Spearin' the hoo-hoo

Last night I was out at a real, live adult party. Seriously. The kind with appetizers and booze and rum balls, not just chicken nuggets and Santa sticker books and sippy cups full of white grape juice. It was such a good time that I sat in the kitchen with the cool kids and talked about how one woman got booted from her sorority for smoking too much pot and how another guy has a whole hope chest leftover photos of genital warts from his first pharmaceutical sales job that he's saved to one day scare the abstaining crap out of his soon-to-be child (See? I told you this was totally an adult party. Oh, and not to worry about revealing secrets of the unwillingly blogged as we all know no cool kids read this thing...no offense...and I mean that).

It is probably no surprise or coincidence that after tucking into several bottles of wine (What kind? Who cares? It was an adult party, friends, which I am pretty sure means you don't care what kind of booze you're downing as long as it wears off a bit before you have to drive a bunch of people home. OK, OK, as long as it wears off for the designated driver before you all have to go home. Don't forget to buckle up either, party-goers, the roads are slick this time of year. And adults can be really shitty drivers), the conversation turned from STDs and excessive stonerdom to the Spears grrrls.

Ohhhhhh, Jamie-Lynn Jamie-Lynn Jamie-Lynn. Why must you do this?

Or rather, why must you and your
on-again-off-again-so-not-sticking-around-this-family BF Casey (Casey?
Really?) do this? (If you are shaking your head at the screen and
wondering, "Who is this Jamie-Lynn Spawn of the Spears Family Who Will
Spawn Even More of the Spears family you are speaking of, just keeping
shaking and pretend you know until some Zoey 101 fanatic in your
household emerges from their playroom screaming uncontrollably).

Why
must you, so cute in your red shoes and sassy little black dress with
your TV show and all the promise in the world to put a pretty gold star
on the over-exposed child star/sibling reboot to the family reputation
good behavior chart? Why are you a pair of clippers, a big bag of
"meds," an "exhaustion"-fueled "vacation" and a bunch of paparazzi pics
of a lesbian encounter at The Palms away from your big sis?  Why couldn't being Auntie JL be enough, sugar?

In our conversation, some more critical questions were posed -- like, if Jamie-Lynn dated her baby daddy for a "long time," does that mean they first hooked up at the seventh grade Sadie Hawkins dance? And if she's planning on being a single mommy, does that mean she and I could totally meet and become sort of big sis-lil sis BFFs on some MeetUp message board?

And wasn't Brit-Brit and JL's mama
writing some kind of book on parenting? Are the editors stopping the
presses to add in (or possibly, subract) the section on teenage
pregnancy?

And finally, WHAT THE HELL?

Clearly, clearly,
every woman (Spears grrrls included) has the right to choose, has hard
and fast and very personal decisions to make about the expression of
her sexuality and conception and even how to proceed with or terminate
a pregnancy. That's a given. And you know me, lovelies, I am completed
committed to reproductive justice, even for people in Hollywood (or
Louisiana, as the case may be).

So why then does it feel so
crazy, offensive even, that JL's giddily sporting the "I'm not fat, I'm
preggers" tank top to the Shrek Christmas movie on DVD premier? Why?

Is
it because her sister's so effed up? And a mother? Or could it be that
it is still painful to see a pregnant teenager? Could it be that she's
cute and perky and could have been a candidate for a private tutor in
her trailer (on the set of the TV show, not the family home,
people...come on) to earn college credit toward some degree in...oh, I
don't know...nursing or pre-law or fashion design to support her
inevitable thong line or teeny-tiny doggy gear? 

What is it that makes Jamie-Lynn
getting Speared so strange, crazy and discussed, even at very
important, way cool, chic and sophisticated adult holiday parties?

At
the end of the conversation, wife of the genital warts photo guy told
me I must blog about all of this. And you know, she was right. She's
also pregnant and a reader (say hi to my mom and four people from
God-only-knows-where in the blogosphere, Jenna!), so she obviously has
her finger on the pulse. Which is, sadly and honestly, probably what
got Jamie Lynn and Jenna in so much trouble in the first place
(ba-dum-dum).  My point is that, yes it is to bad about the Spears
spiral into tabloid and random mommy blog shame. And it is a head
shaker that she's pregnant.

And finally, that I actually got
out of my yoga pants spotted with soy butter and gingerbread yesterday,
put on real real clothes and sat in the kitchen at an adult holiday
party with a glass of good wine and some highly successful, incredibly
intelligent, reformed followers of a range of pharmaceuticals, totally
tuned in adults. And Jamie-Lynn's baby bump is what captured our conversation.

And
isn't that great? Isn't it good news that I got all dolled up and went
out with other people who don't insert the words poop, penis or booger
into every other sentence and talked about wee Jamie-Lynn's afterschool
special affairs?

To that, all I can say definitively is:
Happy wackadoodle holidays. Happy wackadoodle holidays.   

Comments

[zoe]

I'm sooo jealous you went to a "big girl party". What is our fascination with the Spears girls anyway...I guess maybe it's like watching a train wreck. You know there will be limbs hanging out the windows..blood..but you just have to see if someone...anyone...will be ok.