My boss, Chris Pirillo, picked me up yesterday morning when the conference ended. I am spending the weekend with him, just hanging out and having fun. Usually when I’m here, we’re batshit crazy busy with Gnomedex, and we really don’t get to visit. Chris decided to take this opportunity to have a small get-together at his house, complete with live music. I had no idea what was in store for me.

Around 7pm, these two guys show up. Their little duo is called Hejira. One of the guys is a guitar player. The other is a cellist who once played an impromptu concert on a street corner with Justin Bieber. They set up their instruments, and tuned up. We all gathered around… and then they began to play.

If you know me at all, you know what a huge role music has always played in my life. It is a part of my soul. I don’t know how else to put it. I play it. I sing it. I listen to it. I live and breathe music. That is truly where my greatest passion lies.

As they began to actually play, I sank down to sit on the floor and just stare, open-mouthed. Within about ten seconds, I had tears in my eyes. I have never heard anything like this before, of course, since no one plays anything like this. I was blown away, and there they sat… not more than ten feet away.

The cellist is from Egypt originally, and sat first chair in the Cairo Opera House for sixteen years. He is a man who feels the music deep in his soul, and his heart comes through his fingers and out of the instrument as he plays. They take songs and put their own flavor into them, such as hits by Michael Jackson. It’s really impossible to describe. You just have to listen.

I have been struggling with some deeply personal things for several weeks, many of which came to a head very recently. My emotions have been dragged through the mud and the muck, and I’ve had a lot of trouble trying to bring myself back up. I have cried a lot, and tried to make sense of my World most of the time.

Listen to Ashraf play the cello tonight spoke to my soul. I could feel myself begin to heal a little, finding some inner peace for the first time in what feels like forever. I only wish I could find the right words to explain to you how amazing this experience was.

Please. Listen to their music. Close your eyes, and open your mind. Let the music into your heart.

NO. I DO NOT WANT AN iPAD.

Is that clear enough for you? I’ve never wanted an iPhone, nor an iPod. I don’t NEED any of them. Too many people think they “have” to have the newest devices. For example, I had one person tell me today they will die if they don’t get one right away. I asked them why they felt so strongly that it was a “must-have” item. The answer nearly made me whimper out loud… “it’s cool! and new! and everyone else wants one!”.

Seriously? Have we sunken so low as to need items, simply because they are cool? What ever happened to needing an item because it would help us be more efficient and productive? Where do our brains go every time something cool looking is introduced into the marketplace?

In my eyes, the iPad is nothing more than a cross between an iPod and an eBook reader. I prefer to actually go to the library and check out books I can curl up in bed with and hold in my hands. I cannot read them on some tiny-assed screen. I don’t see a need for an iPod, either. I have music on my computer, on the television and on the radio. Yes, I know I could get Apps. Whoopie! I can do the very same things right here on my TouchSmart, as well.

The funny thing is that I’m not some anti-Apple person. I applaud Apple for many things that they have come out with. I don’t believe the iPad is worth clapping over, that’s all. There’s no SD Card slot. How huge of an oversight is that? There’s no Flash capability… which is going to turn off a LOT of people, mark my words.

I guess my biggest gripe today is simply the fact that people don’t seem to care anymore if a device will fit their needs, and be right for them. Too often, consumers simply see the next big thing, and have to have it. In this economy, is that really such a good idea people?

Somewhere in my peripheral vision, I kept seeing TweetDeck notifications float by on my screen, filled with tweet after tweet where people were begging for donations, aid and prayers for Haitians. The more of these I saw, the angrier I became. I called my friend Mark Horvath. I was crying… tears of frustration and anger. I asked him how it is that people can rally their every dollar and thought for another country, when we have so many thousands here in our own backyard who need us. Poverty, starvation and homelessness abounds in the US. We are failing our own people, day after damn day. Mark suggested I speak out about this issue, and my strong feelings on the situation. However, he cautioned me to step back and outside of my emotions a little prior to writing.

Okay, he was right. I needed to step back, and gain a clear picture. I fired up my browser, and headed to MSNBC. From the very first picture, my heart was in my throat. I spent more than two hours on various news sites, reading everything I could find about the devastation. I watched videos and looked through slide-shows. I read stories about the thousands – and thousands – of people already confirmed dead, and the many thousands more still unaccounted for.

