Rainey Funerals

It seems that almost every time that I attend a funeral or a wake it rains. Even when we are in a drought like Missouri has been in for more then a year I have gone to 3 funerals including  my wonderful neighbor, Mike Greim's, yesterday. When I was very young someone told me that it meant the Angels were crying for the loss of the person who died and for the unhappiness of their friends and families. A little part of me still believes that today especially for the very good hearted people that we lose. Mike was one of those people. He started his life as a good Son and basketball star at Blue Springs High and then he served our country in the US Navy during the Vietnam War from 1964-68. When he came back, he met his lovely wife Vicki and her son Ron. He went on to start a painting company that grew and coached and mentored countless young boys in Blue Springs playing Basketball, Baseball and Football for 30 years! He lost his wife to cancer a few years back just as cancer took him also Saturday morning. But before he went, he touched so many lives over his 68 years on this earth coaching, encouraging and being a damn good citizen. I'm going to miss my neighbor, my friend. The Angels have you now Mike and you are back with Vicki. God Bless You!!

Lennon

December 8th 1980 was a day that will stick in my mind until....well until my mind is long gone. I actually didn't find out about Lennon's murder until the next morning at school in the hall because my Dad didn't have the guts to break it to me. I have been a HUGE fan of the Beatles and John Lennon probably since before I was born because I honestly don't remember a time when I didn't know about their existence. I was born in the middle of the 60's and adopted into a family of squares BUT, I was the product of a one night stand with a guitar player. So, God and a hand full of people only knows who I really am. Any who..... Back to John Lennon. The morning of December 9th I went to school and it seemed like there was a lot of whispering around me. Finally a guy that I really didn't like very much, Jimmy Vaught, came up and blurted it out "John Lennon was shot dead last night." I fell to the floor and the next thing I knew I was in the nurses office and she was calling my house asking my mother to come pick me up. I was out of school for a couple of days because I was absolutely devastated and heart broken. I remember watching the people on TV in front of the Dakota Apartments in New York singing and crying. "All we are saying is give peace a chance!" I prayed for John,Yoko, Sean and Julian. I cried and sang along with the people on Strawberry Hill and at the Dakota and watched every bit of news that I could find about the piece of crap that killed Lennon aka Chapman. And I just couldn't wrap my 14 year old mind around it. And after 32 years, I still don't understand it. Thank you Yoko, Julian and Sean for keeping John's wishes and music alive. And Chapman, you could never kill John's spirit and love!

Brain Tumors Suck!!!

For those of you that don't know me well, you may not know that I have been living with brain tumors for more then half of my life now. I was diagnosed in 1990 but, they actually started affecting me during the pregnancy of my daughter who was born in 1986. My tumors are attached to my optical nerves and they effect me in several different ways. First of all I do have to say that I am very blessed to still be alive. This is a fatal disease that I have and as far as my last neurologist knew, I have been living with it longer then anyone else has. I also should have been blind more then 2 decades ago. Most people that have this do lose their eye sight and I am truly lucky that I have not yet. My eyes are effected though. I get blind spots and my eye sight changes often. My headaches are daily and the bad ones are hitting me about every other day now. And when I say "Bad Headache" what I really mean is what most people have never experienced in their life. My little ones feel like an ice pick sticking in my eye. The big ones is when it would feel better if someone would place me into a guillotine and let the blade come down swiftly. I can't get out of bed, I can't handle light or noise and I can't even raise or lower my head. The emergency medication I am on helps sometimes but, my insurance only pays for 10 pills a month.
Something else my tumors effect is my weight. It keeps me from losing weight. Well, I did a lot of research and found out that with gastric bypass surgery it would be possible to lose weight but, there wasn't any studies on anyone with my disease having lap band surgery yet. Lap Band is a much less evasive surgery and it is reversible. So... I had my surgery in August and since then I have been pretty much starving myself. I consume about 6 to 12 ounces of food a day and zero calorie drinks (mainly water). And where has it gotten me? I have only lost 45 pounds! My doctor is bitching at me thinking that I am cheating on my diet. I went to my neurologist today and he said I shouldn't have had the surgery at all and might as well get it reversed. Just lovely!
And the news keeps getting worse. The Dr upped all the dosages on my meds today and added another pain med. He is also highly suggesting that I get botox shots in my head to slow down the possibly decrease the size of the tumors and reduce the amount of headaches. Oh that sounds like fun. Let's shoot poison in my head and see if I go blind or what else might happen!! Ya I don't think so. Not as long as I'm not in 4th stage. I'm not afraid to die but, I do not want to be blind only for art reasons. Yes, I am serious about that.
Enough whining for tonight.

