Love Me, Mean It

Ever know one of those annoying people who won’t shut the fuck up their birthday? Well, now you do.

Cause I love me some me – especially when it’s my time to shine, celebrating the day I graced Earth with my presence. Candles, crowns and a crowd have always accompanied my birthday.

I think far too many folks don’t celebrate themselves to the fullest and that’s a goddamn shame. Shouldn’t we live every day like it’s our birthday? Show ourselves the same self love we celebrate on our day of birth because as my Gma Morris always said, “another birthday is better than the alternative.”

I’ve always loved my fucking birthday. Maybe it was because when I was growing up, parties felt epic because living in small Iowa town, all of the kids from class were invited.

Maybe it was because I share a birthday with my cousin B (LUCKY HIM) and we always got together to celebrate and that meant two parties for me – one with friends, one with fam. He’s the thrilled kid on the left of the pic below.

Either way, I lived to par-tay and last year, Rona really fucked that shit up.

But this year? Oh hell to THA NO. This year my birthday month was going to be honored and acknowledged by yours truly every.single.day of March. Of course, I had some help.

Why thank you, however did you know? Maybe me announcing it daily on IG stories?

The champs popped March 1, 2021.

Why wait for just one day to celebrate?

As a visual reminder, I wore a headpiece or birthday crown daily for all to see.

Cheers to meeeeeeee!

While talking about my second birthday in Rona non-stop, I preemptively took the day off of work in honor to appropriately concentrate on the very important task of celebrating me.

And in case I forgot, I got reminded. (My gawd I have fabulous friends).

When the actual day arrived, I made use of my made just for me booze holder that reads “Happy 2nd Covid Birthday” and filled that sucker up with a Skinny Pirate.

Then I hopped back in bed with Prissy and The Pussy Posse to do whatever the fuck I wanted. To start, I read every single text, social media posts about my birthday and direct messages. Please exit this post immediately if

A) You do not like me.

B) You do not like reading gushingly love filled messages to me that I am going to unabashedly share.

Consider yourself warned.

One woman we have to thank for my love of celebrating every.fucking.thing is Mama CBXB who chose the most appropriate photo to commence the day (and goes to show that I’ve been authentic since birth).

Cutest little faces with well wishes!

After feeling all of the love, I worked out with my fave trainer I found on Instagram last year during the pandemic. She runs the Body By Trainor Experience (@bodybytrainor) and posts workouts daily on her IG page for free. The heart pumping, along with the fact that we are long lost twins, accompanied by the virtual friendships culminated through this community has made me one motherfucking lucky gal.

I even had a workout named after me – HEYOH!

While I didn’t make the 6am live workout, I enjoyed doing it at my leisure along with Hot Mama and Bella in Chicago, and my fave Beast from Canada.

If you had told me a year ago that I would have an assortment of weights that I used almost daily, I would have laughed masklessly in your face. This year, I am clean pressing 20lbs! What? What?

These weights were gifted to me throughout the year by fellow group members. I was using wine bottles and cat litter prior to graduating to real weights.

One friend sent quite a fabulous workout outfit but in lieu of sweating in it, I decided to celebrate in it.

I’m not at a point where I’m ready to go midriff baring however, one’s birthday in isolation is a different story and after I put “It’s My Fucking Birthday” sash on, I threw caution to the wind.

One thing I did not count on was a delivery needing signature. I was back brushing my pearly whites when the knocking didn’t cease on the Mini Manse door.

Pretty sure no one was going to be able to look past my homegrown Rapegate boobs.

Oh hello Dizly delivery from my bestie M.Star. I put this to use the moment the ogling delivery dude left (I hated no moments of it).

Now an annual celebratory must.

Spoke to friends who I’ve only “met” virtually in Canada, North Caroline and Chicago!

Got to talk to my great aunt Marge who puts us all to shame in the game of celebrating. I remember my first time drinking with her, she brought a bottle of champs to Christmas and said soon after, “Did I drink all of that? Who can we prank call?”

Soon after, I enjoyed the rest of my evening on the phone chatting with friends and family while mauling Prissy and the Pussy Posse.

The following day was Friday and it was gonna be my first time back at the watering hole that holds half of my heart.

Birthday gift cards are the best!

Last year was the first birthday I didn’t spend at Dalts since moving to Nashville due to that cunt Rona. So while this year was still tame due to restrictions, I got to go to the bar, see my fave libations pourer, Marja and par-tay with my closest regulars I hadn’t seen in a year.

Skinny Pirate #1.

