Sweetheart :) Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day - I haven’t mailed anything and I don’t think my other note went out (I can’t find it here to see if it’s been sent - lol). I’m feeling better, mostly - just very weak. I seldom say this, but I feel old! I’ll be glad when this is all past and I can get back to normal In my other note I said I thought I’d write a card or note this week, but it doesn’t appear that’s going to happen. Everyone at Amber’s has this now, so it’s me running to the store, etc. one trip into town wears me out - have to lie down for the rest of the day! I’m improving though - better than this time last week! I love it when you remind me of the old times - the World theater and things like that - it reminds me of how long we’ve loved one another. Too bad we were so stupid all those years ago - it would be so different now. That’s what I do - I start to remember and then I twist it in my head to what we could have had...what, in our minds, we DO have - and I live there quite happily for awhile...until reality intrudes. :) Good night my love...I really will try to get something in the mail soon....know that I love you with all of my heart...and that I am forever Your Jeannie
2/13/20: Wow, I'm reading through a bunch of your posts and I just want to thank you for putting all of this out there. This is D--- from the study group. I'll say, around counseling, while I think it is beneficial, necessary even for humans to have someone to talk to, counseling (or therapy) can seem benignly positive but have some really deep-seated issues around controlling others behaviors and thought processes. And working in an environment like a prison will rub off on you - you have to be vigilant to keep yourself from adopting that mentality, even if you think you never would. Like, I am a counselor in a residential mental health program that is voluntary. It is a very different experience than being locked up and overall I think it is a good thing this kind of program exists. But, just cuz it's voluntary doesn't mean people aren't coerced into being there - most residents are otherwise homeless, and they rely on "doing well" in our program in order to move on to other residential treatment & eventually, hopefully, long-term housing. Much like in prison, doing "well" in interactions with counselors and in groups is a way to increase your chances of eventual freedom or stability. Often clients learn to recite exactly what staff wants to hear ("I'm working really hard to maintain sobriety," "I'm developing coping skills so I don't engage in self-destructive behaviors in the future") and it becomes hard to tell to what degree someone believes this for themselves or is just going through the motions for the sake of their own future. And at the same time, some of those resources & conversations are actually beneficial (tho they never systemic oppression that create our trauma in the first place). But the inherent power dynamic, when someone has all this control over someone's fundamental life circumstances, taints the whole relationship. It requires a very critical engagement on the part of the "professional" to not enforce one's beliefs or goals, or those of the institution for which one works, onto those you're working with. And on the part of the "counseled" party, it can be very hard to disentangle what you actually want & believe from what you are being told by someone in a position of authority who positions themself (and probably believes themself to be) working in your own best interest. I've been on the patient side, and am now on the other, and...it's weird. I can say that most people I work with do not think about this critically at all, and the problem gets worse the more degrees & power someone has...sorry your psych is an asshole who diminishes the very real trauma you and other prisoners experience - & also, it doesn't surprise me in the least. Their job is individualizing these problems and encouraging people to adjust to fucked up circumstances rather than removing the fucked up circumstances from the hellscape world we live in. (and yet, many of us need them, to get us through the day-to-day.) So much to think about here, thx
Part Three Hello Antoine I am going to tell you something that will blow your mind regarding my Bible buying day. So I went to a charity book shop and found a stack of bibles. There was a huge one, size of the phone book, massive.and I was looking through it and it fell open and guess what? This Bible was from the late 1800’s. Victorian, and someone had hidden two paintings inside it. They were watercolours that someone, probably a previous owner had hidden inside. So I pointed it out to the shop owner and they got excited about it. Don’t know if they were valuable or not. But I must have been the first person who saw those painting for over a hundred years. I’m looking for a bible that someone has annotated, written inside, made their own personal notes among the text as to what they are getting, or leasing about what they are reading. What I should’ve done was paid for the Bible and not told anyone about it and just did my own research. But it’s a charity shop, so would’ve been a sin. Still looking. Going to London soon. They got some great old bookstores in Charing Cross road, near Trafalgar Square. There’s so many different types of Bible. Especially since the invention of the printing press. I like the family ones, where they write the entire family tree inside the front cover. Wow today