My head hurts. Bad.

I feel like my skull is made of concrete and it's lined with glass--and the brain is somehow made of solid brick. And if I knock my head against anything, just a little bit, it's going to shatter into little pieces of stinging pain....each and every little piece will take that shard of glass and shove it into the nerve ends and I am wanting to cut my head off--but only until the pain goes away.

At least I can think. Not fast, but it's the thought that counts.

I have taken lots of ibuprofen all day--and then I took Nyquil Sinus tonight, thinking I might get some sleep, and maybe my head will just clear up. I'm sure hoping.

I want to go find a doctor to give me my toradol, but it all costs money. MOney is a terrible thing. if you don't have it. If you have it, money is a very good thing. When I get over my headache, I'll try to figure out how to get some of that green stuff.

I'm sure that somewhere in this world there are people that have good, happy times. I think three are even some who have money. I want to be one of those people...at least enough money to pay the basic bills. That would make me a very happy lady. That and lots of ibuprofen.

I am exhausted. I had to be up at 4:00 to travel to a business seminar this morning. But time was not a problem since I was awake all night, worrying about finances. And when I got home from work, I tried to sleep, and I couldn't. I kept thinking about this huge insurance bill and how I can't pay it. It's over $700, and only $122 of it is for my cost. The rest is all kids, young adults, that should be paying their own cost. I could tell the youngest to park his car, and that would eliminate one car at $440--but then the insurance company would just re-rate my car and then the large amount would be my responsibility in my name every month because he is a minor in my home that is capable of driving. One way or another, if I want to drive to work every day and keep my son in my home, this huge bill has to be paid.

In the meantime, he has had glasses waiting to be picked up since June, and this week he had finally gotten enough money to go get them---I certainly couldn't afford them without child support. If he doesn't pay for them in the next three weeks, the bill will be reported to the collection agency. Then I will be responsible for that bill, too, and I don't even have the glasses!

Now we have to choose between glasses, the insurance (without which he can't drive to work to get the money to pay for everything else) and the collection action. And we haven't even started on the need to get him some medication that I haven't been able to afford since May.

I understand that the state finally received $167 in child support. With this, as of today, in the past three months, that will be $330 in child support--and there's a $775 monthly obligation, or about $2400 for the three months. I wish that the man would realize child support is not an "extra". It is absolutely necessary, and I really don't think anyone in the child support collection office cares. He certainly doesn't.

Though a contempt action has been started. When it finally gets to court, they tell me he will be subject to a jail term and/or loss of his drivers license. With him in jail, he won't be able to earn any money. With his drivers license gone, his truck driving job will not be used to earn any money. It doesn't seem to me that there's much options here.

I guess I'll just keep on trying...and hope to get some sleep tonight.

This weekend I watched a couple news shows. One was on Oprah Winfrey, and the other was on Mark Foley and the Repbulican party.

Opray Winfrey is a strong lady with a background similar to mine, and I admire her style of handling life. She treats people with respect and, even when she has had some pretty negative life situations, she keeps going and she fights for others that are unable or unwilling to do it for themselves. I can't agree with some of her stands, particularly on a national regiatration of sex offenders, but I admire the thoughts she's put behind it and the work she's followed through as she moved ahead.

I also appreciate all the work she did on the movie, "Beloved," that lost half the money it took to create such a good work. She was disappointed in the viewership, but I cannot say I am surprised. The book is very good. I was assigned to read it in college. And I hated it. The work was excellent. And the sentiments and actions based on reality, though not exactly real. Yet, the emotion it wrought inside me was too strong, and I would not willingly view such a movie. It was a difficult book to read and accept. The movie version, it would seem to me, would be far more difficult to watch, and I would not want to submit myself voluntarily to watching it. But it took a lot of strength and determination to create the movie, let alone the book, and Oprah deserves a grand ovation and great respect for helping to create such a movie.

The other subject of my weekend viewing was Mark Foley, a congressman that sent electronic messages to young male pages. I abhor the action, but I understand it, and I don't believe there's another congressman that should be lumped with him for that activity. That was personal on Mr. Foley's part, and he needs to take responsiblity for that action. I hope that every young man he wrote to understands that Mr. Foley's actions were wrong, and I hope they all make it well known to law enforcement that they were victims of this man.

