Good day er’body. As I write this, it is the birthday of some of my favorite people. What the hell happened nine months ago that I know so many people born on April 5?!
Duh, July 4.
I guess Independence Day made a whole buncha people horny. So many couples were like, “Happy birthday America … Let’s have unprotected sex!” Maybe the combination of alcohol and fireworks made women real fertile.
April 5 is the birthday of my actual blood sister Brandy, my twin sister Kelexis Davenport, my first real boyfriend Chris, a member of my chosen family Brandon Naylor and about six other people that I actually care about. It’s kinda crazy.
I only know 2 other people that share my birthday: my friend Bill and Elizabeth Taylor. (Well, Liz is dead, and I don’t actually know her, but you get my point.)
So today I start the day on Facebook, like I do most days, but today I have a purpose: I wanna wish my people a happy birthday. I like to go through my old Facebook photos and make a post with a bunch of old pics of myself and the birthday boy or girl. I know — groundbreaking. But it’s kinda nice to reminisce. Freaking Facebook makes it way too easy to scroll back in time and remember.
I can scroll all the way back to 2011 when I joined Facebook. Otherwise I have to go upstairs and look at old photos from the before times in these antique things called photo albums.
Most of my old photos never actually made it into an album. I have boxes and boxes of old photos. Many of the photos I have double prints of because I just knew I needed a backup of some crappy, out-of-focus random person. One of these days, I swear, I am gonna punish us all when I finally go through those photos and play the “mamemba when” game.
So anyway, I was scrolling back in time, looking for photos of myself and Kelexis Davenport.
We have been friends for more than 30 years, and we have remained a constant in each other’s lives for all of those years. We have been there for each other through so many of life’s great — and horrible — moments.
Kelexis has been my punching bag and the butt of many of my jokes. She never gets offended — unless the joke isn’t funny. Funny will always beat feelings in our relationship.
She has my back and keeps me from spiraling out of control on the regular. She also infuriates and annoys me like nobody else can, and I know it is probably worse for her. I can be a lot.
You don’t get a lot of opportunities for a friendship like ours, and I am thankful for it.
Looking through all of those old photos makes you realize how much time has passed and how much we have gone through. Many of the older photos I found were from before Facebook — thanks to shady, wonderful individuals who went through the trouble of scanning an old photo just to torment us.
There were photos of us so young that you barely remember that person; photos from back before they had lace-front wigs, and you would have to base-tease the fuck out of your “hair” to make a wig line; photos of costumes that I can’t believe I wore onstage — cheap hoe dresses from the thrift store that were way too tight and short. But you could not tell me anything. I swam in a lake called “Cassie.” My delusional self-confidence was an unintentional blessing. (Ignorance really is bliss, because if I knew how ridiculous I actually looked sometimes, I probably would have quit drag a long time ago.)
Scrolling back through those photos was like riding a rollercoaster — smiling and laughing at something stupid you had forgotten about, or suddenly getting choked up because you see a photo of someone that is no longer with us and you feel guilty for thinking of them less and less as time goes by.
Looking through old photos also makes me appreciate today. I am always looking for a reason to celebrate something. Birthdays are a justifiable reason to eat cake and do shots.
Thank God every day is somebody’s birthday!
Happy birthday Kelexis, Naylor, Brandy, Chris, Chris, Paul, Lance, Ka’aliyah, Ken, Pharrell Williams, Lily James and Sterling K. Brown. Who wants shots and cake?
Remember to always love more, bitch less and be fabulous! XOXO, Cassie Nova