The Microwave Generation

The Microwave Generation is what I call anyone born after 1980. They are the people that where born into the life of convenience  and speed. They expect everything to be finished quickly. If their food does not come to them in 5 minutes, they panic and sweat. When things feel wrong to them, they go to the Doctor and get a pill prescibed to them. When they want to stay up late, they drink an energy drink or do drugs. They tend to not have conversations with people or real relationships. They have replaced it with texting and social networking,  things that did not exist until the past few years. I find myself having to go to the Urban Dictionary often to look up the new words and acronyms that this generation makes up on a daily basis. This month I had to look up SMH and SWAG.

SMH Internet speak for "Straddling My Horseradish"
"My friend asked me to help him move but I told him I was too busy smh to assist."
I think this may be wrong so let's try again.
 

SMH stands for "Shaking My Head" usually an acronym when you see the most ignorant, dumbest, or disapointing shit you've ever seen, you can say it rather than doing the the action

"you see that 16 year old over there?"
"yeah"
"that baby tee's way roo small for her, and she's preggo's"
"what's that in her mouth?"
"omg that's a blunt"
"seriously SMH"

A bit more reasonable to me. Now lets try SWAG.

 

The most used word in the whole fucking universe. Douche bags use it, your kids use it, your mail man uses it, and your fucking dog uses it. If you got swag, you generally wear those shitty hats side way, and your ass hanging out like a fucking goof cause your pants are half way down your white ass legs. To break down the word, it means (Secretly We Are Gay). It is also a word that means to represent yourself/ the way you represent yourself, baggy clothes, shitty hats, small penis and basically a way to say your afraid to come out of the closet.

Assface Magee: I got so much swag
Darrel: You got so much dick in your ass
Assface Magee: Fuck you, SWAG

 

All righty then. I don't think I will ever be using that word in my lifetime. So what happened to class, respect and the proper use of the English language? Why do they have to chop the words up like they do? Does it really save so much time to take vowels out of words when your brain has to figure out what the heck the word is without the vowel? And one of my biggest pet peeves, "alot", it 2 words people, A LOT, now is that so hard?

 

When computers became mainstream in the early 90's I forced myself to learn them for work purposes but, I still prefer to write long hand and keep my own files etc. Being a photographer, it took me a long time to go digital but once I did, oh yeah! That is the one thing that I can't go back on now. The days of chemicals and darkrooms are gone for me.

 

Microwave Generation... They don't know what hard work is. Most of their jobs are done with their fingertips and they don't know what overtime is. I can't remember how many 12 hour triple shifts I did at one particular job. That would be 36 hours straight!!! To support my family I did what I had to do and I did it with a smile on my face and I learned how to drink a lot of cappuccinos! No 5 hour energy drinks back then either.

 

Enough for now, I'm sure I will elaborate more on this later. Please feel free to add your comments  =:o)

Progress?

It's been 6 weeks since my lapband surgery and 3 days since my gallbladder surgery. I now have 8 holes in my stomache region and I'm not very happy about that. The pain isn't excruciating but, it is definately pain. I've been in bed most of the time and I'd be there now except for the fact that I'm awake and Rick isn't. Much pf the last 6 weeks has been recovery time. I have gotten out a little bit to do phtoto shoots and errands but, for every day that I go out, I end up in bed a day or 2 so I have really have to pick and choose what I am doing. My energy level has been very low and then my gallbladder started acting up again so I had to have it removed. Hopefully by doing that, the problem has been resolved.
I have decided to move on with my photography work and get a studio as soon as possible. I have friends and a relator looking for a place for me as I'm also searching online. I've found a couple of places but, nothing for sure yet. I want to be able to get in somewhere within the next few weeks. I'd like to get something downtown KC or in the West Bottoms if possible. The older the building the better for me. Somehow it just brings more character when it's an old building and then that brings out more creativity with me.

