Today Ms. Britney Jean Spears, icon of teendom and frayed jean shorts and hair and mental stability, turns thirty. Yes, our dear Brit Brit is not a girl. She is a woman. Finally. I think. I mean, she looks like a woman. She looked like adorable jail bait, then she looked like an adorable sex pot, then she looked like an adorable advertisement for Zoloft. Despite her tragic breakdowns and style choices that little spark of whatever it was that hooked us to her hip shakes and bleating vocals, that unspoken talent of making people find you the most fascinating person in the universe, didn’t abate. People didn’t stop wanting to find out what the hell she was up to. And she was up to things: dating/marrying dirtbags, making videos, eating McRibs, birthing babies, wielding umbrellas, rehabbing, recording more albums.

In my heart I want to believe that aging means making better decisions. In this case I’d be happy if she removed that raggedy weave from her head. She can work up to letting us see her real hair, and maybe for now just invest in a better quality weave. I mean, you’d think maturity would include a woman being comfortable in her own hair, which she has enough money to pay someone who is very good with hair, like their job as a hair professional is to make hair miracles and create unreasonable hair expectations for everyone who can’t afford much more than a Goody pocket comb and some discount shampoo. And yet she doesn’t. Maybe it’s because she has been damaged by fame/handlers/managers/family. Maybe it’s because of her mental health issues. Maybe it’s because she plain old likes how it looks on her damn head. Maybe it’s my issue and I need to do what that kid on YouTube told me to do all those years ago: leave Britney alone!

Yes. She is thirty. She is still full of giggles. She is still a sexpot. She’s a mother of two young children. She still exudes the spice of jail bait. She still has handlers, her father is still in control of her finances. She still has to tour. She still has to sell a shitload of perfume. She still has to be Britney Spears, pop culture machine. So maybe she’s just tired, clings to that weave in defiance of everything she’s supposed to be to all people at all times. Go get a nice McRib, honey. You deserve it. It’s your birthday.