Today was an interesting day, weather wise. Last Monday, it was 81 degrees. Today, on the way home from work, the thermometer read 17 and we had at least six inches of heavy, wet snow. I heard we had ten inches here, but all I know is that it was slippery and yucky.

And at work, I didn't want to leave without finishing my work, but it's becoming more and more difficult as we introduce new products from companies and brands that we've acquired. And there's not much help being offered. Tomorrow we have a meeting that might help. We'll see...

I'm able to eat today, but I have to eat slowly and not as much as I do normally. I think it would be good in almost everything I do to slow down and do it without trying to get a million other things done at the same time.

And that means I should try to sleep tonight. Now.

I am ill. I don't know that I'm ill from a virus or a bacterial infection, but I know that I'm not well.

Last night I had to use the bathroom, and my body told me that something I ate was not good....and today it prevented that situation by not letting me eat. I sat down to eat lunch and when I went to eat the chicken, I thought I was going to die. The food just wouldn't slide down my throat. It stopped at about the leven of the notch in my collar bone, and it just wouldn't slip further. I sat at the table about five minues, sure I was going to die--and finally decided to throw the dinner and head back to work. I walked out the door and across the parking lot to my car, all the time the food sitting there in my throat. I got in the car and leaned back my driver's seat so I could lay flat...and finally I sat up and actually got sick into a bag that was in my car. I just couldn't swallow that food!

I did eat supper,but I ate mashed potatoes...not wanting anything more solid.

I think I've started to have panic attacks or something that causes esophogeal spasms. Last year, they stuck a tube down my throat and widened the tube...but ths is different than then. This time, there was no way the food was going to move, no matter how tight the squuexe is or isn't.

I think I better get to bed and rest....

I have three topics I want to discuss: the arrest of my sister, my pain level and Jesus.

As I came home from my weekend job tonight, my sister called to ask if I knew an attorney who would work on a contigency to sue for false arrest. Apparently, she was arrested last Thursday night and didn't reach me til now. She was apparently charged, without miranda rights being read, with not taking care of a bad check and all the civil fees that went with it. She had written a check to WalMart about three years ago--after she deposited her exhusband's "alimony" check. However, then his check bounced and there wasn't enough left in her account to cover the checks she had written against it. So, she proceeded to buy back the checks, including the Wal Mart check. However, the money orders somehow didn't register in their system, and she went to court for the bad check two years ago. The bad check was dismissed, but the court said she would still need to pay the civil fees. Somehow, at the time, she said she ended up paying the civil fees twice--almos $700. Well, now, WalMart somehow decided she hadn't taken care of the bad check, so they wanted her back in Court and she was arrested last Thursday. When she went before the judge,though, she explained that this had all been taken care of, and they asked her how it was taken care of. So she explained to the judge that she had to pay the filing fees in the courtroom in front of the judge, and she somehow paid it again to the court--and after it all, WalMart had sent her a refund of her overpayment on the check that they finally got the money orders into their system. The judge couldn't believe her story without verification, so he looked it up in their system right there in the courtoom. Then he announced that there had been a major error and he apologized to her for the inconvenience of her arrest--and then told her the court owed her $331 in an overpayment of court costs. So, tonight, she's asking me for the name of an attorney who will sue for false arrest on a contingency basis. Somehow, I don't know if that will happen....

The, on the way home, the radio was talking about Moses...and somehow it entered my head a recurring thought that just gets stronger and stronger in my head. Maybe I'm totally wrong, but I don't think I am. The major error is the references I've always heard in church to Mary, the "virgin Mother." I'm wondering if this term actually appears in the original Hebrew...or Greek...I get them mixed up. But, if it doesn't, then I'm thinking that there should be no argument between Jews and Christians about Jesus being the Son of God, or that the Holy Trinity exists. It is glaringly obvious that Jesus is the son of God, as are all men. It explains so much, and every Christian or Jew should be able to reconcile the relationship if the just step outside the box for two seconds. It isn't even stepping outside the box so much as looking at it from a different angle....

I also think that there is no discrepancy between creationism and evolutionism. We just have to apply the rules of rhetoric and the manner in which the text is actually presented to which audience. It's really all neatly in place and ready to come together if someone would just take the time to link it all.

Now, on a more personal thing, I want to look at the level of my pain threshold. My fiance squeezed my fingertip, apparently just to see how much pain I could endure, and he ended by asking, "Doesn't that hurt?" as he squeezed as hard as I thought he could. I suddenly gave up all pretense and yelped, "YES!" and pulled my hand away. He commented, "But you smiled through it all...I didn't think it was hurting...." I smiled through it because I didn't want to show the pain, to let him see how much he was hurting me. And I suddenly realized how often I do that--cover up the pain. A comment from a very good person started me thinking about that a couple days ago, and he just kind of compounded the thought.