As badly as I feel for Mr. Foley's victims, I feel that any member of congress that did not report this to law officials should be removed from office. Whether or not they reported it to congressional leaders, they should have reported it to law enforcement officials. Several members of congress have said they took the reports to congrressional leaders, but I didn't hear anything about taking it to law officials. And that is sad.

And, for my part, the excuses that republicans are making on this issue should speak for themselves. I would not be surprised if democrats were also involved, but it seems to me that right now there is a greater breach of faith by republicans when they refuse to acknowledge their role in allowing this to happen without legal action. It is another example of how the current administration operates. I don't believe that historically the republican party has operated the way it has for the last decade, and I honestly hope that recent events--of which this is just a part--are able to engineer a return to honest and straightforward speech by politians of both parties. I want that, but I don't think it will happen.

I think there should be a website that examines the claims of different politicians and reports the actual related facts....in an objective way. With such a website, I think that people might begin to understand reality. A true rality showing.

"The most massive characters are seared with scars."

I heard that today. To think that scars create character propounds an interesting concept: The more pain one endures, the more interesting the person. This may be true, and I don't doubt that it is, but I wonder what else this thought implies.

While the pain lends a person interest, it also develops reminders of the hurt in that person's being. The scars remind one of the pain each time they look in the mirror, and that person is forced to remember it all. Sometimes tempered with other life experiences, the pain still endures and reminds us of the pain. Sometimes we try to cover up the scars, to make them disappear. But, all the time, we know they're there, and we know the pain was real and not just a disfigurement. To disfigure something means the wholeness has been reduced to less than shat was once complete. Scars can disfigure people so badly they never want to be seen again; but, sometimes, scars create interest and engender a charismatic appeal that pins to a surface that is not as pristine as originally created. Sometimes that original canvas was interesting in itself, and sometimes it was not so attractive. When imbued with scarring, that canvas can become less interesting or moreso, less attractive or moreso.

So, how do we know what the scarring will do? Is the audience's reaction a response to our own actions, or is it a response to their own conditioning, their own experience in similar or dissimilar situations? I contend that scars can be a beautiful thing to one audience, and horrendous to another--and we can only color that reaction with our own reaction to our own scars.

When we endure pain, everafter we may be reminded of that pain whenever we are exposed to the scar. Whether an emotional scar or a physical scar, it is either reduced through time--or we reduce it by covering it up or hiding it. Or maybe we wear the scar with price, like the scars that a mother gets when she stops a child from getting hurt by taking the pain herself (I hurt my hand once by holding and shielding my baby's head when I fell and split the back of my hand rather than have her head hit the rough concrete below). But that scar is there, and our attitude toward that scar creates in us the level of strength or weakness that we allow--and others' reactions can impact our reactoin, but their reaction will never remove the scar. Only we can control our own reaction to the scar, and we need to understand that we will live with that scar every day. Every day we will need to figure out how we will deal with that scar, whether we will ignore it, enhance it or live with it. Most of the time, when we deal with scars, the mark isn't going to change--so we have to be the ones to change.

To change, we need to first accept the reality that is, and then imagine the possilibities. And, then, we need to determine whether we want the possiblities to become the reality.

And the scar will still be there.

It occurs to me that maybe the reason I am not feeling great about life is that it is disappointing. I have tried all my life to remain hopeful, to look forward to a future where things will be great and wonderful. Where there's always enough money to buy milk, and there's never a bill collector on the phone ringing every three minutes. Where you are thin and life feels good. But that hope breaks, and it hits when you realize that you've been taking each step up the ladder of success--but it never gets better. The hope is never realized.

And when that hope breaks, there is also a breaking in faith. With hope comes faith, and without hope there is very little means for faith. We need faith in ourselves, and hope for our future. Without the hope, we lose faith in our selves, and we do not see that rosy future that we always foresaw.

But does this mean we need to give up our dreams? I read a little plaque this weekend. It said, "The reason dreams are so big is so that you can grow into them." I am not sure how to create the dream or to grow into the ones that I already had. But I think the first step is to recall what they were...and figure out how to grow into them.