I’m starting to settle into the routine of the schedule here. That’s both good and bad. Good in that I can now figure out when we are supposed to eat, have dayroom, go to yard or gym. I’ve even started a personal schedule of showering at first dayroom, sweeping and mopping the cell every other day, making a call during the evening dayroom and doing yoga before or after lunch depending on when we have our long lockdown. I do taiji during the hour yard and I read in between everything else. So I’m getting into my groove which makes life easier and helps time pass faster. On the bad side: boredom, monotony and my groove becoming a rut aren’t far off. As my former bunkie Bill said “Prison is years of grinding boredom punctuated by seconds of sheer terror.” And you really hope for as few of those seconds as possible, preferring the mind-numbing boredom.
I came to the conclusion today that I am quite the egotist. Yeah, yeah, I guess I’ve always known that. LOL But I found yet another proof. I’m writing this lengthy journal and making all these plans to have Justin make it available to all my friends but really, who would have the time to read this? And if I transcribe my old journal from CA and publish it publicly who would ever care to read it? It made me realize that I’m really doing this for myself, for therapy, to get stuff out and process through it.
Today at yard I did taiji again and the other yard started to yell comments but we had a regular CO named Cherry and he shouted at them that I was one of “his boys” on this yard and then that I was on of the best ones. Since the inmates knew and respected Cherry (he’s known as a fair CO with a good sense of humor) they shut up. The surprising part was that Cherry didn’t even know me but yet he defended me. After I finished the form I cooled down by walking around the perimeter of the yard and as I passed him I told him thank you for defusing the situation. He said some people are just ignorant. I nodded and walked on. He earned my respect.
Tonight on the phone call home I got to talk to mom, dad, Justin and McK. I’ve been worried about McK since I received an email from him this past week admitting he’s depressed because of his mother, because of me, because of everything. On a group call I couldn’t ask him about it directly so I simply asked when he was starting classes. It turns out he had a phone call with some administrator at his school and didn’t like what was said so he told them he wouldn’t be attending their school. Damn it! He needs me, needs someone to be there for him and to help him figure things out and I’m stuck in fucking here! I honestly believe the hardest part of being incarcerated is when there is trouble in the real world and you are totally powerless to do anything to help. I can’t even call McK directly and talk with him about things because his phone is off. *deep exasperated sigh*
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