How to Be Loud and Proud

Treat others as you want to be treated.

Sounds pretty fucking simple because it is, however we all know that isn’t the way the world works.

I don’t know how, but my folks somehow instilled embracing my uniqueness as I grew up (most likely because I was an asshole perfectionist who wouldn’t have listened to them one way or another but still). If someone made fun of my vibrantly colorful outfit (think turquoise sneakers with pink jeans), called me fat or four eyes because of my Coke bottle thick glasses, I always retorted “God made me this way. If you have a problem, talk to him.”

Honestly though, forget the glasses, can we please talk about my earrings and sweet blouse?

I was loud and proud before I could even understand the meaning.

It’s not that I don’t give any fucks, I just give zero fucks about the opinion of people who are judgemental. The type of folks who have no right to be judgemental about anything, let alone my clothing choices, lifestyle choices, crazy cat lady status, my loudness, my swears like a trucker but knows my surroundings mouth, my social media sharing, my sexuality, and on and on and on. And, like they (whoever “they” are) say, what someone thinks about you is none of your business. Unless, of course, unsavory opinions about me are shared with me and I can tell one how many fucks I give about their opinion.

That being said, you can imagine my delight when a celebration of all things colorful, shiny, anything goes, you do you partay takes over the streets of Nashville in the fashion of LGBT Pride.  For those of you not aware, LGBT stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. The month of June was chosen for LGBT Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969. As a result, many pride events are held during this month to recognize the impact LGBT people have had in the world.

The impact of my LGBTQ+ friends in my life has been enormous. To me, their sexual preference means nothing more than what they eat for supper. I’ve stuck to those peeps in my life who treat others the way they wanted to be treated and I must say, I have one helluva large quantity of folks I love and adore. If you’re reading this, you’re one of them. And Pride is really a large celebration of love and being whoever the fuck you are – loud and proud.

Pride just happens to fall on the birthday weekend of my friend OMG. Last year, we went and turned up the snark because we thought we were oh so fabulous.

Until I took the meaning of “drag stage” a scosh too literally.

All the snark left the stage.

Outfits are one of the best things about Pride. Anything – and I mean anything goes. OMG just happens to be the most creative person I know and he bedazzled the shit out of some kicks.

Too bad he has no talent.

I decided on a t-shirt from fringe + co for my razzle dazzle.

This New Orleans chick has a love for sparkle that rivals mine. Thing is, she can sew like a motherfucker and creates the most bad ass pieces.

Mastermind behind all things sparkly.

My sidekick creative director, OMG put the finishing touches on my Designer Pussy giddy up.

Just a tiny bedazzle.

My gal pal, M.Star really upped her makeup game from neutrals to mauves in honor of Pride and when I commented, we had this spot on exchange.

My normal crazy turned out fiercely, felinely fabulous.

Not hating my vibe. At all.

When it comes to supporting Pride, Nashville steps up (as any city should in 2019). Local business, news stations, conservative restaurants (thumbs up, Cracker Barrel) and even the Metro Nashville police department join in on the color parade.

The only time I want a ride in a cop car.

Love is love. Love breeds love. This is why I adore that Pride is a family friendly event. Although my Iowa munchkins were enjoying a Peppa Pig (love is love and they love this pig) live show, Princess B adorned her sparkly rainbow in solidarity.

I tried showing everyone my rainbow when we posed for a pic but I couldn’t get my leg quite high enough.

Seated high kicks are not as easy as they appear.

After sweating our asses off while sitting and looking fabulous drowning in our own sparkly sweat guzzling cocktails, we decided to hit the dance floor. Said dance floor was the fountains typically reserved for the squeals of delight from small children and drunk people. We might have fallen into the latter category.

The negative side effect of continuously quenching your thirst at an outdoor festival is the restroom availability.

Ew. Just ew.

Upon barely surviving the stench of the enclosed commode, I came out to find OMG slightly sideways.

Tipsy at its gayest.

When we were walking to our Lyft, OMG was stopped to give his thoughts for a podcast on whether one chose to be gay or one was born “that way”.  He slayed.

Slay Queen, slay.

Needless to say, the day was full of fun celebration for all of the right reasons. I woke up feeling like the most beautiful woman on the entire planet the next morning.

So…Pride was fun.

I applied my eyeshadow with such dexterity, it lasted through sweltering heat, fountain water rhythmic dancing, face washing, drunken slumber AND pool shenanigans the following day.

Still proud.

