Seventeen years ago today, you burst forth from my belly, Aries — DROP DEAD gorgeous, full of spirit and exuberance, and ready to shop. Your first sentence was, “Do lunch, Mama?”
And today, you spend the anniversary of your birth an entire continent away…in New York City — shredding Fifth Avenue for all it’s worth. Shop ’til you drop, yes — but study, Bets…take it all in. Eye the designs. See how it all works. Feel the electricity in the air. Let the art and artistry intoxicate your being. View the industry you will someday conquer with your own brilliant, original lines.
And remember — you have been “re-imagining” buttons, barrettes, and bits of cloth since you were three. Trust me, with all that NO-talent, tired, horsey design horseshit…Stella McCartney’s got NOTHIN’ on you, chile’. You were BORN to it.
I love you, and stand in awe of the powerful, beautiful, and visionary young woman you have become. I feel profoundly privileged to have been chosen as the conduit for your creation. I created you, yes — but I now want to let you in on a little secret, Daughter: You created me, too.
You see, I was “born” seventeen years ago today, as well.
Happy Birthday.
And go get ’em, baby.
About muffybolding
Muffy Bolding is a mother/writer/actor/knitter/feminist/withered debutante who likes the smell of asparagus pee, and remains obsessed with the bathroom hygiene of her three children -- despite the fact that they are 23, 19, and 16. She is blissfully married to a cute Jewish boy who looks like Willie Wonka, but remains tragically in love with the dead poet, Ted Hughes. She has the mouth of a Teamster, and her patron saint is Rocco (pestilence relief.) Ms. Bolding lives in Southern California, where she enjoys typing words, making movies, and plucking the rings from the fingers of the dead. She was the co-creator and Editor-in-Chief of the award winning satire zine, Fresno Lampoon, and in between writing screenplays, carnival barking, and savagely threatening her trio of darling larvae with a wooden spoon, she currently publishes the zine, "Withered Debutante." More of her work can also be found in the anthology, "Mamaphonic: Balancing Motherhood and Other Creative Acts", the compilation zine, "Mamaphiles III: Coming Home", as well as in The Cortland Review and hipmama.com. She is currently writing and producing for film and television, and working on a book of essays entitled, "Inside A Chinese Dragon." She has slept around, but not nearly as much as she would have liked.
muffy bolding 
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