My lovely Strawberry Blonde met me and stayed sober while I accepted gifted drinks from other patrons at the bar.

A forced photoshoot is never a surprise when you’re with me, either.

1,765,812 more candid photos follow this one, naturally.

I mean, who doesn’t wear a full length pink and gold sequin cape casually?

As you can imagine, my quiet, quiet voice, my very subtle outfit and me shouting every time someone walked by “IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!” drew a teeny tiny bit of attention. Unbeknownst to Strawberry Blonde and myself, a fellow customer quietly paid my our tab. We didn’t know it until the end of our eight hour stay but she’d said “I love seeing women celebrating themselves.”

My Sugar Mama requested a photo before she left and prior to my knowledge of her picking up what wasn’t a cheap tab. It was so fucking nice. Like, beyond.

Strawberry Blonde awarded me with a trophy that said “Congrats on Adulting” and I tell you what, we all deserve goddamn prizes for trudging through the last fucking year however we saw fit. This will be the one and only time I throw my weight behind “participation” trophies for all.

The rest of my birthday weekend was spent in bed with The Pussy Posse, Prissy and pizza.

I can’t muster one complaint about celebrating my face off for 31 days. The accessories. The brazen daily announcements regarding me. me. me. all month long on Instagram. The outfit that dared me to bare my belly that’s not quite ready for bikini season yet. The reminder that I excel in the art of not giving a fuck.

So here’s to celebrating you, me and our ability to *almost* emerge shitshow after shitshow of 2020 to a newish norm. Just beware you may wake up looking like this the 32nd morning of your birthday shenanigans.

And it was worth every fucking second.

Cheers to us.

Love ya, mean it.

CBXB

BUY ME A DRINK!

Heavenly at Seventy

My beloved Aunt Crazy Pants passed away after a valiant fight against terminal lung cancer (after never smoking a goddamn cigarette in her life). By the time cancer was found through an unrelated surgery, it had already spread everywhere but her brain and she was given six months to a year to live in July of 2016. Well, being a feisty little bitch, she survived with cancer 370 days.

Beat cancer for five extra days. Suck it.

Today is ACP’s heavenly birthday and she would be turning a very young 70. Ever since her passing in September of 2017, we keep celebrating the fuck out of one of our favorite crazy ladies. We always cheers with her fave cocktail – specifically from The Cheesecake Factory – a gin rickey.

Celebrating ACP’s first heavenly birthday together, Mama CBXB and I did what all mother/daughters do to bond. We got tattoos of ACP’s signature. We were the first ones at the tattoo shop that day and acted like we’d never been in a place of permanent ink before.

Totes normal Saturday with static in our hair.

In fact, we’d been several times with ACP to get her tattoos, so we brought her along in pictures. 

She was there to witness our ink ups.

The photo I chose was of me holding her hand while she got her first tattoo. It was at the Lake of the Ozarks non-world renowned Tattoo Ted’s after a day of coving out and cocktails.

Mothers and daughters who tattoo together, PARtay together.

We then went to our fave spot on Broadway in Nashville, Robert’s Western World to keep the celebration alive.

We love sharing stories and peeing our pants over shit she would say or do (she literally shit her pants during a shopping trip at Target with her mom once. When ACP shared why she had to rush to the bathroom, Gma might have well been on the store’s loud speaker and announced loudly, “YOU SHIT YOUR PANTS?” For the record, I’ve also shit my pants at Target. Must run in the family….). I just got an eye roll (sorry Gma) and a belly laugh (you’re welcome ACP) from the sky, I’m sure. We’d often witness tears running down her leg from laughing so hard and we have fun remembering the spirit this woman, mother, daughter, sister, crazy fun aunt and loyal friend to countless people sprinkled throughout our lives.

To say there’s a hole in my soul doesn’t do it justice, as my aunt was like a mother to me and I take after her in many lovely ways.

I carry the torch for her klutziness (I fell into her closet after getting out of her bed – still in my emerald green stilettos and funeral dress – the day after her funeral).

Humor helps klutzy broads.

We also can ruin phones like nobody’s business. She would constantly drop hers in a toilet, I run my over with cars. It’s a special talent.

I carry her ability to get tongue tied at any given moment (I asked a male co-worker at a new job if “these are the size of rubbers you wanted” – I forgot the word band after rubber). She constantly called my boyfriends the wrong name. I once dated a guy named John for a few years. He answered the phone when she called once and, for whatever reason at a loss, she said, “uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh GARY?!”

Quite the combo.