on the news there was coverage of a brand new documentary about Tupac Shakur, revealing that he didn’t die in the shooting, but escaped to a Native American village to live out of the public arena??? The guy made a film about it. Even Elvis didn’t have that much cash and clout. Dave Chappell did a skit on his show regarding the conspiracy story that Tupac released music after he died, No one can fake their own death today even the billionaire Jeffrey Epstein couldn’t manage not to get murdered, and his wallet was bigger than most. If I was a CO on his wing I think I could be persuaded to give him the key for the exit door!!! Have you got any famous people in your jail? Regardin* the shoes. Keep sending them letters. Repeat weekly if you can. Someone, the right one, will open it. Common is a good idea. Reverend Run, Russell Simmons, KrS1 Phat Farm, Writing on shoes I think will be a coming trend, I can see it developing. People want people to know who they are and where they stand, religiously, politically and culturally. Shoes with clues! Regarding the coffee lie. In UK jails there is a saying. “Don’t feed the pigeons”. It means when you start giving people in that confinement space things, they take it for granted, Stay to yourself. Do your own time. Well that’s all for now. Except Can you post up your doc number and the name and address of the facility you are in, I can’t find you on the internet. Look after yourself and those you care about T
Part two Hello Antoine The person who cuts in line. That does my head right in! I remember as a child watching one of my aunts get into a fist fight in a butchers shop because someone stepped in front of her. It is not worth messing up your record or you face calling someone out in jail, say a prayer to yourself and leave them to step in front of the wrong person one day. Let someone else fight that fight for you. Don’t get into it. Let them step in front of the wrong person. Not you. You are stepping into parole.... In the UK the government can enact a law straight into your life. We had some riots a few years back. One guy picked up a bottle of water from the street, that another person had looted from a store, and got a two year sentence for it. We also have a thing called judicial precedent. So if someone did the same crime as you and got less time for it, you can appeal straight away and have your sentence reduced, You definitely got too heavy a sentence. Just keep plugging away at the parole hearings and you will get there. You are doing great right now. You are existing in a microcosm where there is a different rule set on the walkways and yards that you have to manoeuvre. Problem with a microcosm is there’s no room for evolution, so it takes a certain strength of character just to negotiate through this ordeal. 60 Days in. Is a fantastic show you must watch. They put volunteers into county jails across USA and get them to try and find out how contraband is getting into the jails. Drugs, phones etc. Some of the people they have are awesome. They had two guys who were ex marines, tough as hell. And they have to negotiate their way around all the pod bosses the shot callers all that stuff, Women prisoners too, They had one prisoner who was beat up for pretending to be a marine. Another one got beat up by this freakishly tall gang member for pretending he was in his gang. One of the volunteers thought he was Dog the Bounty Hunter Acting like a tough guy, Said he was a private detective. Couldn’t find his own arse with both hands. He tapped out early, it was hilarious. They found the drugs. One of the women C.Os was a bully she was filmed doing her thing and got fired, Prisoner sneaky though. When their cell got shaken down, they just put the phone/drugs in the coffee cup and walked out the cell with it. The freakishly tall gang member whose name was ‘Too Tall’. A CO got hold of him, and this guy was two feet taller than anyone, CO wrestled him to he floor like he was a toddler. They knew they were being filmed but still acted up. One of the volunteers started going stir crazy and he became a pod boss, complete with slapping people!!!! Your book idea would work better online than in paper form. Plus people are downloading their books now, through amazon kindle. Part tthreee
Part one Hello Antoine. Hope you and those who you love are well. We are good here. My husband has gone to Kashmir for a month to visit his family. So it’s pretty quiet. When he visits his family he fills up suitcases full of clothes shoes, toiletries and stuff, He’s like a Sears and Roebucks! He seems to forget we are shopping in thrift stores and he’s returning hone like the prodigal son full of stuff they probably won’t use. Gentrification is when you, for example like me, live in a poor or crime ridden area. Then rich people come and buy up houses cheap. Then when you want to move house, they bump up the rent so you can’t live there anymore, so you have to move. Then rich people come and start living in the area and bring their coffee shops, restaurants all that. Then the area changes. It can happen within a year. So all the poor people have to go find some place else to live and die in. It’s quite insidious. Buy a house for say sixty thousand dollars, and in a year same house two hundred thousand dollars. The worst example I have personally seen of gentrification was in Brixton North `London. Rich people came bought a housing block. Renewed it, built a playground, put bars around the playground and refused to let kids from the