So, ya this is all pretty boring I know which is why I havn't been writing in my blog lately. The one photo shoot that I did lately that was interesting was on 9-11-12 when I was at the Liberty Memorial in KC and I happened to run into a bunch of Tibetian Monks. Yes, that is correct, straight from Tibet. They were all very nice, spoke English very well and were also funny. I got them to pose for me and strangly most of them wanted to sit up on the wall that had a 50 foot drop off. But, like me I am sure they are not afraid to die so why not jump right up there? In this picture, the monk was pretending to push over the huge urn. So today's story is teaching us that Monks can be fun too! :o)

Rainey Daze & Missing Music

We have been going through a terrible drought here in the middle of the US for the whole Summer. Actually it was an unusually warm Winter that started it with hardly any snow or rain too. Today we finally got some rain. And where did it come from? A hurricane of course. We are about 750 miles off shore and yet the only rain we can get is from a freaking hurricane! Our farm is so dried of and cracked the only thing growing out there is weeds and the pond is down 8 feet from Spring! So thank you Hurricane Issac for coming our way and spreading your precious moisture upon our ground! I imagine the horses were rolling in delight and getting full of mud today. Can't wait to go out and see how much rain we actually got and hope that it made at least a little difference. Here it is almost 1am and I still have the front door open so that I can hear the drops as make their way down and splat on the front steps. It makes a wonderful background noise as I sit here and listen to my old 70's music tonight. James Taylor is crooning at the moment and I could listen to him almost forever. A 12 string acoustic, slow picked and sweetly sung song gets me every time. And I'm going to Carolina in my mind.

Music has been such a huge part of my entire life until the past two years and I'm not sure where it will be standing in the future. Being a singer-song writer and always in relationships with musicians it was my world. I always had a studio or music room that I could retreat to and create or practice. That is no more. My last boyfriend who was really more like my Husband since we did do the ceremony, just not the paperwork, walked away with everything in our music room. He took the stacks of amps, the monitors, the guitars, the mics and stands all the cords and what not. He even took my cordless mics & mixing board and that ticked me off. All that was left in the room was my mic stand in all it's glory with about 80 scarves hanging from it. My mic stand would put Steven Tyler's to shame! Along with him went our band. Not that they were anyone that I really wanted to stick with but, I didn't have a band anymore. After him, I quickly went through two drummers from my past that I shouldn't have but, it's what I know and I was grasping at straws pretty much. It's been almost 2 years now. I blew out my diaphragm singing most likely a Joni Mitchell song and I just got it fixed. Now where am I?

Rick and I have been living together for about a year and a half. He is the first non-musician that I can remember being with. He does know how to play the piano and trumpet actually but, he is not a musician. He has played one song for me on the piano, The Love Story Theme. I thought it was a very romantic gesture of him. He hasn't played anything since but, I'm hoping that will change when the piano is delivered next week for the girls. Our house is so non-musical right now that we don't even have a stereo system or radio in here. Now that is just sad! And when we are out driving together he likes to have the radio off. So unless I get in the car first and turn it on, there's no music in the car either. So maybe this explains why I go out to bars to listen to bands without Rick. He's just not interested and he doesn't drink either so he stays home.

I stopped writing songs about a year ago. Just didn't see the point anymore. They are still in my heart and in my head, I can feel them but, they are being keep inside for now. My life has changed. The seasons changed. My feelings have changed. Change is not always a good thing especially for a creature of habit such a rabbit. So I stay up late at night alone. Being alone is not a bad thing at night and I've being doing it since I was 12 so it is the norm for me. It's when my head is the most clear and my creative juices can flow. I write, edit photos and work on my voice if I don't get too loud. Although my favorite place to really belt out a song now is at the farm and the horses and frogs seem to like it. I'm not sure if I will ever be back on a stage singing again. I don't know if I really want to. That part of me may be dead and gone. I do miss it though so maybe it's just dormant.

