Sarah's story shows how easy it is to slip into debt through bad spending habits. She should be commended for working to get her financial house in order.

A similar thing happened to me a while ago. I ran up my credit cards when I went back to college to get a second degree after my first career didn't work out. While I was in school, I found a job in my new field that gave me extremely valuable experience but didn't pay diddly-squat. (I could have made more money working in fast food.) I sucked it up to launch my new career and get experience and connections, but it trashed my finances. Because I wasn't earning enough money to pay my bills and tuition, I'd charge groceries and other necessities on my credit cards and just pay the minimum balance (which didn't even cover the finance charges). My hole wasn't quite as deep as Sarah's, but it was getting deeper every month.

I buckled down and managed to pay it off after I got a "real" job, and this meant forgoing a lot of things: travel and expensive vacations, fancy clothes, a nice car, a big apartment, a lavish wedding. It was well worth it, though, because it removed a major source of stress. The habit of living within my means has stuck with me ever since.

Also, don't give up on the freelancing if it's what you really want to do. You can make a living doing freelance writing, but you will have to branch out. The successful freelance writers who I know are generalists who do a bit of everything: business/marketing writing, technical writing, training, consulting, teaching ... whatever pays the bills and lets them continue with their magazine writing, fiction writing, etc.

Don't marry your fiance until you work through some of your issues with sex and fidelity. However, I wouldn't necessarily recommend breaking up with him just yet, either. Long engagements are not a bad idea in general, and in your case will give you time to think about what kind of future you want with this man.

If you do eventually decide to break things off, it's a lot simpler to end an engagement than a marriage -- for starters, lawyers and the court system are generally not involved.

These maniacs will continue to get a free pass because the GOP wants the Cuban community's votes.

Goldberg got where he is because his mother runs in influential conservative circles, not because of any innate intellect or talent. He's never actually achieved anything on his own merit. No wonder he loves fascism and war. Chickenhawks like him always worship strong men, perhaps because they sense that they themselves are hollow.

One of my cousins used to teach in an online school for high school students who were unable to attend classes at their regular schools for various reasons, mostly related to illness or discipline problems. Many of her students were teenaged girls who were either pregnant or had recently given birth.

My cousin was given the syllabuses and resources for the kids' classes by their regular teachers, covered the material in online discussions, and made sure that the kids completed their assignments. This is the kind of thing that Denver should take a serious look into setting up, with the benefit that any student can take advantage of it (not just teen moms).

I should have said headscarf instead of hijab. The chador is the voluminous, (usually) black cloak that many Iranian women wear over their clothes while they're out in public. A popular alternative is wearing a longsleeved coat and headscarf, and it's this form of dress that I was referring to.

The sweeter varieties of onion (like vidalias and mayan sweets) don't seem to be as hard on the tear ducts.

Water, refrigeration, and good ventilation all work pretty well, too.

Quite a few Iranian women have been liberalizing their standard hijab-plus-longsleeved-coat outfits by wearing pink, pushing the hijab back so that some of their hair shows, and so forth. This nutjob cleric's vile comments are an attempt to rein in these uppity women and their supporters and maintain the Islamic hardliners' strict female dress code in the face of the public's desire to relax it.

He and Maria Schriver have four kids. Presumably that makes him 2/3 of the environmental hypocrite that RFK, Jr. is with his six offspring.

Anyhow, the old saying is true: you attract more flies with a teaspoon of honey than a gallon of vinegar. This hyper-moralistic, "all or nothing" approach to environmentalism is counterproductive. For starters, it alienates people. Most of us resent being made to feel guilty for choices that we think are reasonable for our individual situations. Beyond that, environmental hype leads inevitably to environmental backlash -- as is now happening with the Prius.

We need to think about what's better in the long run. Having a few purist environmentalists who don't drive, don't reproduce, and live semi-ascetic lives? Or having many people make modest green changes to their lifestyles? A bigger group that makes smaller changes will do more to conserve energy, encourage sustainability, and reduce our collective carbon emissions and other pollutants than a select group of enthusiasts will.

So let's lay off the environmoralism and show some encouragement for people who are starting to make green choices. After all, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The McMansion owner who drives a hybrid is using less gasoline than her next-door neighbor who drives a monster SUV. The guy who only bikes or takes public transportation one day a week is using less energy than his officemate who doesn't do either one. The family that switches to compact fluorescents is consuming less electricity than the one that doesn't. These little things will add up if enough people are encouraged to do them and are made to feel as if they're part of the solution -- not castigated for being insufficiently green!