Hospitals cannot help the injured. The buildings were leveled. Medical workers are listed amongst the dead and injured. The people already in Haiti to help bring aid to the country are also counted among the missing, broken and deceased. There is no electricity, no water, no food. What few houses remain are structurally unsafe. People who were lucky enough to escape with their lives are huddling together in open fields, too afraid to enter any buildings that may still be standing.

Yes, our country needs help. People are living on the streets here. Mark is telling their stories, one family at a time. He is galvanizing others to action. I guess my little brain wanted immediate – and permanent – answers for these people. What we need in America are long-term solutions, not short-term bandaid fixes. What Haiti needs, however, is immediate help. There are more than a hundred thousand people feared dead. Many, MANY thousands are trapped, and missing. No one has food, water or shelter. Bodies are being dumped into piles on the side of the streets, so that rescue workers can concentrate on hopefully finding survivors.

I am a horrible person for not knowing anything about a situation, and still making assumptions about it. I learned years ago to always search for truth… backed up with facts. The facts in Haiti are plain to see. My heart breaks just thinking about it.

This country, already so poor and riddled with problems, may never recover. With this amount of devastation, it will be many, MANY years before the city of Port Au Prince will be able to even begin to rebuild properly. Any thoughts of full recovery during this generation is unrealistic. It is staggering – and sobering – to sit here in my warm home and attempt to picture it.

Please, if you can help, I urge you to do so. Relief efforts need supplies, people and money. Even if you don’t have a dime to spare, your thoughts and prayers will go a long way.

One of my very best friends was a kid named Jimmy. I was a complete band nerd back then, and damn proud of it. I played clarinet in the concert band, flute in pep band, alto sax in jazz band, and was a Drum Major in marching band that last year. I LOVED band… every part of it. I was damn good at playing my instruments, and won many awards. However, I couldn’t hold a candle to Jimmy. This kid was simply awe-inspiring. He could pick up any woodwind instrument (or sit at a piano), hear a song on the radio ONCE… and play it. He could hear something, and just be able to reproduce it perfectly. He also, of course, ended up playing whatever it was over again, adding his own spin to it. His primary instrument was the flute, and it could bring tears to my eyes listening to him play. I am a music junkie, even classical. I have never met anyone else in my life who could do the things this boy could do.

Jimmy’s dream back then was to play for the Boston Pops one day. We never laughed at him. We KNEW he would make it there. I planned to be in the front row when he did. Not only was he a musical genius, he was one of my closest friends. Jimmy, Marti and I were the Three Musketeers. We were inseparable. Sure, we all had other friends. But the three of us were stuck together like glue much of the time. He always had this way of making me laugh, and not caring quite so much about what I looked like, how many friends I had, or whether my hair was big enough that day. (Remember.. it was the 80s!!)

Back to the present… I found Jimmy on Facebook the other night, and left a comment on his Wall. Earlier tonight, I received a message in my Inbox from his mom. I was shocked into stillness when I read that Jimmy had a severe stroke about two years ago. No one found him for more than 12 hours. He spent more than a year in Rehabilitation, and is still completely paralyzed on his right side… his dominant side. I quickly wrote Tanzy back, asking for more information, inquiring as to where he is and if he’d like visitors, and the like. She wrote back with more detail… and included something that chilled me to the bone.

When I read he was partially paralyzed, it didn’t hit me. Not until his mom spelled it out in black and white did I get it. Jimmy can no longer play music. It’s just… gone. To know that someone like him… someone who could bring you to your knees with a few notes played on an instrument… would never again be able to play made me completely speechless. I sat here crying quietly, for what my friend has had to go through, and for what the World has lost because of it. I truly believe with all of my heart that Jimmy would indeed have played for the Boston Pops one day.

After spending time dealing with the emotions of this revelation and making plans to call my old friend tomorrow, it hit me… I am OLD. I will be 39 next month. I know, you’re laughing and shaking your head. You know that 80 may be old, but 39 certainly is not.

I beg to differ y’all. 39 is old, at least in the way I’m thinking right now.

Jimmy was 36 years old when he had his stroke. Another girl I went to school with died this summer of a massive heart attack. Michelle was gone instantly, at the age of 38. Another long-time friend died a few years ago, at the age of 35. He dropped dead instantly… from a heart attack. I could list another four or five people, but I think you’re starting to see the pattern here.