Tell me what I want, what I really, really want!

What do I really want to do with the rest of my life? I had a pretty exciting one so far and it's time to settle down. Maybe. My kids have all grown and left the nest. And what's left behind? A ton of memories, photos, nick knacks with sentimental value and a million songs, maps and skewed distorted bits of this and that stored in my brain. Where do I want to go? What do I want to do? Well if I had lottery winnings, there wouldn't even be a second thought really. I'd be on the next boat to Italy. And if by chance I didn't find the right place there, Southern France. I've always liked old architecture. Building that are more then 300 years old shall I say. Some real history and ghosts to them. And I'd want some acreage. 200 plus if I can. I have always needed lots of wide open space. But if I didn't win the lottery, I think I'd eventually go back to Wyoming. I left my heart there, my home and possible most of my bunniness or wildness shall I say.

The first time I saw Wyoming when I was only 10 years old, I knew within minutes of stepping foot on the land that someday, I would live there. My friend at the time Julie Damiani who was there with me agreed and we made a pact to move there at 18 and be room mates. Unfortunately, Julie and I were split apart by unfortunate circumstances and she was moved to Texas. Ironically, when I changed schools, I became friends with another Jackie who lived close by and her Mother moved to a tiny town called Wright, Wy. Jackie went first and I followed a few months later driving her cherry red 76 Camaro that we named "the Lobster". It was an interesting trip for a single 18 year old in the Summer of 84. I thought I was alone, really I did. But, little did I know that I had been harboring a couple hundred tiny ants who suddenly decided to come out of the gear shift all at the same time. They just oozed up and just about had the interior and floorboard covered before I could even pull over in the middle of no-where Nebraska. Another traveler ( a young man ) had been following me all the way from KC and he pulled behind to see if I was okay as I jumped out of the car window and wiping the ants off of my tube top and jean shorts. I'm sure it was quite a site to see. Some crazy barefoot, half naked chick jumping around on the side of the highway with ants all over her and the "Lobster"! After he got finished laughing at me, I explained that the car had been sitting in a field for about 3 months and now I was responsible for taking illegal aliens across 3 boarders and just might need a lawyer. Can he help me get rid of the evidence? Well, we tried to scoop and sweep them up as well as possible and then we started looking for any gas station or car wash that would possibly have a vacuum cleaner. I don't think I ever found one. Keep in mind, this was 1984. One other odd thing happened to me on the way out there. While driving over 80 mph and my left foot hanging out the window, a big 'ol fat bumble bee decided to commit suicide ass end first into my chest. Now if that doesn't make you hit the brakes fast, I don't know what will? I pulled over and plucked the still living bee from my chest and the stinger remained. So I yelled at the bee for a second before I threw it out the window and then proceeded to yank the stinger out. Boy did that swell up big and red fast! Not something that I ever want to do again and I always avoided as much as possible on motorcycles.

I've lived in North Eastern Wyoming three times between 1984 and 1999. Each time I left unwillingly and the last time I left everything behind thinking I would be back in a month. My landlady threw out everything in my apartment the day after I left and there was nothing I could do about it being 1000 miles away in Vegas. Se la vie I suppose. That was not the 1st nor was it the last time I had to start over from scratch. It's a darn good thing I'm not a materialistic girl but, how many microwaves have I bought in my life and I hardly even use the dang things!

I seem to have gotten off track a bit. What made me fall in love with Wyoming? That's kind of like asking me why do I love Joni Mitchell. They are both parts of me. Being an adopted child and especially never fitting into my family made me feel very displaced my entire life. Always trying to find "Home" is the only way I can describe it and Wyoming is the only place I have truly found it. The people, wide open spaces, wildlife ~ especially the buffalo and antelope, the small town enviornments and general freedom that the whole state gave me puts me in the "Home" state of mind. The only other times that I have ever felt that was when I was in love.

What I want, what I really, really want... is to make a living photographing nature and wildlife in the state I love. Take me home country road or I-90.