Just when we're starting to get a little bored (okay, a lot bored) with this whole A-Rod–Madonna–Lenny Kravitz–C-Rod mess, a new tidbit comes out that totally amuses us. Today's juice comes from Us Weekly, which claims to have found a friend of Alex Rodriguez who says the Yankee has been "in love" with Madonna for at least six months. During a dinner in Miami half a year ago, the friend says he witnessed A-Rod receiving amorous texts from Madonna:

"He kept smiling, acting as if he was a little kid," the dinner companion tells Us Weekly in its latest issue, on newsstands now. "He told me it was Madonna," A-Rod's friend says. "I was shocked." The highest-paid player in baseball then "proceeded to say he was in love with her," the pal tells Us. "I thought he was kidding, but he wasn't." By February, the 32-year-old slugger had upped the ante. "He said, 'She's my f--king soul mate, dude.'"

Now, we have no idea whether this is true. But the verbiage at least reads right, as opposed to this morning's anti–Cynthia Rodriguez story in the Post, in which a "source" called one of C-Rod's claims against her husband "an absolute fallacy." Yeah, um, no friend of that couple uses the word "fallacy" unless they count divorce lawyers and spokespeople as "friends" (which we hope, for their sake, they don't).

But "she's my fucking soul mate, dude"? That's just too brilliant not to be real.

A-Rod Said He Was in Love With Madonna [Usmagazine.com]