Kathy and Louise

All of us have had pivotal moments in our childhood. Whether its an epiphany of age versus time or friends who helped to shape who we have become in our adult lives, there's always those ear mark moments that we remember throughout life, like a favorite poem in a book with the corner of the page folded down so we don't forget where it is. I've had MANY of those moments and I've been blessed with a good memory to remember most of them in immense detail. Some people I know (including my own brother) have managed to block out most of their own childhood.

When I first moved to Victorville CA at the ripe old age of 8 years old, I knew right off that I would have a hard time making friends. It was a while before I had even one friend, and that was my Great Dane named Lady. The neighbor girls Rachel and Rona were friendly, but both were quite a bit younger than I was. They were ok to play with, but we didn't become real friends until we had all been neighbors for a few years. Tina next door was older than I was and nearer my brothers age than mine, and her younger brother was still in the "girls have cooties" stage of life. By the time I was 9 I had all but given up on making any real friends.

I think Kathy and Louise moved into the "Circle" around the same time. They made friends with one another before I discovered the two of them while walking my dog one day. They invited me to play with them. I still remember the game.

It wasn't long after Christmas and all the scraps of used wrapping paper were fluttering in the ditch looking very much like one large gift to us, while to others it looked like a massive junk pile. The three of us (and my dog) spent the day right there in the ditch. We would pick up little bits of trash like old coke bottle lids and discarded nickles and then wrap them in the old bits of paper without using any tape. Then we would give them to one another and play "Christmas Morning" over and over until all the bits of paper finally blew away. They were never bits of trash to us though. That old coke bottle lid was a Barbie hat. The discarded nickel was exactly that - money! Even the used Popsicle sticks had a purpose when we were building rock castles for our toys.

Once all the paper was gone and we were looking for another fun activity, we went to Kathy's front porch where we would pick up the flat desert rocks from the garden and build things on the sidewalk with them. We would build as high as we could before they would tumble all over and we would have to sweep them up. Eventually we developed the Pony Playhouse system. We would build open-top castles for our toys at first. We couldn't figure out how to keep a roof from caving in on them. With the Popsicle sticks we collected with the Christmas game, we finally figured out a plan. They would hold the roof and door frame together so things wouldn't go crashing in around the My Little Pony inside. Later on we abandoned that idea though. It was too hard to get the ponies in and out, unless they were in prison.

Kathy and Louise were easily the best friends I ever had in my childhood. I spent every waking moment with them. Sure, we had our arguments and I would spend a couple of days sulking on my own, or Kathy wouldn't come play with Louise and me. But as best friends always do, we got over it and we moved on. In no time at all, we were like the three amigo's all over again.

Both Kathy and Louise had beautiful blond hair. I always wanted to be like them when I was a kid. I didn't know too many blond kids, and both of them were so pretty. They had the faces of angels, while I looked much more like a troll. Kathy had bangs that were often cut too short and usually always had a pony tail, while Louise had gorgeous naturally wavy hair, like Sleeping Beauty herself. Kathy always had an extremely high opinion of herself while Louise was too humble to take credit for anything she did. It seemed the blond hair was the only thing my two best friends had in common, other than an overwhelming love of all animals.

Louise was obsessed with Bugs Bunny (and loved rabbits everywhere) while Kathy shared my adoration of horses. Louise wasn't allowed to have friends over very often, just like me, while Kathy was always wanting us to play in her room. Louise and I both had an older brother, but they didn't get along much that I recall, other than a brief month one summer where they went into the desert and dug a fort into the dirt. Kathy had one older brother and one younger, named John and Mikey. I had such a crush on John back then. I didn't dare ever tell Kathy that. Kathy and I were both very competitive while Louise was very relaxed and patient with us. Louise was always kind and gentle to all thing and people, while Kathy occasionally had a cruelty streak in her that frightened a lot of other kids that didn't know her very well.

Finally one year at school, Louise and I had the same class with Mr. Steinerson. It was the 5th grade and there were a lot of exciting things coming our way. And yet...

As was the way of Military life, eventually we had to part ways. Louise was the first to move, and Kathy went two weeks after her. I was left alone in that town without a friend to turn to. I went to school the day after she left and Mr. Steinerson asked me to come up to his desk.

"Louise wanted me to give this to you," he said, handing me her eye glass case. I gasped. Did this mean she was coming back? Surely she would need her glasses! I opened the case and I began to cry. There were no glasses inside, but instead a note and a photo of her from the previous school year. I was nearly inconsolable for a week. Every time I started to miss her I would open that eye glass case and see her picture and I would feel better. I truly loved Louise. I missed her terribly. Military life destroyed my childhood, but Louise and Kathy had somehow saved it from complete disaster.

Kathy and Louise had become more than my friends. They had grown to become my sisters in those years we spent together. Kathy sent a Christmas card once, but as with all kids, we loose interest in writing and the three of us completely lost contact.