council estate nearby (social housing) wouldn’t let them in. TV came filmed it and embarrassed them into letting the kids play together. Regarding fiscal questions. One UK pound is One dollar thirty cents. Welfare rates, or benefits as they are known here start at about sixty dollars a week. Child benefit for each child is eighty dollars a month. Well it was until four years ago. Now you can only claim for two kids, they won’t pay for any more. In Ireland there’s no child benefits. My aunt who had the loads of kids did it on a mans paycheque. That’s how it used to be for everyone. Now you need two paycheque to cover rent and incidentals like food and electricity GED is a great idea. We don’t have that here, We have end of high school exams, then you go to college, then onto university. I went to university, studied linguistics and English. Now you got to pay to go to university. In UK jails it’s free though. My mum used to say my house looks like a museum, all my travelling buying statues and stuff for the walls. I travelled a lot when I was young. Easy to cross continents when you are located in the UK. Don’t travel now though. I would like to visit Korea. I like that culture. A few Korean people in London. Lots of restaurants, Don’t like the kimchi much! I’m into Jolly Ranchers sours at the moment, there’s a shop a town away that sells American foods like pop tarts and Swedish fish. God does his magic in dreams. Remember the story of Jospeh who was enslaved by his hateful brothers and he had the dreams that the Pharoah listened to, about famine etc. Part two to follow
RSS
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day - I haven’t mailed anything and I don’t think my other note went out (I can’t find it here to see if it’s been sent - lol). I’m feeling better, mostly - just very weak. I seldom say this, but I feel old! I’ll be glad when this is all past and I can get back to normal
In my other note I said I thought I’d write a card or note this week, but it doesn’t appear that’s going to happen. Everyone at Amber’s has this now, so it’s me running to the store, etc. one trip into town wears me out - have to lie down for the rest of the day! I’m improving though - better than this time last week!
I love it when you remind me of the old times - the World theater and things like that - it reminds me of how long we’ve loved one another. Too bad we were so stupid all those years ago - it would be so different now.
That’s what I do - I start to remember and then I twist it in my head to what we could have had...what, in our minds, we DO have - and I live there quite happily for awhile...until reality intrudes. :)
Good night my love...I really will try to get something in the mail soon....know that I love you with all of my heart...and that I am forever
Your
Jeannie
Hello Antoine
I am going to tell you something that will blow your mind regarding my Bible buying day. So I went to a charity book shop and found a stack of bibles. There was a huge one, size of the phone book, massive.and I was looking through it and it fell open and guess what? This Bible was from the late 1800’s. Victorian, and someone had hidden two paintings inside it. They were watercolours that someone, probably a previous owner had hidden inside. So I pointed it out to the shop owner and they got excited about it. Don’t know if they were valuable or not. But I must have been the first person who saw those painting for over a hundred years. I’m looking for a bible that someone has annotated, written inside, made their own personal notes among the text as to what they are getting, or leasing about what they are reading. What I should’ve done was paid for the Bible and not told anyone about it and just did my own research. But it’s a charity shop, so would’ve been a sin. Still looking. Going to London soon. They got some great old bookstores in Charing Cross road, near Trafalgar Square. There’s so many different types of Bible. Especially since the invention of the printing press. I like the family ones, where they write the entire family tree inside the front cover.
Wow today on the news there was coverage of a brand new documentary about Tupac Shakur, revealing that he didn’t die in the shooting, but escaped to a Native American village to live out of the public arena??? The guy made a film about it. Even Elvis didn’t have that much cash and clout. Dave Chappell did a skit on his show regarding the conspiracy story that Tupac released music after he died, No one can fake their own death today even the billionaire Jeffrey Epstein couldn’t manage not to get murdered, and his wallet was bigger than most. If I was a CO on his wing I think I could be persuaded to give him the key for the exit door!!! Have you got any famous people in your jail?
Regardin* the shoes. Keep sending them letters. Repeat weekly if you can. Someone, the right one, will open it. Common is a good idea. Reverend Run, Russell Simmons, KrS1 Phat Farm, Writing on shoes I think will be a coming trend, I can see it developing. People want people to know who they are and where they stand, religiously, politically and culturally. Shoes with clues!
Regarding the coffee lie. In UK jails there is a saying. “Don’t feed the pigeons”. It means when you start giving people in that confinement space things, they take it for granted, Stay to yourself. Do your own time.
Well that’s all for now.
Except
Can you post up your doc number and the name and address of the facility you are in, I can’t find you on the internet.
