I am worried. One of my cats is sick, very sick. He had a blocked bladder and has been in the pet hospital for two days. The doctor has unblocked him, but he won't urinate on his own yet--and the doctor is afriad the nerves tot he bladder have stopped working, so Stinker won't be able to regain control of his bladder. She has to express the urine for Stinker, and she says even she has difficulty with him--she can't train us because he is so difficult. So, we're giving it until tomorrow and then we don't know what will happen.

Stinker isn't really my cat. We've been babysitting him for a year because a friend had to go into treatment last October, and she's still there. We can't call her because she can only call to people--and only if she earns the privilege to do so. So all we can do is write to her, and then we don't know when the letter will get to her. So, we've got a huge vet bill for an animal that isn't even ours...and we don't know if he'll make it through this or not.

He looks so sad in there. He's a big cat, and he is long hair. They've given him a bath twice today, and he still looks like he was run over. He did perk up when we visited him, but he's on valium so he didn't really jump up and down with excitement. He won't ever drink from a dish--it has to be water from a running faucet, so we always leave the water trickling in the tub--and they are concerned he refused to drink. He'd rather die of thirst than drink from a bowl. That just won't happen. But he is eating. And he's creating urine; he just won't urinate by himself. And that can be a life threatening thing.

The vet is going to let him go another night and see how he does. But after that, we don't know. I really hope we don't have to put him to sleep. If he came home without being able to urinate, though, he would surely die. And it would be a horribly painful death. So I pray that he will feel better soon.

I re=read some of my entries and find that there are some typing errors. Quite a few, actually. But one made me think. I wrote that I needed to fix my starstep. I do, indeed, need to build a stairway to the stars, a way to build dreams and then allow myself to follow the path I build to a place that allows us to shine in the darkness.

I read a comment that victims of incest can't "shed their skin" like a snake, that we won't be able to just plow through life and make things all neat and tidy. We are challenged every day with learning to love ourselves, and I think that this is probably the lesson I need to learn to start building that starstep.

I have also been thinking a lot about Alphonso Rodriqguez, who will die by lethal injection, and the expert witenss who said that when he got angry, he would use sexual activity to release some of the emotion. Dangerous activity, and it actually served to push him toward murder. In me, I think the anger is directed inward, and the negative sexual behaviors urge me to dangerous, risky behavior. And I think that this recognition may be where I begin to really work on caring about myself. I will need to learn a more constructive way to deal with anger.

Right now, when I get angry, I never fight with anyone. More and more, I've been yelling and screaming at the world in general. Literally. But I don't expect a reaction from the world and, if I did, I would probably be quiet and not voice my own anger. I think I somehow figured out when I was a child that it doesn't help to scream and yell. Fighting doesn't help. It just makes you feel weaker. I never realized that before. When you don't fight, you are in control of yourself...and maybe that's why I don't fight. And I take the risks because that's the way I learned to take the pain and go to a place outside myself. And not to feel the pain. To isolate myself.

I will learn to handle my anger better. It may take a while, but I will...and maybe then this horrible depression will go away.

I feel alone tonight. Not just lonely, but alone. I know there are people out there that care about me, and who even worry about me. But I want a connection with someone that is very unique, something to tell me that I have a special friend that care for me as well as about me.

It's a feeling that makes me want to go out and get totally drunk. And I don't drink. But I want to forget the world. I want to drown in the drink until I don't feel badly any more.

I keep going back and blaming my childhood, the incest, the horrible things that were done to me. But they aren't the cause. I am just not taking life by the horns and steering my way through the dust and the storms. And, at this point, I don't want to.

I want to blame it on a lack of money, too. But I have never had money. I've never been out of debt. As a child, my family was in debt, and it's never changed. No matter how hard I try, I can't make it good and right. It just keeps getting worse--and no one even tries to help. At least, not those who should. Not those who know I have no money, but keep coming back for more. But, it doesn't matter. I could enjoy life without money, but there is no life.

All I do is work. Today, it was very slow at work and I left early. Tomorrow I'm leaving early. And it is a horrible feelign to sit there with nothing to do. Only at work do I feel alive, like there's something for me to look forward to. Lately, I don't even feel that. It's very slow.

I think I'm going to go to bed and wake up tomorrow feeling a whole lot better. That's my thought, anyway.

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be." Wise words. Unfortunately, my life doesn't know how to stop borrowing. I never lend money. When someone asks for a loan, I give the money to them without ever expecting to get it back. If I expected to get it back, then I would probably be disappointed every time. But, if it comes back, then I am always pleasantly surprised.

However, when I borrow money, I expect to pay it back--and I try very hard. But there have been many times that I couldn't pay it back, and it makes me feel extremely guilty. It makes me feel less than honest, and I just hate that feeling. So I try not to borrow money, but sometimes I am desperate. And there is no other way to get by. It is a horrible place to be, and I really want to learn how to live without ever having to borrow money.

I feel like I'm very close to that point where I won't hvae to borrow money--but I've felt that way for a long time. I think the key is me and how I deal with financial difficulties, and my finances are difficult. I work harder and harder, or at least longer and longer, but I never get ahead. I have the same bills now that I had last year...only they've grown. I need more money or less outgoing costs, and I don't know how to acheieve either. But I will try. It's all I can do.

I think I'll go try to figure things out....I just like to write and get some of this off my chest...and my mind...and my life...I just wish money problems were really that easy to get rid of.

It is almost time for bed, and I have to stop thinking about stressful things. Like money. And child support.

I went to bed thinking about child support, and woke up thinking about it. My ex is behind since February, and not only is that amount being a stressful amount, but the child support agency is even moreso. At least as frustrating. They are not enforcing the law the way it is supposed to be enforced, nor as it is intended. I have done a lot of research, and I am trained in legal research, and the county agency is wrong in their approach--but that is their choice, at least until someone has enough money to take them to court.

Child support is supposed to be paid and received on a timely basis, as the Court orders, and it is supposed to be the child support agency's job to enforce it. Other than a statement each month, which is sent whether the account is current or not, there is nothing in the agency's policies that is intended to keep an obligation current. While there is advance income wittholding, once the notice is sent, there is no further action untilt he account becomes so far delinquent that the obligor has no hope of catching up. There are laws that say contempt charges in child support cases are to encourage current payments, not to punish the obligor for being late--yet, that is how the county handles all their cases. They do not enforce several statutes that would encourage currency, nor do they even pick up the phone to make a simple phone call when a payment is late. There is so much, so many little things, that I think the agency should be held in contempt as much as the late-paying obligor. But nothing will ever be done until someone with money makes it happen.

The obligor, the obligee and the child are just pawns. The county agencies could do so much and encourage respect between everyone, but they don't do anything except the most difficult and most expensive option. And, really, if they were to check the statutes, it's not really an option to take people to court the way they do. I am very surprised more absent parents don't fight this. But they, like me and other custodial parents, have no choice because the agencies make sure neither of us have money to hire lawyers. If I could, that attorney would be filing against the county, not the ex husband.