I know I could be grounded for life for saying this, but sometimes I wish my mom could be a lot more like my TV one. Paige Stevens always lets Sam cry on her shoulder. There was this one episode when Sam lost out on homecoming queen to the foreign exchange student from Bosnia. Paige canceled her business trip to Paris and consoled Sam by baking a double batch of brownies and renting The Notebook to watch together.

If I lost a movie role to Sky, I don't think my mom would be baking me brownies. I don't think she even knows how to turn on the oven.

"We should go. Rodney is going to have a fit if we make him wait any longer," Nadine announces.

"Okay, have fun, Kaitie-Kat," Mom coos. I cringe. I don't really like it when she calls me that. "Sorry none of us could make it to the shoot today. I couldn't possibly cancel tennis with Paris's mom, and Dad is busy playing golf with Matt and that casting director from New Line. Those episodes of ER Matty did gave him a lot of buzz."

HOLLYWOOD SECRET NUMBER TWO: Everyone -- and I mean everyone -- in Los Angeles is in the biz. From the studious-looking Chateau Marmont bellhop who confides that he's writing a screenplay to the checkout girl at Bristol Farms supermarket with the two-inch-long fake nails who asks you how she might break into modeling, it's hard to find anyone who isn't obsessed with the glitz, glamour, and piles of cash Hollywood attracts, including my family. Ten years ago, my mom left her job as a receptionist at a cosmetic surgery office in Malibu to manage my career. ( "No one will look out for you the way I could, Kate-Kate.") Three years later, Dad quit his salesman gig at Beverly Hills Auto to become a movie producer. So far, he's only worked on my films. ( "If I help make decisions on all your movies, sweetums, we can rev up your earnings!" Dad exclaimed, using one of his terrible car expressions.) I guess it was only a matter of time then before my thirteen-year-old brother aspired to be the next Ashton Kutcher.

Nadine seems to be the exception. As she taps her frayed Birkenstocks impatiently, I notice she's carrying her GMAT prep book. Having graduated summa cum laude from Princeton, her goal is to stay in L.A. for a few years, make a ton of money, and then go to Harvard Business School. Nadine wants to be CEO of the world -- or at least a Fortune 500 company. She'd be good at it too.