I have taken my so-called “youth” for-granted for far too long now. I realized tonight that I have to stop thinking that I am still young enough not to worry. I can no longer put off taking care of myself. Yes, I know I should have been doing so all along. Be honest, though. How many of you have always had a healthy diet, exercised regularly, and took perfect care of yourselves? Most of us simply coast along, taking care at times, and waiting for “someday” to get serious about our health and well-being.

Someday is here, folks. MY someday is here. I have beautiful daughters and granddaughters who need me. I have family and friends who want me around. I cannot take the chance that I might be ok. I have to DO SOMETHING to make sure I am. I have no idea where to start, I admit it. I know I need to exercise. I know I need to eat healthier. I likely also need to visit a doctor, and have a complete physical with the works… Cholesterol screening, Diabetes screening (my sugar has always run too high, and Diabetes runs in my family), and more. I am going to spend some time tomorrow making notes, and figuring out a plan… after I call Jimmy and make plans to go and visit him.

Please, take care of yourselves. Stop thinking you have all the time in the World. Too many people are dying young… their lives snuffed out before they even lived what should have been half of it.

Sadly I cannot give proper attribution on this, as I have no idea where it originated from. If anyone knows, please leave me a comment so that I can correct that!

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First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer. Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because… WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii , X-boxes, no video games at all, no 999 channels on SKY , no video/dvd films, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms… WE HAD FRIENDS… and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no Lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given air guns and catapults for our 10th birthdays. We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Sports teams had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! Getting into the team was based on MERIT!

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL !

I am proud of each and every one of those scars now, more than ten years later. Each one reminds me that I survived. They show that I found the guts and courage to get out of that situation, and start my life over. They stand as a testament to the strength that I never knew I possessed inside of me. I know they will continue to fade over time, but I will still be able to see them in my mind’s eye. I know what I went through, and I know where I am now. I am proud of myself for being able to move beyond that stage in my life in the physical sense.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the physical scars do indeed heal over time. It’s the ones on the inside that we struggle with. Some of them run deep, and no matter how hard we try, they simply don’t fully heal. The smallest thing can rip one back open, making it hurt and bleed. Just when we think that we are in a mentally good place, something triggers the old insecurities, hurts and fears. I’ve done counseling. I’ve talked to countless other women. I’ve gotten into a wonderful, stable relationship. All of those things have helped, of course. But I still have not figured out the key to banishing the internal scars for good.

I won’t sit here and preach to other women who are being abused. You have heard it all before. I will say that it IS possible to get out. My ex literally tortured and beat me. He raped me. He threatened to kill my daughter if I left… and I believed him. I’ve been where you are, without a penny of my own. I had no education beyond a GED. I had no work experience to speak of, because he wouldn’t let me work. Yet, somehow, I found the courage deep inside of me to go. There was an event that triggered it, yes. I pray that you will find your strength before it’s too late.

I am always willing to talk one-on-one with any woman being abused (or who has already gotten out). I am not a counselor, nor a shrink. I’m simply a woman who lived it and survived.

I often get asked if I regret that part of my life, if I wish I could go back and change it. My answer to that is an emphatic HELL NO. Yes, I wish I hadn’t been abused. However, living through that nightmare helped make me who I am today. It taught me just how strong I am inside. It gave me maturity, a sense of self, and wisdom I might never had otherwise.

And of course, out of that disaster came my beautiful “baby” Beka. She’s nearly 15 now. Every hit… kick… punch… cut… all of it was worth it because I have her. That may sound odd, but if you’re a Mommy too, then I know you understand where I’m coming from, and exactly what I mean.

Never give up. Don’t lose hope. That’s the only piece of advice I can give to women in that situation. Keep the hope inside of you alive. Know that there are others who are in your same boat, and even more of us who have gotten out. It is possible to move on. I promise you.

Of course, I soon realized that is silly. All I need to do is continue being ME. If you look at my FaceBook page, my tagline there says “I’m just me…”. That’s how I feel about it. I’m me. Take me and like me how I am, or go away. I am at a place in my life where I have finally stopped worrying what others think of me. The only thing that is important at the end of the day is that my family and friends are happy with me, and that I’m proud of myself. That’s honestly all that matters.

I received a DM moments ago from one of my new followers. They had apparently already come to check out my little corner of the World. They told me that they are already enjoying reading what I write, but asked me why my theme/site isn’t more “professional” looking. They suggested (nicely) that perhaps I should change to a less colorful (and more boring) theme.

