March 6, 2011
“You are schooled in the county jail about the importance of minding your own business, but these guys can’t help themselves.”
10:01 p.m.
I’m back! Still happy! Still alive! (that’s not funny) The past days have been eventful, but common prison at its finest (worst).
Tonight some dude got beat up because he talks too much. Everybody wants to be famous and fail miserable, only succeeding in being brainless. Morons. You are schooled in the county jail about the importance of minding your own business, but these guys can’t help themselves. It’s sad to witness the never ending self destruction, but….Jason escapes to his own world, light years away from this place of purgatory.
Still floating and inspired by your excitement and enthusiasm! Really, you must be an angel sent by God because I was in the depths….woe, 180 degrees. Glad you enjoyed the writings! Printing my full letters are fine. I have nothing to hide. I don’t mind you printing the names of my kids. They are as much a part of my life and meaning as anything I can think of. As far as I’m concerned, you need not leave anything out. It is what it is.
And if I haven’t already apologized for my reaction to you asking what I need. I’m sorry. ): Money being spent on me is such a soft subject, still, I over-reacted. I was wrong to be so defensive.
A guy showed me an article in this magazine Parabola, about a fox that hid in a hollowed out log, thinking himself witty. Then realized that he was stuck. A woodpecker began to tap the log, annoying the fox, who demanded that the woodpecker stop. The woodpecker ignored the fox’s demands and kept pecking. Eventually, the fox realized that the woodpecker was his means of escape and he’d been trying to run off his only rescue.
I was the fox. I’m in no position to turn away help from people who have my best interests at heart. Forgive me? I’m still learning that I can’t control everything. I would be most grateful for paper if you sent it. Lord knows I need it. I bought one note pad the other day, but it’s so expensive here: $1.50 for 50 sheets. The rules are: no colored paper, only white. I prefer college ruled, but beggars can’t be choosers. Like the books, they have to be sent from some place of business. Unfortunately, we can’t receive pens, and the pens they sell here suck! Paper though, would be of major assistance. I’ve started on novels often but don’t finish because the paper costs so much.
And the books are most welcome. You know that I’m a bookworm. Especially a good dictionary and thesaurus. I’m always looking up words for definitions and spelling. I can’t stand to not know what a word means. I’ll get up in the middle of the night and look a word up. It drives me crazy! And while I pride myself on my vocabulary, I’m rotten at Scrabble. Those are useless words that real people don’t use. A waste of my brainpower. XU, please! The best thing to do is call or go online to find the guidelines for sending stuff. So many stupid rules, I can’t keep up.
Thank you for the encouragement and support! Tell your husband that, too…well, he reads the letters. I’m really enjoying his blogs!! There’s so much to learn! It’s absurd for me to be stuck in this one place with so much land and culture out there to be explored.
Take care and I’ll write again in the next few days.
Sincerely,
March 7, 2011
“Positivity is my shield and weapon. Last week I was frail, today I’m unstoppable.”
10:09 p.m.
Thank you!!! I know this is not our formula, for me to write you every day. However, the dictionary and thesaurus arrived this morning (actually they arrived the 3rd, but I only got them today) and you know that I love them, that I love you more for sending them, and that I owe you a gigantic thank you mommy hug!
You picked really great books! And what does that say about one that I’m so thrilled by such books? Well, I embrace my nerdship. With these tools, I may one day become the King Nerd or His Nerdship.
If I weren’t concerned with keeping them in good condition, I’d sleep with them. Instead, they’ll be right at the head of my bed, within a groggy half-sleep arm’s length. You’re the best!
Want some more good news? Sure? Okay, yesterday I was accosted by a female officer in the cafeteria. Apparently, an old celly who I was feeding now and then, let her taste my food. Well, to say that she was impressed is an understatement.
She told me that I need to be working in the kitchen. Ha, you can imagine my smirk. I was radiating arrogance, justifiably, when I told her that I’d submitted several I-60’s to the kitchen, classification, the warden. She scoffed, “SO! Tell them you’re a real live chef!”
After I left, she talked to some other officers in the kitchen. So, the word is out. I’m a wanted man (music from The Good, The Bad, The Ugly). At first I told myself, ‘to hell with them, they don’t deserve me!’ Then, someone told me, “Hey man, that’s where you’re supposed to be!”
Anyhow, these geniuses are still trying to kill each other. It’s tragic. Positivity is my shield and weapon. Last week I was frail, today I’m unstoppable.
Blog Mouse or Monster?
Let society tell it, I’m a menace, a criminal mastermind, a monster. A monster caged and humiliated, left to pace the same eight feet repeatedly like a feral dog, rushed to bathe, rushed to eat, hurried back inside my cage where the door is slammed shut as if to emphasize the butt of the justice system’s cruel joke. Then left to slowly rot for a lifetime. Hurried into forever.
Yet I watch the news and wonder if society has its priorities mixed up? Okay, I was once a good man who did bad things to survive, made bad choices, bad acquaintances, bad liaisons, wrong turns in a vehicle powered by good intentions. Oh, I wasn’t a saint, but I was far from Satan.
Still when it’s all said and done, I’m just a man, loving, losing, learning. Sometimes, things are as bleak as the sky of Hades; my guiding light is the goodness of my Lord encircling the smiling faces of my children. Nothing do I love as pure and completely as I love my babies. Does that mean that I’m falsely labeled or that I’m just a monster with a heart?
Although I know I’m a man, and a good man at that, my opinion counts for nothing. Regardless, I know monsters. I’m not of them, but they dwell where I dwell, sleep where I sleep, eat what I eat, breathe the air I breathe…and I’m glad they are here with me rather than out there with my family.
Then ever so often, I’m reminded that they are out there too.
Today, watching the news, I caught myself stabbing my fingernails into the palms of my balled up fists, my jaws clenched, my heart thudding fiercely as I watched pictures of a precious two year old girl smiling the thrilled and innocent smiles of a happy baby.
While the pictures of that beautiful little angel showed on the screen, the reporter told of how the child was held down in scalding hot water that resulted in second degree burns and the end of the young life that she’d barely begun.
Even now, hours later, my emotions are muddied, raw and conflicting. The rage is awake and roiling like a storm cloud, my sadness is an uncrossable chasm of grief…and yet, consumed by fury, heartbroken, as part of me is guilty. Not because I had some part in it, I could never ever imagine harming a child. My guilt stems from the relief that my own little girl is whole, safe, unmolested and alive.
Lord, forgive me my selfishness? But isn’t this the same gamut of unfair emotions every parent feels when they hear such awful news? And isn’t it equally selfish of me to wish myself gone in that child’s place? I’d trade places with her without hesitation, but what about the children I leave behind?
It seems nothing is simple, especially when so thoroughly detained and oppressed that I have no control over these tragedies. If some sick bastard were to commit an act (Lord forbid) as terrible or perhaps more treacherous against my babies, I would be utterly helpless, unable to protect my own, the life that began within me.
Times like these, to be a monster would be a fantasy. I’m less than a man, a mouse, sniffing, darting this way and that in a maze of madness.
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