Look after yourself and those you care about
T
Hello Antoine
The person who cuts in line. That does my head right in! I remember as a child watching one of my aunts get into a fist fight in a butchers shop because someone stepped in front of her. It is not worth messing up your record or you face calling someone out in jail, say a prayer to yourself and leave them to step in front of the wrong person one day. Let someone else fight that fight for you. Don’t get into it. Let them step in front of the wrong person. Not you. You are stepping into parole....
In the UK the government can enact a law straight into your life. We had some riots a few years back. One guy picked up a bottle of water from the street, that another person had looted from a store, and got a two year sentence for it. We also have a thing called judicial precedent. So if someone did the same crime as you and got less time for it, you can appeal straight away and have your sentence reduced, You definitely got too heavy a sentence. Just keep plugging away at the parole hearings and you will get there. You are doing great right now. You are existing in a microcosm where there is a different rule set on the walkways and yards that you have to manoeuvre. Problem with a microcosm is there’s no room for evolution, so it takes a certain strength of character just to negotiate through this ordeal.
60 Days in. Is a fantastic show you must watch. They put volunteers into county jails across USA and get them to try and find out how contraband is getting into the jails. Drugs, phones etc. Some of the people they have are awesome. They had two guys who were ex marines, tough as hell. And they have to negotiate their way around all the pod bosses the shot callers all that stuff, Women prisoners too, They had one prisoner who was beat up for pretending to be a marine. Another one got beat up by this freakishly tall gang member for pretending he was in his gang. One of the volunteers thought he was Dog the Bounty Hunter Acting like a tough guy, Said he was a private detective. Couldn’t find his own arse with both hands. He tapped out early, it was hilarious. They found the drugs. One of the women C.Os was a bully she was filmed doing her thing and got fired, Prisoner sneaky though. When their cell got shaken down, they just put the phone/drugs in the coffee cup and walked out the cell with it. The freakishly tall gang member whose name was ‘Too Tall’. A CO got hold of him, and this guy was two feet taller than anyone, CO wrestled him to he floor like he was a toddler. They knew they were being filmed but still acted up. One of the volunteers started going stir crazy and he became a pod boss, complete with slapping people!!!!
Your book idea would work better online than in paper form. Plus people are downloading their books now, through amazon kindle. Part tthreee
Hello Antoine.
Hope you and those who you love are well. We are good here. My husband has gone to Kashmir for a month to visit his family. So it’s pretty quiet. When he visits his family he fills up suitcases full of clothes shoes, toiletries and stuff, He’s like a Sears and Roebucks! He seems to forget we are shopping in thrift stores and he’s returning hone like the prodigal son full of stuff they probably won’t use.
Gentrification is when you, for example like me, live in a poor or crime ridden area. Then rich people come and buy up houses cheap. Then when you want to move house, they bump up the rent so you can’t live there anymore, so you have to move. Then rich people come and start living in the area and bring their coffee shops, restaurants all that. Then the area changes. It can happen within a year. So all the poor people have to go find some place else to live and die in. It’s quite insidious. Buy a house for say sixty thousand dollars, and in a year same house two hundred thousand dollars.
The worst example I have personally seen of gentrification was in Brixton North `London. Rich people came bought a housing block. Renewed it, built a playground, put bars around the playground and refused to let kids from the council estate nearby (social housing) wouldn’t let them in. TV came filmed it and embarrassed them into letting the kids play together.
Regarding fiscal questions. One UK pound is One dollar thirty cents. Welfare rates, or benefits as they are known here start at about sixty dollars a week. Child benefit for each child is eighty dollars a month. Well it was until four years ago. Now you can only claim for two kids, they won’t pay for any more. In Ireland there’s no child benefits. My aunt who had the loads of kids did it on a mans paycheque. That’s how it used to be for everyone. Now you need two paycheque to cover rent and incidentals like food and electricity
GED is a great idea. We don’t have that here, We have end of high school exams, then you go to college, then onto university. I went to university, studied linguistics and English. Now you got to pay to go to university. In UK jails it’s free though.
My mum used to say my house looks like a museum, all my travelling buying statues and stuff for the walls. I travelled a lot when I was young. Easy to cross continents when you are located in the UK. Don’t travel now though. I would like to visit Korea. I like that culture. A few Korean people in London. Lots of restaurants, Don’t like the kimchi much! I’m into Jolly Ranchers sours at the moment, there’s a shop a town away that sells American foods like pop tarts and Swedish fish.
God does his magic in dreams. Remember the story of Jospeh who was enslaved by his hateful brothers and he had the dreams that the Pharoah listened to, about famine etc.
Part two to follow