I spend all day every day writing for others in a professional capacity. Here, on my site, I write for ME. Sure, I hope you’ll all read and enjoy what I come up with. Yes, it’s nice to have people subscribe and follow me. But to be honest, I only write on this site for myself. I don’t have a particular track when it comes to the things I’ll write about. I don’t stick to one subject. Whatever is on my mind – or in my heart – is what I’ll put up on here.

I am fun. I am colorful. I am silly most of the time. I feel that my theme – and my site – reflects that perfectly. I don’t want (or need!) to be professional here in my own little space. If that’s not good enough for someone, so be it. When it comes down to it, I am happy with what we’ve done here. That’s the bottom line, and the only thing that counts.

With all that said – welcome to Kats Corner! I hope you’ll find something here to spark your interest, or make you stop and think. I welcome comments any time, and love it when someone disagrees with me. That always causes me to think outside of myself, and often allows me to stretch my mind to places it may never otherwise have gone.

While talking to Ash, she was telling me how she got busy with one of the girls, and accidentally burned the garlic bread for their dinner to a crisp. She also failed to get all of the laundry done today, so she knows she’ll have twice as much to do tomorrow. It hit me as she was talking… why is it we feel we have to be SuperWoman all of the time?

We women push ourselves so hard day in and day out. We want to do it all, knowing that we can somehow pull it off. We are the maid, cook, driver, laundress, teacher, parent, spouse and more. Many of us also work full time on top of that. Add in a social life (HAH! Right..) and volunteer work, and you have a recipe for complete and utter burnout. We think we have to do everything – be everything – at all times in order to be considered a success in life.

That’s crazy. We are not super-human, no matter how much we want to be. There will be days the laundry doesn’t get done. There will be times when we just spend the day playing with our kids instead of cooking a five-course meal. Hell, there will be days when we accomplish nothing more than spending time with our family.

You know what? There is nothing wrong with that!! In fact, I think that spending an entire day with my family sounds pretty damn sweet. No one will die if I don’t do the dishes. The World won’t stop turning if the laundry sits for one day. However, my daughter and my fiance may indeed be better off for the time I focused on them.

You should try it. Shirk your responsibilities occasionally. Let something slide for just one day. Stop pushing yourself to be the best. Guess what? You never will be, nor will I. And that’s okay, I promise! The most important thing is for you to be the best MOM (and/or spouse/gf/etc) that you can be. At the end of the day, that is the accomplishment that truly counts.

Earlier, however, a tweet caught my attention. I actually had to maximize the program and re-read it, to make sure I had seen it correctly the first time. Apparently, there’s a popular hashtag today, which has people talking about their holiday confessions. One mother actually tweeted that she hated having to make cookies with her kids this year. No, I’m not joking. I only wish that I were.

I have been following this person for awhile now, and normally enjoy what she writes on Twitter, and on her blog. This little message stopped me in my tracks though. I couldn’t fathom writing something like that. Not only is there a chance that my daughter could see it at some point in the future and be hurt by it, it also would lower the level of respect others have for me and what I am saying.

Once I read something such as this by a person on Twitter (or anywhere, really), it causes me to decide if I really want to follow them anymore. To have that level of glib disrespect for your children – and yourself – astounds me. Are your children so unimportant? Even if baking cookies with them was a tedious task that made a huge mess in the kitchen… you should still never say so out loud. Someone is going to get hurt, and that someone could be your child.

Some things are simply better left unsaid.

Later in the article, she is quoted as saying how she doesn’t like or encourage violent games. Why, then, was the kid even playing it? She is the adult… the parent. She should simply take the game away, break the disc, and throw it in the trash if she doesn’t want him playing it. The kid will get mad, sure. However, it is apparently in his best interest at this point.

I cannot believe the police needed to be called. It is her job as the parent to regulate video game time. If the child is that obsessed, the game needs to be taken away, period. It needs to be hidden away where he cannot find it, or taken to a separate location. If he has behavior / anger issues at having the precious console out of his grasp, then he may need some counseling or intervention.

Gaming addiction is a scary fact for many teenagers today, particularly boys. However, it is one that can be prevented by the parents. It doesn’t matter if you’re a single mom, or if you work more than one job. You still have the power to pull that plug, and take away that game. Set limits for your child. Talk to them about the types of games you will allow in your home, as well as time limits when it comes to actually playing.

Don’t let the games babysit your child. Don’t ALLOW them to turn into vegetables sitting in a chair with a controller in their hand. Help them find alternative – and healthy – activities to become involved with.