I have the ease of her unabashed bluntness and no fear of confrontation (she deemed me the biggest bitch of the family before she passed. I know, so sweet).

Whether ya wanna know the truth or not, ya gonna hear it. Even if we look like ass clowns with delivery.

I will honor her by eating double what I normally do during trips to the Iowa State Fair when this bitch Rona finally gets the fuck outta dodge.

Being a crazy aunt is something I’m already all over.

Or rather, they’re all over me.

I was born with her dramatic flair for life, so that bonfire was lit long ago within me.

Jazz hands for life.

While it’s important to remember that when someone may no longer be among us on earth, our relationship with them can still exist, it’s also important to remember the quality of life given during an especially grueling battle with cancer. ACP’s youngest son R. Nasty made sacrifices I can’t say many young adults his age – let alone any adult – would do to care for his dying mother. I mean before being diagnosed with cancer, she was already the most dramatic woman on the planet (like bitching about “having” to pack to go to Hawaii – or any other fabulous destination…yeah, poor thing), so you can imagine the sheer joy the magnification of her theatrics became.

Flair for fun dramatics.

R. Nasty moved in with his mom (all young men’s dream come true) being closest in proximity and able to make accommodations to do so, while his other brothers and extended family lived further away.

All other Bros and Hos live far away.

He answered every time she hollered with a patient, “yes Mother,” sauntered into her room after every bell ring (a sound that will surely haunt him for the rest of his days), removed an ice cube each time he accidentally put four instead of three into her water and endless other duties that come along with caring for a cancer patient.

The true meaning of ‘got your back’.

My point is, this dude is a fucking saint. Throughout all the treatment routines, doctor’s appointments, therapy, surgeries, etc, ACP’s absolute favorite time was watching The Late Show with Stephen Colbert with R. Nasty every weeknight. Even if she dozed off in the evening as she got more cancer riddled, she wanted to be woken up to watch Stephen Colbert with her son.

Wake me up before you go go.

In the evening on August 31, 2017 my feisty aunt was taken from home hospice to the hospital. That night, as the end was drawing near, the room full of family was clearing out and R. Nasty leaned in and said, “We’re going to watch Stephen Colbert one more time, Mom.” And that they did. She died at 3am on Friday, September 1^st, 2017.

While we’ve partied in every way possible in honor of Aunt Crazy Pants’ love of life, I’d like to acknowledge the sacrifices her son made so selflessly. When asked about it he always says (and still does), “it’s my honor to take care of my mother.”

So how can you show a small token of appreciation in return to a son who lost a friend, a mother and a fucking funny lady all rolled into one? Sister CBXB came up with a great idea, reached out to me to execute (why do I have to do all the work?) and with the help of some letter writing, reaching out to every.single.contact I have and making them reach out to every.single.contact they have, magic happened.

Through the efforts of fabulous friends and the help of family, we were able to pull this shit off and I scored two VIP tickets (yeah, you read that right – VIP bitches) to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. R. Nasty and I graced the Big Apple for a taping of the show, celebrating ACP in NYC.

The start of my 28 hour stay.

R. Nasty flew from Iowa, I flew from Music City and we met at the airport. Sounds like a meet cute except we’re cousins. 

Of course I had to document every.single.moment of our celebration trip and ever accommodating, R. Nasty indulged me.

VIPs Baby!

See me? I’m the blonde in center of the row. The guests were Lucy Liu (boring) and Henry Winkler (fun).

Regardless of R.Nasty’s twisted ankle and me accidentally crashing a rapper’s photoshoot in Time’s Square, we had a fabulous trip celebrating ACP’s life with a whopping side of shit show. We were only there for what some would say resembles a long layover but it was worth every second.

Oh I’m sorry, this is a prop for your photoshoot? Sorry. Not sorry.

The deeper the love for someone, the deeper the grief. For grief is the price we pay when someone we love the fuck out of departs us for greater pastures. For me, celebrating their life and what they loved makes me still feel connected. And boy, does the grief still run deep for those of us who loved ACP.

We all miss you something terrible.

Cheers to the craziest fun aunt I got to call mine. I promise to quietly laugh my ass off at memories of you (after probably tripping and falling down some stairs first) forever.

Join me in raising a gin rickey high to the sky tonight in honor of the Aunt Crazy Pants in your life. Throw on a little green (emerald or kelly green to be precise) if you really wanna kiss some ACP ass.

Happy Heavenly Birthday Aunt Nancy. 

Love ya, Mean it.

CBXB

BUY ME A DRINK