easier to remember a whole host of trivia about movie stars than details about my own existence. Although maybe the fact that we're all bombarded with celebrity news has something to do with this.

After all, when something happens to me or mine, it doesn't make the Yahoo news headlines, or the 11 o'clock news. On the other hand, if Ashton Kutcher has a cold, a press release is issued to all the major networks and blogs.

So it's kind of like I'm better informed about the lives of the rich and famous than I am about my own.

I am amazed at the facts that I know about Paris Hilton, for instance, for no apparent reason. I know she owns a chihuahua and at least one other micro-dog. I know she apparently has no meaningful function in life other than being photographed at parties in designer clothing. And her boyfriend of the moment is ... well, that's probably quite enough about Paris Hilton.

But isn't it weird that I really don't have to explain who Paris Hilton is? That's how pervasive celebrity culture is. Even if you don't watch TV or read glossy magazines, you probably know who she is. That's pretty amazing.

And as much as I personally resist, I get sucked into it, too. When I check my e-mail in the morning, up pops all kinds of celebrity trivia: Reese Witherspoon at a gala! The stars of "Twilight," who have been dating, break up! Steven Tyler quits Aerosmith! AGAIN! And so on and so forth.

It's a solid wall of celebrity news facing me every day, and I don't always succeed in resisting. My secret weakness is looking at pictures of famous people dressed badly. It's kind of intriguing how people with so much money can have absolutely no taste at all.

And then there are the baby pictures. Hard to resist a photo of a movie star with a baby.

What can be done about the celebrity takeover of our minds? It's hard to say, especially when their existence has infected the mass media to the extent that it has. All I can say is try to avoid it as best you can.

And if you do end up with perfect recall of all of Oprah Winfrey's favorite things, and of Michael Jackson's plastic surgeries, well, at least you can consider that it is some kind of exercise for your mind. Think of it as junk food for thought.

Except when it comes to those bad fashion pictures. Then you can point and laugh. Without a smidgen of remorse.