I basically had to take a jackhammer to it on Monday morning before work, as my lids looked like this – even after washing my face.

MAC glitter shadow base with Too Faced eyeshadows.

All in all, I’m still on a high from the laughs, the people watching and most importantly, seeing everyone at Pride celebrating in however fucking fashion they chose.

We came. We saw. We slayed.

All kinds of proud and always loud.

Couldn’t have said it any better myself.

However you live and love in life, here’s to doing it loudly and proudly.

Cheers!

Weekend Winks – Best Day of My Life…and Then Some

Due to the current football season underway, we were encouraged to decorate our work spaces with items showing off our #1 team last week. Per usual, I went with subtlety.

Just me, over here in my Hawkeye sequins jersey.

Overboard much?

I hate the Iowa Hawkeyes, obvies.

On Friday, we had a pot luck BBQ and there were raffle prizes to be distributed. When it was said that we were having a few “special guests” help draw the raffle names, my interest was beyond piqued. Then, in skipped two Tennessee Titans cheerleaders, which was pretty cool. As they were getting ready to draw the first prize, it was announced that there was one more special guest. My stomach dropped. I was thinking please don’t be the new head coach Mike Vrabel, please don’t let it be the quarterback Marcus Mariota, but pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease let it be my T-Rac. The official mascot of the Tennessee Titans.

See, I have a thing for mascots. You know, those fur coated creatures that accompany my fave sports teams. It sure as shit was my lucky day.

In waltzed T-Rac. My face went red, I screamed like a girl seeing The Beatles on the 1964 Ed fucking Sullivan show, and about broke my metal folding chair pumping up and down on my plump rump. With my heart racing, the cheerleaders started drawing names for raffle winners. T-Rac was the one distributing the awards and I had to get my hands on him. The final prize of the day – a $100 gift card and commemorative Titans glass was on the line. The blonde beauty drew that last ticket and….said MY NAME.

I reacted with real class.

I jumped like a fat rabbit up to get my prize while giddily giggle screaming the entire way.

HUG ME ALREADY.

In the span of 25 seconds, I managed to make a gigantic ass hat of myself in front of my entire office. I also managed to not only maul T-Rac but told him that I loved him AND announced that this was the best day of my life. It wasn’t even noon on a Friday yet.

 

Afterward, the gentlemanly raccoon and his cheering sidekicks stayed to graciously take pics with the peeps.

Four’s a crowd.

I demanded asked the hot mammas to please move over and allow me a solo photo with my main plush squeeze.

Move over bitches. He’s all mine.

On top of being in the arms of a giant stuffed animal, my life was absolutely complete when I made my debut on T-Rac’s social media page as the inaugural “Fan of the day”.  Of course I turned right around and added it to my Instagram.

Stand by for our “Save the Date” wedding invites.

How could this day get any more exciting?

An email went out announcing free cans of wine in the breakroom. I had to steady myself as I sprinted down the hallway to hoard the loot.

Mine all mine – now safely in my fridge and damn good.

My adrenaline was pumping pretty high, so I was excited I had plans to celebrate one of my nearest and dearest gal pal’s birthday after work.

Birthday girl sandwich.

I could hardly go to sleep since I had such a positive karma filled day. Luckily, Ruby Sue was wide-eyed with me.

Too excited to sleep.

With it being a balmy 90 degrees on Saturday, I hauled ass to the pool, trying to make summer last.

Saturday sun soak.

While I was hoping Saturday wasn’t the last hurrah in the sun, my Iowa twins were up and at ’em with a clever activity. They put coins in pans to freeze overnight.

Different version of Frozen.

They had to break the ice open, count the coins and exchange them for dollar bills from their parents.

Big money for Prince B.

Princess B headed straight to the Dollar Tree.

Saturday night my Hawkeyes played and I headed out to Dada CBXB’s to get the tailgate going.

Who doesn’t love boxed wine and wings?

Positions assumed.

The kitty didn’t stay cozy for long, as Iowa scored five touchdowns. You know what that means…

Five Family Tradition winning shots, baby.

Easily soaked up the next morning by my omelette making father.

What shots?

Being back in the maniac celebrate-everything-for-fun-life mode again, I started decorating for Halloween all day Sunday. My fabulous Fabio could have given two shits about my hard work, turning the mini manse into a haunted fortress.

As I was going back and forth to fetch my Halloween bins from my car, it was raining lightly. When I looked up in the sky, there was a full on rainbow. I seriously considered getting in my rust bucket and searching for the end, hoping for a pot of gold.

