one Dear ED(electronic diary), Happy New Year. I'm sorry I haven't written lately. I've been crazy busy. Okay, I am so completely lying right now. I haven't done much of anything these past two weeks. Unless you consider staring at my split ends, ignoring my mother, watching my alltime favorite teenage drama,Minors in Malibu, and waiting for school to start as doing something. I so need this winter break to be over. Surprisingly, not doing much of anything has been emotionally exhausting.

There's no such thing as privacy in my house. Having "alone time" is not an option when the Queen is around. Which is why I haven't logged on ED, my dear electronic diary. In only 16 hours, 27 minutes, and 45 seconds not that I'm counting or anything I'll be back at Cactus High. You know me, ED I'm not some freak of nature who gets off on the scent of textbooks or sucking up to teachers or anything like that. I just cannot stand to be under the same roof as my mother, for more than, um, five minutes. I know, I know. How can this be, right? My mother is, after all, Dr.

Bee Bee Berg! The one and only Dr. Bee Bee Berg! Cheers all around! I'm well aware that my mother's diehard followers, who plop on their couches every weekday at 5 p.m. to listen to the good old-fashioned relationship wisdom spewing from my mother's mouth during her syndicated talk show,Queen of Hearts with Dr. Bee Bee Berg, would cut off their right arm to have the Queen hovering around them 24/7. The millions of viewers who watch her show religiously would just love, love, LOVE to have Dr. Bee Bee Berg worm her way into their brains by asking them a thousand times a day how they're "feeling" and if they'd like her "advice." I am NOT one of those people.

Trust me, being interrogated about how you're feeling 24/7 is about as much fun as waking up to a huge whitehead pimple . in the center of your nose. It's been just my luck my mother's talk show happens to be in repeats during my winter break. In televisionland, they call this a "hiatus." What it really means is that she's been at home, every single minute of every single day, treating me like one of her television guests guests who are only too willing and eager to answer personal questions about the most intimate details of their relationships in front of millions of viewers AND a studio audience. I know, right, ED? How personal is that? My mother has spent the last two weeks wanting to talk, talk, talk, talk. I keep reminding her that, at home, she's not on television, that no one is watching her, and that I'm not heading to my room to pout because all my best friends are away. I just want at least a little peace and QUIET! She should know I am the Sponge.

Have I told you, ED, that's what my best friends, Happy and Brooklyn, have always called me? I soak up all my feelings and keep everything inside. You'd literally have to wring my neck and pull out my fingernails one by one to get me to talk about anything personal. And what's so wrong with that, ED? When did keeping things to yourself and being a private person become such a bad thing? Not everyone in the world needs advice or needs to share every feeling that passes through their head. Not that I have any major relationship problems I'd need advice about anyway. Not everyone in the world has relationship issues. Take Zen. Zen has never known about my crush on him. Good thing, too, because who knows if I'll ever see.