Highway Song's blog: "random stuff"

Just wanted to drop a note.

I need to apologize for my behavior last night. I had a few too many of this and that and got in that mode of feeling sorry for myself.

Its been a rough road and sometimes I feel like there is no point in trying to maintain inside the yellow line.

I have to thank a couple people that were there for me. Helly for one. She is the best. Bounty, I love ya man. thank you. Terri, I see how strong you are and I don't understand how you can hang the way you do. It is truly an inspiration.

With everything going on in my life at the moment sometimes it gets a bit overwhelming.

I need to pull myself up and slap myself around sometimes. Lot of people depending on me and I can't let them down.

Anyway, I apologize to everyone.

Highway Song

Im tired. I am tired of being sick. I am tired of being alone. I am tired of being tired. Why do I have to put up with this bullshit? I was in the hospital Saturday night and came home monday afternoon. My kids didn't call me, my friends didn't call me. Nobody gave a shit. Not like I have leprosy. My attitude sucks. I am beginning to wonder why I want to continue.

My treatments leave me feeling like shit. I have only been doing them a short time and I am not sure that I want to continue doing them anymore already.

If it's your time, its your time. Right?

Doesn't seem like pumping your body full of man made bullshit is any healthier for you anyway. We hear about that shit all the time too.

I have to wonder if it matters anymore.

 

I don't want anyone's sympathy or pity. I am venting. I am mad. I am confused. I am tired. so very tired.

-Highwaysong

Found this motley bunch dancing.

When I first came back to the fu last night there were alot of people asking where I had been. Here is the story for those that want to know. Approximately 2 months ago I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Anyone that knows anything about this type of cancer knows the battle I face ahead of me. And if you don't there are plenty of places on the net that you can find information about it. New years eve I was in the emergency room and diagnosed with pancreatitis. It was a mild case and instead of admitting me the doctor put me on a liquid diet and sent me home. Two weeks later I made a trip to see my kids on the other side of the state. By the time I got there my gut was hurting so bad I could barely walk. I being me, figured I could take care of it myself and put myself back on the liquid diet. A couple days later I was in the hospital being fed intraveneously for 2 days. A visit to the cat-scan and some other tests revealed a "growth" on my pancreas. A few weeks ago I had a biopsy done and the results were positive for the cancer. I did not tell anyone but my family and a few close friends. I told a few of you here that I was having problems and that the biopsy was negative. I am sorry for lieing to you but I wasn't sure I wanted to air it to everyone at that time. I am still having reservations about posting this but a couple of good friends here have encouraged me to share with you guys. Anyhow, this past monday I went in and had the "growth" removed. The doctor said the surgery went good and they removed the growth and a small part of my pancreas. But there is no guarantee that there are not still cancerous cells hanging around in my body. The next step is chemo therapy. I personally would rather go with the radiation therapy but the doctor said that is too localized and the chemo will spread out a bit more to neutralize any cancer cells that are out of the range of radiation therapy. I am vain when it comes to my hair. It has taken 4 years to grow it back to the length it was before I foolishly cut it really short. I don't want to lose it. But I have to do what I have to do I guess. Anyhow. I hope that answers some of the questions some of you have had. There is a lot of information on the net about this disease and some of it is so diverse its hard to sort it all. Basically patients with pancreatic cancer will die. Even with surgery. Mine was discovered early and my chances of survival over 5 years are better than most who are diagnosed. But I also have to face the reality of the situation. I am going to kick up my charity events a notch and live my life as good as I can. Maybe go skydiving or rocky mountain climbing. Anyone know where I can find a bull named Fu Man Chu? For more information on the research being done on this disease or would like to find out how you can help, start at one of these two sites: The Lustgarten Foundation Cure Pc Highwaysong