For like, a full five minutes.

I mean, I had fab karma going on.

Instead of looking for lost treasure, I plopped down in my tub for a soak and a People magazine read (side note – I get Meghan Markle is now a princess from America and all but if I wanted to read about the Royals every week, I’d move to fucking England).

Then it was time for a snuggle down on the leopard couch with my new fall scented candles.

No better way to wind down after an exhaustingly excitement filled 48 hours. Amiright?

Here’s hoping your mascot equivalent finds you this week.

Cheers!

CBXB

Weekend Winks – Loud and Proud

First world problem – a non-working cell phone that carries over to a week.

How the fuck do landlines work again?

My iPhone 6 took a literal dump. Complete with a cracked screen (I seriously replaced that motherfucker four times – FOUR TIMES and each and every time cracking occurred, it had a protective screen on it) and total black out of the phone BUT if I kept it charged, sometimes Siri would work. Bonus, I was gifted an iWatch from Sister CBXB for my birthday and I could use that to talk and text like a fucking secret service agent.

Who doesn’t scream into their wrist?

Wanna know how I felt as soon as I had a brand new phone in my hands?

Hello again 2018.

While I was awaiting my new phone, I was able to hire, beg my gal pal Rasta, into being my own personal paparazzi. My cousin, Tballs and his wife with whom he’s been with so long, she feels like a cousin, Hussy #5 visited Nashville and naturally, I needed documentation.

A trashtacular family sandwich.

Hussies for life.

Dad’s Day required margaritas and four heaping bowls of salsa.

Feel good Father’s Day.

My twins of The Pussy Posse turned six last week. They were overjoyed. Obviously.

Sleepy at six.

Another member of my posse is making the rounds at the vet (and I’m still paying off Ted who’s been over the Rainbow Bridge for almost a year), Precious my chug.

Fainting couch needed.

Pres is 12 years old but truly acts like a puppy in the fact that she canNOT contain her excitement over anything. At all. So, in the recent weeks, she’s been so excited seeing her leash, she passes out for a few seconds. The first time at the vet, we were supposed to keep an eye on her. Then, she passed out upon my return home from work last week (I mean, I do know how to make an entrance into a room).

Vet visit two resulted in a referral to a pet cardiologist AND an order to keep this chug as calm as possible. I sound like a fucking ass clown coming home from work, trying to talk in a monotone voice, when typically my screech could shatter windows when talking to my fur kids.

Netflix and chillin’.

I’m not even supposed to take her out to pee (she’s puppy pad trained) because the sight of her sparkle leash literally makes her pass out. So what’s a fabulous fur mom supposed to do for a little stimulation? Put her in a Louis Vuitton and take her on errand runs.

Most annoying duo on the west side of Nashville.

Preshy even joined First Mate and yours truly for an early Friday happy hour.

While speaking of illnesses and fur kids, Mama CBXB  has two pussies that I may or may not have had a hand in getting her. One is a fucking beast who gives all felines a bad name – hissing and batting at legs and making sounds that don’t seem like they belong on this planet. The other, is the sweetest little baby you could imagine. Yet, they get along.

A beast and a baby.

When I tried picking the beast up over the weekend, I got a little souvenir for my heroic efforts of love.

Finally! I’m sprouting cat hair.

Speaking of hair, look who is the proud owner of some colored locks…

Sorry. Not sorry she’s my mini me.

My nephew, Prince B, is taking after his folks for a love of baking. This weekend it was pizza.

Chef BoyArdee.

The ultimate taste tester.

After a week full of shit show news, it was good to get out and about at Nashville Pride.

Roaming the festival with Rasta.

LGBTQ allies.

One of my fave parts of festivals is gawking at people and boy, this one did not disappoint. The best t-shirt ever goes out to this dude, who found it on Etsy.

Trump is not his safe word.

It was also Tan Boy’s birthday and we had a big time making fun of my blondeness.

Taking Pride a tad too literally.

Pride weekend was a much-needed positive reminder after all of the hate spew coming from people of all walks of life these days.

Love is love.

Regardless of your political affiliation, every person bleeds red, compassion is compassion and treating people like actual human beings is NOT hard.

Image by Justin Teodoro.

Care.

Care your fucking brains out with compassion. It matters. If you need any guidance on how to do this, give me a ring. I no longer have to shout into my wrist.

CBXB