I hate to say "Here's Your Sign", but ...

[apocalypsos]

I was planning on going to Panera again today but the sore back I've had for the past couple of days is raging right now and I woke up in so much pain I could barely stand up straight. So I threw on some sweats and a sweater and shuffled down to the drugstore, where the druggists all watched me shuffle slowly up to the register with a box of Thermacare patches.

The first thing the lady said when she rang me up? "Bad back?"

... uh, no, I'm just planning on wrapping these things around my head because they're warmer and cheaper than hats.

*****

Look, I've got notoriously bad taste in music, which is pretty evident in the fact that I actually downloaded Britney's new song. Yes, really. Yes, on purpose. Sheesh.

Anyway, I was skimming over the IMDb news and caught this news story:

Britney Spears is "furious" her ex-husband Kevin Federline has not been required to undergo a drugs test in their ongoing custody battle, according to reports. Spears lost physical custody of her sons - Sean Preston, two, and Jayden James, one - earlier this month, after reportedly ignoring a string of court-imposed demands and skipping mandatory drug tests. The troubled pop superstar was ordered to submit to random drug tests at an earlier court hearing, after being branded a "habitual, frequent and continuous" user of drugs and alcohol by Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon. But Spears, 25, is angered by the apparent preferential treatment the court has shown towards dancer Federline. A close pal tells British newspaper The Sun, "She is furious. She believes the court is more sympathetic towards Kevin."

I cannot wrap my brain around Britney Spears, I really fucking can't.

If I were Kevin -- and I can't even believe I'm rooting for him in this damn custody battle, and YET -- I would turn around and say, "You know what? Test me. Test the fuck out of me. Test me 'til I ain't got no blood left." Is it possible that Kevin's on five different crack? Sure, it's possible. What's also profoundly evident is that she doesn't seem to be getting that the reason he's not being tested is because he's not the one acting like he's on crack.

Seriously, with the notable exceptions of him leaving the courthouse and candids with the kids from far away, how often have we really seen Kevin in the tabloids lately? Not bloody often. And it's not like he's so endearing to the population that the paparazzi aren't dying to catch him doing something stupid. The guy's an idiot. Hell, I still hate the guy and think he's a total poser, and yet at the same time you'd think photographers would have caught him, like, mainlining smack off the back of a transvestite hooker or something by now. And that, Britney, is why he's not being tested. (Although I really do think he should volunteer to do the drug tests just to piss her off.)

Meanwhile, Britney, if you're wondering why YOU'RE being tested:

-- We've seen the MTV Movie Awards performance.
-- You lost custody of your sons, left the courthouse, and got a frappacino and collagen injections.
-- You run over photographers.
-- You get stoned and shave your head.
-- You're behaving erratically even for a pop princess.
-- You've been photographed walking out of a public restroom barefoot, half-naked in public, and driving around with your kids out of seatbelts. The first two are gross, the last is just dangerous.

Look, the point is that the reason you're being tested and Kevin isn't is that the public perception in the media (and I doubt from the reports I've seen that the private views of your friends and family are any different) is that Kevin is the more responsible parent and you spend all of your time making awful pop music and trying to prove you're not a worthless waste of extensions by stumbling drunkenly into your car with your over-swollen lips and hitting the paparazzi with your car. I'm not saying that you need to drop everything, throw on an apron and a bullet bra and some ugly pumps, go into the kitchen, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, etc. What I'm saying is clean up your act, and you won't have to deal with these goddamn tests anymore.

You keep acting so fucking persecuted, as if the world's picking on you, and the problem is that:

a.) No one's picking on you when you really ARE a mess.
b.) Dude, people are worried. I'm not saying you're keeping people up at night or anything, but people I know who've pretty much hated your ass from day one are just waiting for you to overdose, and not in a good way. I mean, there aren't a lot of people out there who seriously want some little kid's mom to die. And that's another thing -- ten years or so from now, those boys are going to see those photos and ask some seriously embarrassing questions, and you're behaving as if you don't give a damn because you're not going to be around to answer them.

Just ... honestly, Britney, stop acting like you're being picked on. You're not.

Well, okay, maybe a little for that MTV performance. Or a lot. But as a parent? Not so much.

Comments

[florahart]

Exactly.

To everything, actually; my back is a fucking MESS, and I forgot to take more Aleve before I left the house (probably my liver appreciates the break), so I'm expecting to be fully useless in a couple of hours, as the last I took were in the middle of the night. Dammit.

Hm. I think I have a heating pad in my office. Perhaps I should find it. However, this is probably going to involve bending down and looking in drawers. Dilemma. Alas.

Anyway. I see, in the Britney Reports, that she keeps firing people who tell her no. Which is basically her whole problem. There is no one telling her no except the judge, and she has no context for grasping that seriously, real people, regular people, experience a great deal of "no" in their lives. She's like a really big sexy toddler with money and babies (this? is an inherently bad combination), throwing a hissy fit when someone gets in the way of what she wants, which is really pretty sad. I sort of want the judge to tell her to hire, and KEEP, a court-approved personal assistant and nanny for a year, and then only approve people who will totally tell her no when she's being a brat.

[honorh.livejournal.com]

Y'know, after the divorce, people were pulling for Britney. *No one* liked the Fed-Ex. Yet she managed to screw that up one side and down the other within a couple of months. I haven't seen such a waste of general good will since Dubya. The fact that Kevin freakin' Federline is now considered the stable influence in the boys' lives in spite of his dubious occupational status and tendency to breed with anything that'll sit still long enough says it all. She's either going to get well or get dead, and at the moment, she looks like she's headed toward the latter faster.

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

Valerian root is good for bad backs. It's kind of a natural muscle relaxant.

[a-hollow-year.livejournal.com]

I think she's genuinely mentally ill; like, untreated postpartum psychosis/depression, or fuck, just regular depression and psychosis. GIRL NEEDS HELP

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

YES. If it's not drugs, it's postpartum depression, which I'm really leaning towards because she's just trying so hard to be NOT that, you know? As if she can make a new album (however bad it might be) and get some extensions and drink some champagne and she won't feel like that anymore. And if she weren't surrounding herself with fawning sycophants she might be getting some real help.

[ficangel.livejournal.com]

Yes to everything. I have no interest in Britney at all and I still can't stop myself from watching this thing and hoping that she pulls out of the nosedive while doubting that it's really going to happen. I think that she has a genuine mental illness at this point, plus a side of epic loneliness because she doesn't have any real friends who are willing to say, "Boo, we love you, but you are epic amounts of fucked-up, and we're not going to stop saying either of those things to you until you get it." Because I found myself rooting for K-Fed the other day, and then I felt ill.