That never stopped me from looking though. I never gave up the search.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Hair-Story

I often get questions about my hair these days.

People ask if I've ever had long hair, or if I have always had short hair and ever thought of growing it out. I often try to explain the lengths of my hair over the past decade, but at this point it's been short for over 6 years and I'm quite used to it. Don't get me wrong, I've often thought of growing it back out, but each time I try, it gets to my collar of my shirt and starts to bother me. I think if I could get it past that point, my hair would survive. But yes, I've had very long hair most of my life.

(See left and below).

I had short hair as a kid once... and was teased for it

mercilessly. I had gotten the idea after the movie "All Dog's Go To Heaven" came out after the character Ann Marie (see character on the right). My hair was long and constantly tangled. Mom and I decided it was time for a hair cut, so she put it all in a pony tail and braided it down. Then she put it in another ponytail at the bottom and chopped away. The braid was removed and put into a plastic bag for my father. He still has it somewhere.

Mom cut it off at such a crooked angle that we really didn't have many options. It was either the "Ann Marie" cut, or short like a boy's hair cut. I had gone through that in Kindergarten and earned the nickname George (I'll save that for another day). I really didn't want to go through that again, so Ann Marie it was.

Several years ago Dad retired from the military and got a job working on the base painting missile trucks. One of the guys that worked with him had a very long ponytail nearly the same color as my hair. He had the brilliant idea to take that ponytail with him to work one day. He then grabbed a pair of scissors, held the ponytail in one hand and the scissors in the other. Then he tugged on the guys ponytail, sliced a bit off of MY ponytail, and held my ponytail out for the guy to see it. He said the man's eyes got as big around as saucers and he started to scream. He reached back and discovered his own ponytail was still in tact. I'm sure he wanted to kill my father for that one.

When I was 17 my mother pulled me into the bathroom and dyed my hair blond. She told me that she had never really liked my hair color. It went to a bright carrot orange, so she dyed it blond again and it came out Strawberry blond.

That summer I got my first ever modeling job, working as a Runway Model at a "Back to School" fashion show on the military base. I was shy, but that job started to bring me out of my shell. Several years later when I moved to California, I found myself working with a photographer during my first photo shoot ever (see above). The photographer, Christopher, was rather inexperienced and this was the best picture we got from the shoot, but I've always loved this shot.

I've had several different colors used in my hair over the past few years. To the left is a photo of me right after the Extreme Makeover show cut several inches off of the bottom in 2004. They feathered it along the sides and gave me bangs after giving it a rich chocolate brown color. I didn't have the heart to tell them, but that was the exact same haircut I had in 1998, and I had cut it myself. Even the color matched the old photos of my hair from 6 years before. It just wasn't enough of a change for me.

In the mean time, I had gotten married. My new mother in law had once been a very talented hair dresser before a car accident messed up her back. She couldn't do it all day anymore, but a hair cut once in a while didn't hurt her. I asked her for a big change - and she obliged. We cut it off rather short, had it layered and feathered around my neck, and tried to color it back to red. It was so dark from the Extreme Makeover show that it really didn't take, but I was so in shock over the length of my hair that I wasn't focused on the dark color. It was an alien feeling, running my hands through it and finding my fingers slipping free just at the neck.

People seemed to think that the dark color suited me, so I stuck with it for a couple of months. I stuck with the length too, but having to put it up in little poofy pigtails I called Panda Ears in order to work food service was rather annoying. I decided once more that it was time for another change. I went back to Sue and asked her to cut it once more, this time to get rid of it all.

If I hadn't cut my hair the last time I never would have gotten any of the modeling jobs I ended up with. The short, red hair suited me, but was also edgy, pixie-ish and feminine with my facial features. Immediately I was picked up by several photographers for my unusual look. I was a rare thing - a girl with short hair, a girl with red hair, and a girl who didn't look Butch because of the length. Richie Bravo was the first photographer, and within days I was working with several others, including Jack Fleming Photography and D'Jef Photo Styles. Fleming has since made quite the name for himself.

I've played around with my hair a bit, trying to grow it out and then deciding to chop it all off again. I've had bangs, I've had

none. I've gone from brunette to blond and then back to red again. I've played around with my hair a lot, but pretty much consistently for the past 6 years it has retained this primary style and color, just with a few minor variations. I even tried the "Ann Marie" thing again once... and decided that it suited me even less in

adulthood than it did when I was a kid. It was a very short time

before I let that one grow out and got rid of the Duck Tail.

My hair has always been a way of expression for me. People tell me that I should grow it out, that I should cut it off, that I should do this or that or get a perm or get extensions or shave my head. Well, it's my hair and I do what I like with it. It's a part of me and I'm grateful that I even have hair. I'm glad I have a way to express myself and my own personal style without resorting to something like tattoos or piercings.

And now, I've done this style for long enough...

I think it's time for another change.