Sideshow: Applegate: Laughter helped in the hospital

Christina Applegate

, who successfully battled breast cancer last year after a double mastectomy, tells Women's Health mag that humor helped her through her travail.

"I laughed more in the hospital than I ever have in my life, making fun of all the weird things that were happening to me," said the actor, who encourages cancer screenings through her foundation, Right Action for Women.

She shared her new philosophy of life: "If you get too caught up in the outer, you forget about the inner."

This is the best day of

Lamar Odom

's life: People.com and E!Online say the 29-year-old L.A. Lakers forward is about to become Mr.

Khloe Kardashian

. The couple, who have been dating barely a month, are shopping for rings.

Grammy- and Oscar-winning artist

Jennifer Hudson

, 27, told reporters before Thursday's

VH1 Divas

concert that her 1-month-old son,

Daniel David Otunga

, digs music so much, he may grow up to be a crooner himself. Hudson said she can't wait to watch "who he becomes, who he takes after, what he decides to do, if he'll sing."

Oprah Winfrey

yesterday said her famed book club (

» READ MORE: www.oprah.com/entity/oprahsbookclub

) will next tackle Nigerian-born author

Uwem Akpan

's 2008 short story collection,

Say You're One of Them

.

Akpan described his stories in a 2005 chat with the New Yorker. "I would like to see a book about how children are faring in these endless conflicts in Africa," he said, citing as examples the genocide in Darfur and the experience of child soldiers in Sierra Leone.

Ryan O'Neal

and

Farrah Fawcett

's son,

Redmond O'Neal

, 24, yesterday plead guilty in a Santa Clarita, Calif., court to drug possession, stemming from his April 5 arrest for taking heroin into an L.A.-area jail.

He was given three years' probation and ordered into a one-year rehab program.

An item in yesterday's SideShow about

Jennifer Lopez

and

Marc Anthony

's visit to Capitol Hill on Wednesday erroneously attributed a quote from Speaker of the House

Nancy Pelosi

to NBC News'

Luke Russert

.

In a blog account of the event, Russert quoted Pelosi as saying she found the celeb couple's visit "thrilling because they are so loved by the young people in America." That was Pelosi's remark, not Russert's.

RadarOnline.com says the world's best mom,

Kate Gosselin

, is taping a pilot for her own talk show,

Mom Logic

, with cohost and celeb chef

Paula Deen

and guests

Mel B

and

Christie Brinkley

.