NEW YORK (AP) — Eartha Kitt, a sultry singer, dancer and actress who rose from South Carolina cotton fields to become an international symbol of elegance and sensuality, has died, a family spokesman said. She was 81. Andrew Freedman said Kitt, who was recently treated at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, died Thursday in Connecticut of colon cancer. Kitt, a self-proclaimed "sex kitten" famous for her catlike purr, was one of America's most versatile performers, winning two Emmys and nabbing a third nomination. She also was nominated for several Tonys and two Grammys. Her career spanned six decades, from her start as a dancer with the famed Katherine Dunham troupe to cabarets and acting and singing on stage, in movies and on television. She persevered through an unhappy childhood as a mixed-race daughter of the South and made headlines in the 1960s for denouncing the Vietnam War during a visit to the White House. Through the years, Kitt remained a picture of vitality and attracted fans less than half her age even as she neared 80. When her book "Rejuvenate," a guide to staying physically fit, was published in 2001, Kitt was featured on the cover in a long, curve-hugging black dress with a figure that some 20-year-old women would envy. Kitt also wrote three autobiographies. Once dubbed the "most exciting woman in the world" by Orson Welles, she spent much of her life single, though brief romances with the rich and famous peppered her younger years. After becoming a hit singing "Monotonous" in the Broadway revue "New Faces of 1952," Kitt appeared in "Mrs. Patterson" in 1954-55. (Some references say she earned a Tony nomination for "Mrs. Patterson," but only winners were publicly announced at that time.) She also made appearances in "Shinbone Alley" and "The Owl and the Pussycat." Her first album, "RCA Victor Presents Eartha Kitt," came out in 1954, featuring such songs as "I Want to Be Evil," "C'est Si Bon" and the saucy gold digger's theme song "Santa Baby," which is revived on radio each Christmas. The next year, the record company released follow-up album "That Bad Eartha," which featured "Let's Do It," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and "My Heart Belongs to Daddy." In 1996, she was nominated for a Grammy in the category of traditional pop vocal performance for her album "Back in Business." She also had been nominated in the children's recording category for the 1969 record "Folk Tales of the Tribes of Africa." Kitt also acted in movies, playing the lead female role opposite Nat King Cole in "St. Louis Blues" in 1958 and more recently appearing in "Boomerang" and "Harriet the Spy" in the 1990s. On television, she was the sexy Catwoman on the popular "Batman" series in 1967-68, replacing Julie Newmar who originated the role. A guest appearance on an episode of "I Spy" brought Kitt an Emmy nomination in 1966. "Generally the whole entertainment business now is bland," she said in a 1996 Associated Press interview. "It depends so much on gadgetry and flash now. You don't have to have talent to be in the business today. "I think we had to have something to offer, if you wanted to be recognized as worth paying for." Kitt was plainspoken about causes she believed in. Her anti-war comments at the White House came as she attended a White House luncheon hosted by Lady Bird Johnson. "You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed," she told the group of about 50 women. "They rebel in the street. They don't want to go to school because they're going to be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam." For four years afterward, Kitt performed almost exclusively overseas. She was investigated by the FBI and CIA, which allegedly found her to be foul-mouthed and promiscuous. "The thing that hurts, that became anger, was when I realized that if you tell the truth — in a country that says you're entitled to tell the truth — you get your face slapped and you get put out of work," Kitt told Essence magazine two decades later. In 1978, Kitt returned to Broadway in the musical "Timbuktu!" — which brought her a Tony nomination — and was invited back to the White House by President Jimmy Carter. In 2000, Kitt earned another Tony nod for "The Wild Party." She played the fairy godmother in Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella" in 2002. As recently as October 2003, she was on Broadway after replacing Chita Rivera in a revival of "Nine." She also gained new fans as the voice of Yzma in the 2000 Disney animated feature "The Emperor's New Groove.'" In an online discussion at Washingtonpost.com in March 2005, shortly after Jamie Foxx and Morgan Freeman won Oscars, she expressed satisfaction that black performers "have more of a chance now than we did then to play larger parts." But she also said: "I don't carry myself as a black person but as a woman that belongs to everybody. After all, it's the general public that made (me) — not any one particular group. So I don't think of myself as belonging to any particular group and never have." Kitt was born in North, S.C., and her road to fame was the stuff of storybooks. In her autobiography, she wrote that her mother was black and Cherokee while her father was white, and she was left to live with relatives after her mother's new husband objected to taking in a mixed-race girl. An aunt eventually brought her to live in New York, where she attended the High School of Performing Arts, later dropping out to take various odd jobs. By chance, she dropped by an audition for the dance group run by Dunham, a pioneering African-American dancer. In 1946, Kitt was one of the Sans-Souci Singers in Dunham's Broadway production "Bal Negre." Kitt's travels with the Dunham troupe landed her a gig in a Paris nightclub in the early 1950s. Kitt was spotted by Welles, who cast her in his Paris stage production of "Faust." That led to a role in "New Faces of 1952," which featured such other stars-to-be as Carol Lawrence, Paul Lynde and, as a writer, Mel Brooks. While traveling the world as a dancer and singer in the 1950s, Kitt learned to perform in nearly a dozen languages and, over time, added songs in French, Spanish and even Turkish to her repertoire. "Usku Dara," a song Kitt said was taught to her by the wife of a Turkish admiral, was one of her first hits, though Kitt says her record company feared it too remote for American audiences to appreciate. Song titles such as "I Want to be Evil" and "Just an Old Fashioned Girl" seem to reflect the paradoxes in Kitt's private life. Over the years, Kitt had liaisons with wealthy men, including Revlon founder Charles Revson, who showered her with lavish gifts. In 1960, she married Bill McDonald but divorced him after the birth of their daughter, Kitt. While on stage, she was daringly sexy and always flirtatious. Offstage, however, Kitt described herself as shy and almost reclusive, remnants of feeling unwanted and unloved as a child. She referred to herself as "that little urchin cotton-picker from the South, Eartha Mae." For years, Kitt was unsure of her birthplace or birth date. In 1997, a group of students at historically black Benedict College in Columbia, S.C., located her birth certificate, which verified her birth date as Jan. 17, 1927. Kitt had previously celebrated on Jan. 26. The research into her background also showed Kitt was the daughter of a white man, a poor cotton farmer. "I'm an orphan. But the public has adopted me and that has been my only family," she told the Post online. "The biggest family in the world is my fans."

