in between thoughts...

So against all better judgment, I let Janey follow up on some early big talk from me, and have agreed at her urging to sign myself up for the 10k run on Ottawa Race Weekend. Wanna see some hurtin'? Well, come on down!!! (It appears that Husband and the childrens won't make it, as it's an evening run. That plan may change, but right now, it looks like Janey and I are responsible for running and cheering at the same time.)

Right.

So I was discussing this with Mrs. Maiden - the run, not the cheering - and my suspicions that it might not quite be as easy as, well, Janey promises.

'Ooh', said Mrs. Maiden, 'I need to get you that info for the library program' [the Tucson library allows you to download books 'on-tape' to load on your i-pod for listening literacy. They don't care where you do it from, as long as you have the library card number. So, conceivably, I could be listening to books while I'm trying to kill myself through adding impossible distances.] 'That would be great, mom', I said, 'I'll try it. Currently, I've been listening to really loud music to help me keep going. And you know, Britney says I can do this....' [actually, Britney asks me to let her break the ice, to allow her to get me right. She tells me that she's miss bad media karma.... and also, pant, pant, pant....]

'You're listening to her?' Mrs. Maiden said, 'What else is she telling you - shave your head and have babies???'

Heeeeeeeeeee.

And then the discussion degenerated [as it always does] into more talk of Britney and in particular, how much her 'life' [read life prison sentence] sucks. I mean, she has tons of money, we might imagine, but she can't spend it, or leave the house, or talk to ANYONE because they all run to the press. She can't even talk to the people she pays to be her friends, because they do too. Her parents are too busy being her gaolers to talk to her.

She's done everything she can think of to break out of her iron clad gilded prison, but she's stuck. Crazy or medicated, well-behaved or not, it doesn't matter what she does. Take her pants off? Shave her head? Behave perfectly normally while on medication? Trapped under the fame microscope and held there in the shining glare by her parents. They sold her, and they're making sure their investments of time and energy are going to darn well pay off.

And then I was running the other night, and it hit me (these things used to happen in the twilight between sleep and awake, but I don't get that anymore. So it's during running.)

Jamie really isn't as stupid as people thought. She's not.

I think she took a look at what happens when your parents sell you to Disney and wanted out. And I think she saw that she had a limited time to do it - Britney's behaviour has changed nothing in her situation but make it an even tighter bind, and only a few short years separate them. So I think she took the first out she was offered, and got pregnant. Sure, there's some notoriety (or was) but I'm pretty sure there's enough money for her to be able to live normally for a good long time. Lynn ensured that when she sold the picture rights to that baby.

But she's free. She'll be on those 'where are they now' shows, but she's living a life of her own choosing.

Who knew we'd cheer for the 17-year-old mom?