October 16, 2013: 7:00am: Listening to "My Demons", group unknown?

Good morning, everyone. Mornings are normally the best times to think & write. It's quiet and I can focus. Most guys are up late watching TV so they sleep in and it's usually quiet. I was up most of the night thinking of my daughter, Krista is 16 today. Happy birthday, honey. I have a lot of my own demons and regrets. They will haunt me forever. I don't know how to let go of the past or move on. I just haven't learned that yet. But I sat here most of the night in the dark thinking of Krista. I missed her entire life, she is my 16 year old daughter and I don't even know her. I don't her first word, her favorite foods, if she has ever broken a bone, I don't know much about my own child. And from in here, all I can do is write her. I just don't know what else I can do. My mom told me every year on my birthday she is up late remembering the night I was born. I wasn't there for Krista's birth. I have missed 16 years of her life and I just don't know how to start a relationship with her. I am trying and I will not give up. If you are reading this, honey, please don't give up on me, I will never give up on you. I have never in my life broken my word and you have my word that I will do my best for you whenever I possibly can. I love you, angel.

I'm still angry over this debt ceiling and how it is going to hurt a lot of people very soon. Everyone on disability, on Social Security, if our government doesn't do something, none of them will get their check. And no bank or loan company is going to care that you didn't get your check, they want the money that you owe them. Our country continues to get deeper and deeper into debt. We sell U.S. bonds to other countries and they buy the bonds. Which are guaranteed, then we must continue to use tax payer money and pay the interest rates on the bonds every year. But we are falling so far behind. Why continue to sell them at all? Makes no sense to me. And I was watching CNN yesterday and they had an "ask & answer segment" come on. You e-mailed your question and they answered it with one of President Obama's top men in the Debt Dept. They e-mail was about the international foreign aid, why we do it and how much it costs. They really didn't answer the why part but the man from the White House said we only give $91 billion away per year. But according to the USA Today newspaper, that's a lie. The paper said that we are giving $5 billion per month to a few of the countries in the Middle East. And if you do that for just 1 country for 1 year, that's 60 billion right there. I don't know what the truth is, I wish I could talk to former governor Jesse Ventura. He had that show on "Tru TV" channel (formerly Court TV), and he investigated stuff that our government lies to us about. I just wish the White House would be honest for once. They said that the 532 members of Congress are being paid when almost no other government employee is. I am not anti government or anti law enforcement.

There are a lot of importance to those jobs but if the people at the bottom of this totem pole are not being paid, then the ones at the top shouldn't be either. If you are making $172,000+ per year, you can probably afford to miss a few weeks' pay. But the ones making virtually nothing, they can't. It's like in prison. Instead of heading a problem off and fixing it before it becomes even bigger, in here it's basically ignored until it gets to be an inconvenience for staff then they usually handle it by putting you in the hole. I don't write about the hole because I'm some weak minded baby. The hole messes up your mind. It can destroy who you are. A woman from the Prison Fellowship named Heather Rice-Minus was recently on TV speaking about a study and report that she did on solitary confinement and how it destroys you, mind, body and soul. The Commissioner of Corrections in Mississippi, last name is Epps, he spoke of the problems with solitary confinement. How prisons all over our country deal with problems by locking prisoners in the hole for years at a time. They want to break their spirits, and they do. He spoke of a man who was put in the hole for a petty misconduct charge, he was given 30 days in cell and that ended up turning into just over 10 years in that same cell without ever getting out. Mr. Epps reviewed his case and released him from the hole immediately. But he was a broken man who spent hours talking to himself. He didn't talk to himself before the hole. I've been in prison for 15 years and every now and then I close my eyes and I imagine a conversation with my dead wife. I love her so much to this day but prison has a way of breaking you mentally. My only real friend in here, Paulie, he was caught with some Sea Breeze in his cell. He worked in the barber shop and that's the only place in the prison where you can get it. It's aftershave. He stole an ounce and kept it in his cell for his own personal use since he shaved every day. And it smells good. So having something that smells good in an old moldy dirty mildew prison, it's a plus. Anyway, they locked him up in the hole for contraband and gave him 5 months in the hole. That's insane. Guys get jumped in here and the ones who commit the assault gets usually 45-60 days in the hole. And now my only real friend in here is being transferred to another prison. There are rules, laws and policies in prison that are extremely draconian. I had to look this word up. I only went to the 6th grade but I've heard it used many times. My dictionary says "Draconian - very harsh or severe". I know most of society doesn't care what happens to us in prison but we are still human beings and we deserve to be treated as such. We are here for breaking the law and we probably didn't treat others as human beings but speaking for myself, I am a different man. I was a 21 year old kid when I came here. I am not that person anymore. Yesterday a prisoner on my block had his radio turned up very loud blasting rap music. The sergeant yelled turn that n-word shit down or I'll bury your ass in the f***ing hole. An' by bury he means you will be in the hole for 6 months or more. Happens every day in here. There are close to 100,000 men, women and children in the hole in prisons all across our country. Why? Most are for petty rule violations. But when you lock someone in the hole, in a cell for 23 hours per day with nothing to do, what would you do? Imagine that and tell me what you would do for 23 hours a day in the hole for 6 months? In 2007 I chose to walk away from violence. I let a guy run his mouth and he called me every name in the book. He insulted me. I walked away. That's one of the dumbest moves you can make in here. That afternoon he spit on me in the hall way. I lost it. I beat the living sh*t outta him. If the guards wouldn't have been there, I would have put him in the hospital. I was given 8 1/2 months in the hole. 255 days. And I did every single one of them. But back then, I had family in my life, I had more friends. I lost 5 friends just this year. I guess they just got tired of writing to someone in prison, being there for me. I guess it just got too hard. I don't know because they never talked to me about it. I just never heard from them again. And it's not like you can just pick up a phone and call someone in here. It just doesn't work like that. So let me just spit it out, if you have someone in prison, friend, family, loved one, husband, wife, whatever the relationships is, if they are important to you, if you care about them at all, talk to them. Tell them how you feel. Don't just abandon them. That's the worst thing you can do. If you just bail on them, you never really cared at all. No one is perfect, but communication is the key. That's all for today. Sit down and write someone a letter. Don't just rely on e-mail or a phone. A letter is a good way to start. Take care and God bless. Ciao.

PS: My next blog will be about organ donations. If you needed a kidney and were dying, would you want a prisoner's organ? The average person says no. Think about it. See ya soon.