Last weekend, we were playing around and ended up almost literally arm wrestling...and he commented last week that he had no idea how strong I was. I never demonstrated my physical strength before, and I didn't realize he was even noticing that.

Too, this weekend, I commented at one time that I would love to have a life like that lady I take care of on weekends...go to bed, get up, eat, bathe, dress, play, and go to bed...No money worries, no problems with worrying about how friends view me....it sure would be nice to live like that, I said. My fiance then said he'd rather just be young, to be in his young twenties...and that was as someone on the TV was saying that growing older just meant that you'd earned the lines and wrinkles.... I said I would never want to be young again, that there were too many problems and issues and worries.... He then asked me, almost puzzled, "Weren't you happy when you were 20?" I almost laughed, but simply said, "No." And since then I've realized that there's never been a time in my life when I wasn't worried or concerned about something...never a time when I could say I was happy. At least, the last time I can remember not having problems is when I was about three, and I remember playing tag with my brother and sisters and we ran in circles through three rooms in the house...and playing slinky on the stairway. My biggest problem was that I couldn't get the wire thing to work like the older kids. I didn't realize these memories were from age three until I and my mom figured out the house that I remembered was from that age.... but I haven't really had a happy life since then. That's sad.

I have concluded that something must change after forty years of not being happy....

I am exhausted. Every minute I work tomorrow will be overtime. I need the money, but I think I also need my health.

I am still wanting to go out and find relief in a way that can't happen if I want to stay anywhere near healthy. But, I am working hard to simply resist and go through the motions like I don't want to run away from it all. And it works...until 3am when I've been waking up and not going back to sleep until almost time to get up for work. Life could be a little more fair, I would think.

I haven't paid my electric bill since October. I have to now pay $1100 by April 15 (end of cold weather rule in Minnesota), and I think I'm on track to doing it. It's a great feeling. I think I'll actually have money left after that. I just wish I could have afforded to pay it monthly. But I've been paying other bills (catching up on them, too!) and things should be better soon. But with the overtime, the extra job, and maybe some child support, it will all work out. This is a good thing!

I had intended to pay it with my tax return, but I'm not getting much. I guess I grossed too much to get an earned income credit. I remember getting as much as $3600 one year. It was great. But now there's no refund, and I think I better adjust my withholdings for next year. I almost ended up paying in this year. At least, two kids have finished their college in the past six months, and the younger one will be just entering--but I think I have some practice with it now and things will get better.

There was a third newborn baby in eight years found dead in a lake in southeastern Minnesota this week. Do you know how unusual this has to be? It's a terrible, awful thing! And, yet, the police can't show that these three are related. Not yet, anyway. But, even if it were just one baby, it's horrible! Especially in this state where the baby could have been dropped off in a hospital with no questions asked. How could someone, or three people, do this? The first two babies were not related by blood, and they're testing this one. But how could they do that to an innocent child? An infant? I just can't imagine that!

I think I need to go to sleep. My brain is jumping, and all I want to do is go out and drink until I'm totally inebriated--and I've maybe drank a dozen beers in my entire life. But I'm beginning to think it's either get drunk or do something else that no one should ever do, voluntarily or otherwise.

I am a danger to myself right now. I can feel the urge to go do something reckless, something that could destroy all I've gained, all I've earned. A dangerous thing that is just waiting there, waiting for me to submit myself to a wild, painful situation that no respectable person would ever admit to voluntarily entering. I've done it in the past, learning it from childhood. I want to scream from the pain, yet I cringe from the agony.

What kindles this urge? What creates in me an absolute craving for somthing so very damaging? All I know is that right now I have a very bad, very resentful attitude. I swing between not saying anything and wanting to slam things (but kind of being extra careful so nothing looks out of the ordinary)--and wanting to yell and holler and shake people until they understand some very basic truths.

At work, I've been dealing with a very irritating situation, waiting for responses that never seemed to come--and then I find out my request were just discarded and never even read! My boss helped me get some answers, and I made a complaint, so the president stopped by my desk at the end of the day and advised me that he would be discussing the situation with the involved employees---but it sure didn't ease the frustration for the past two weeks.

At home, I strongly resent my fiance always putting down large, obese people. He is thin, and usually feels people are their own bosses who determine their own lives, but lately it seems that he is even more negatively behaving toward large people. As a large person, I am not happy. I've told him how I feel in the past, and I'm tired of telling him. He also doesnt' understand the fibro thing, and I really resent that, too. In the end, I almost want to just walk away and cry.

Instead, I am ready to go out and do something dangerous, something that has the purpose to totally hurt me, something that could end up in my death...and yet I want to go out and perform, to submit to the danger and feel the instant elation....

I will fight it tonight, and I hope that I get through this time without giving in to the craving.