TGIF! *chuckle* I got to spend one night alone in my cell and then Thursday I got a new cellie. Jerry, an older, small, wiry white guy who’s about 62yo, 5’8″ and 130# so at least he isn’t a physical threat. LOL He’s a Safe Keep from Lancaster County jail and just waiting for his court hearing for a civil commitment to the Regional Center. Purportedly he “forced” himself on an underage girl but there must not have been even inappropriate touching or they would have charged him with sexual assault and he’d be facing prison. I gather that he was assessed for commitment by none other than Mary Paine, the person who ran the sex-offender treatment program that I went through while on parole. She definitely lived up to her name when I met with her about her program. Since I transferred parole from CA to NE I had to go through treatment, but not necessarily her program. I could have gone to private therapy with the doctor who actually taught her. So when we met I was assessing her program and deciding if I wanted to go to it or go with her teacher. I was very turned off by her judgmental and accusatory attitude (not helpful attributes in a therapist) but I liked the individual I would be working with in her program, Jason Christensen, so at the end of our interview I told her I was going to think about it and I’d let her know if I chose her program or not. She virtually blew up at me saying that it was HER call if I attended her program and if SHE rejected ME then I’d be sent back to prison, which was all patently false, at least in my case. She was so incensed at the thought that she wasn’t the one with all the power and that I could dare to choose or not choose HER program that she was yelling at me. Some people’s egos are so fragile that they explode into a million angry pieces at the slightest challenge to their authority. That is Mary Paine. I still joined her program because I was that impressed with Jason that I wanted to work with him in spite of the risk of having to run into her again. I never did. I graduated the program and if I never see her again in my life I will die a happier person for it. Jerry’s future hinges on her, and it seems she’s already decided he needs to be committed.
Jerry probably won’t be here long., maybe a week or a month at most I’d expect. Just till his next court date gets scheduled. So the question is, is he a good enough cellie that I can tolerate him that long. LOL As I said, he’s no physical threat. He seems to have reasonable personal hygiene, at least so far. He’s not obviously crazy, though he is a bit ADHD. One of the first things he said is that he usually sleeps all day and is up all night. That won’t be good if he keeps me up with noise but his first night last night he was very quiet. He also talks more than I like (when I told McK and dad this at visiting today they both broke out laughing, I guess they think I talk a lot but I’m rather quiet in here 😛 ) and he talks loudly, which caused Victor in cell 2 to bang on the wall and yell at us once already. He’s been very respectful though and accommodating to any requests or suggestions I’ve made so I think he’ll work out OK. He even made a suggestion to me today that was quite insightful. My state issued boots have almost no cushion in them and then I play handball I can hurt my heel. Today he suggested I take the straps off my shower shoes and put them in my boots as added cushion. Since I had a spare pair that I had already purchased off canteen (I wanted a spare pair on hand in case the ones I’m using broke so I wouldn’t have to wait a week or more to get replacements) I took the foot straps off of them and slid them into my boots. At first I could barely get my feet into the boots and lace them up but after playing handball for an hour at gym they seem to fit pretty well now. I guess I’ll keep Jerry around…at least until he goes to court or the Regional Center. LOL
The visit today was a little bitter-sweet. I am always happy to see mom and dad but it was the last visit I’ll get from them for 4 months. I tried to spend a good portion of the visit engaging them in conversation but mom still nodded off at one point. *chuckle* Mck was also there of course and Roz eventually joined and had to leave a bit early to get back to work.
I hope I’ll still get visits after my parents hit the road but I expect it will drop off substantially from the every week schedule it’s been. McK doesn’t drive or have a car so he can’t come alone. Justin can only come on Sundays and I’d expect he might come once a month if I’m lucky. Roz might want to come fairly regularly, but if she comes on Friday it’s during her work day and if she comes on Sunday it interferes with taiji practice. If Roz and Justin each come once a month and bring McK then I’d get an average of a visit every other week which is still a hell of a lot better than most anyone else in unit 1, and we get more visits than any other unit BY FAR. Whatever visits I get, I can’t complain. I’m in here and everyone has a life going on out there so any time out of their schedule they take is significantly meaningful to me and I’m grateful for.
I seem to get on a topic and get long winded about it and then I can’t remember the other little things that happened throughout the day so I miss things. I think I’ll start jotting down notes as the day goes on in order to not miss out on journaling anything. LOL
Tomorrow I go back to work. I started on Wed and then had Thurs and Fri off but I’m back on tomorrow. I’ll have to see how my schedule works out because I’ll be out of the cell a lot more now, even though a lot of the time I won’t be doing much. For instance, when we serve meals, I’ll be out to clean tables but I don’t do that until everyone at a table has finished and left so I stand around and wait while B side eat. And after the last lunch, which should end before 12, we have 45 min to clean and mop the dayroom and at least on Wed we ended up have a lot of spare time and watched TV. The other guys watched a soccer game on the sports TV but I wasn’t into it and tried to watch Bones on the other TV but I didn’t have headphones so I couldn’t listen. Tomorrow I think I’ll put my earbuds in my pocket so I can at least hear the TV if we get to watch it again. *smile*
I have the alarm on my watch set to wake me in time to get ready before they call me to work. We’ll see how that goes. I’d better get to sleep for my first morning working my job at 6AM. Good night.
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