Oh, baby, baby...

There are a few things that I love in a way that defies all explanation.  These things are essential to the core of my being and my love for them knows no limits.  I love them more than they probably deserve to be loved, but I can't help it because when you really, truly love something there's never a point when enough is enough.  (I learned that from the classic Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts film The Mexican, before I started to hate both Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts.  Apparently there was a point when enough is enough for that relationship.)  But I digress -- the point is that I hold within me the ability to maintain a deep and abiding love to things and people who can never love me back.  Photo montages. Eminem. Diet Coke. The Kennedy's. Root vegetables.  Clean sheets.  Britney Spears.

It's that last one that I want to talk about today.

The legendary Ms. Britney Spears turns thirty years old today.  She who has grow up with us and in front of us, is officially a grown up.  (I go with thirty as the grown up age since I'm still a few years away.  And, yes, I teach children as a job.)  I was first introduced to Britney in 1998 when she was a regular on the original TRL hosted by Carson Daly before he lost the weight.  I was in ninth grade and it was decidedly uncool to love Britney.  That summer, a boy who liked me wrote out the lyrics to Sometimes and sent them to me at summer camp.  Quite possibly the weirdest form of love letter ever.  In his defense, there was also a very sweet 15 year-old boy poem in the package.

To this point, I pretended my love for Brit was just one piece of my impeccably honed sense of irony, but the truth was I just loved her.  My best friend and I bought her sophomore album (that's for you, D.) Oops...I Did It Again as part of one of those BMC/Columbia music pyramid schemes along with Whitney Houston's Greatest Hits and Ja Rule 3:36.  I still know every song on that CD and regularly put What You See Is What You Get (#6 - yep, I know the numbers by heart) and Just One Kiss From You (#8) on mixes.

Then came Crossroads, which I saw in the theatre and, admittedly, it wasn't great.  But it did co-star Taryn Manning who was also in Eminem's Oscar winning (look it up, bitches) debut film 8 Mile.  The only notable thing about Taryn Manning's career may be that she was in Eminem and Britney's motion picture debuts.  Oh, and, of course, Come On Get Happy: The Partridge Family Movie.  When the video for Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman came out, I thought that might be the end of my love affair with Brit.  I mean, that video is horrible.  It's difficult to watch.  Then she cheated on Justin and, I'll be honest, I was ready to leave her as well.  Later that same year the Cry Me A River video came out and the gauntlet had been thrown.  The court of public opinion was siding with Justin and we was shaping u to be the biggest Mickey Mouse Club star.  Britney was facing her greatest test to date, and so was my devotion.

But my girl Britney doesn't play, she came back and she came hard, releasing In the Zone, kissing Madonna and Toxifying America forever.  Some people consider this to be Britney's last hurrah, but for me it was just the beginning.  I realized that if I could forgive Britney for cheating on Justin I could forgive her for anything.

Two marriages, two children, one shaved head and three mental breakdowns later, Britney is still Britney and I'm still here.  If you ask me, she's only getting better. Her latest string of hits has kept me satisfied ever since begging to If You Seek Amy.  Circus, 3, Womanizer, Hold it Against Me and I Wanna Go show that at 30, Britney still know how to get us on the floor.  Even if she can't get there herself.

I'm not going to say that Britney's some great role model, but if you can watch this whole video of all her hits without dancing at all, I will probably say that you're a little bit dead inside.  So go ahead, give it a try.


Happy Birthday, Brit.  If I have my way, you really will keep us dancing til the world ends.

xo kate