Most of you know I organize and carry out a christmas donation/fundraiser drive every year. This year was no exception. Saturday night I hosted a christmas events in the street outside my store complete with horse and buggys, a 16 foot christmas tree, a childen's choir singing christmas carols and a couple raffles to raise some money. I "adopted" out 32 kids from my angel tree, raised 800 dollars for Bikers Against Child Abuse and collected almost 500 pounds of food for the food bank. In addition I doled out clothing, food and toys to 12 needy families from donations I received, I dressed as Santa Claus and delivered presents to 16 kids today and today I participated in a Christmas program at the convalescent center with a local merchant. This evening I took a bike and the remaining boys toys I had and went to visit a local cancer patient. 6 years old. His parents tell me he gets worse by the day but the doctors are pretty hopeful he will pull through. But everyone knows there is no telling what will happen. I picked this young man to be my final stop for my drive. I sat in his living room as his parents told me about his surgeries and his fight for the last couple years. They showed me pictures of him before he was diagnosed and after, pictures in the hospital, his birthday party and other happy times. As we talked I did everything I could to fight back the tears. But there was nothing i could do to stop them when I gave him the bike, the big remote controlled bulldozer, the 4 wheel drive push truck and the other assorted items I had in my bag, and he looked at me and smiled and asked me, "are you Santa"? I didnt know what to say to him. I got down on one knee and told him "no im not santa, Im just one of his elves". He gave me a big hug and went to play with some of his toys. His mom was bawlind, his dad had tears running down his face, and I, well I had a couple running down my face also. Just wanted to share that. Merry Christmas everyone.