Cruise control?

Normally I don't pay much attention to celebrity goings-on, much less blog about them, but the more I hear about the whole Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes affair, the more disturbed I am.

Not that I have any beef with "love at first sight" (Been there, done that, got the wedding ring), or with him openly declaring his love in a big to-do on a talk show. Granted, I think Cruise is a little old to be doing that, but new love can make someone giddy. And it's certainly not that I've ever had any sort of crush on him myself. Yeah, he might be considered better-than-average looking, and I liked his acting in Last Samurai, but he's never made me weak in the knees, not even in his Top Gun days. (Ioan Gruffudd, on the other hand, I find rather easy on the eyes...but I digress.)

What gets me are some of the strange things I've been hearing, both about Cruise's blathering about psychiatry and drugs, and about some rather suspicious circumstances regarding Holmes' sudden change of lifestyle. A sensible young lady disappears for two weeks, then suddenly fires her manager and agent, cuts off a long-time friend, and renounces a religion she apparently devoutly practiced.

Something is rotten in Denmark, indeed. You don't just wholesale discard your formative belief system at the drop of a hat, even for love. Not if they have two brain cells to rub together, anyway. Yes, people do convert - I did. But my conversion to Catholicism took time - time for my mind to explore, to decide, to vet against what I believed deep down. It was not a decision made lightly, or quickly.

And certainly not one made without reservation within a fortnight.

So either Katie Holmes is supremely stupid and impressionable, or there's something darker going on.