October 14, 2015
Today sucks ass.
That's pretty much it in a nutshell. I wake up at exactly 7:00 to hear over the intercom, "Food service is now closed." Yeaaa. No breakfast and I am utterly famished!!! I get up and pad to the restroom then make my 'good morning cuppa joe. I putter around and then grudgingly clean the room. It's not that bad to clean considering A) the square footage is similar to that of a small shoe closet, and B) The floor is waxed. It's just tedious. I'm a sticker for dust!!
So. Anyway. When it is time for me to do my laundry, I discover that my assigned dryer is broken (#2). Hmph. Of course it is. That in turn causes total chaos because the washers/dryers are assigned to people to use at different times. When one is broken, we must change everything over to 2 washers/dryers. I did, after a very short 2 1/2 hours, make it into dryer #3. Hurrah!!! Clean chonies for 4 more days!! The excitement overwhelms me!
Ok. Maybe I am in a mood. Alright. I am definitely in a mood... I suppose it began when I went on the computer and was reading "News Briefs" and there was an article discussing bills that will be voted upon next week. It seems that EVERYONE almost will be receiving time off. I would of course fall into the 'almost' category. It will affect all the drug dealers. Users. Pushers. Mules. Kingpens. With guns. Without guns. Lifers. Whatever. Apparently, it will also apply to violent offenders who have life w/o parole. Their sentences will be lowered to 15+. Nice. My sentence however will NOT be changed. Even for the programming. That is where one takes educations, psychological, and spiritual classes for personal enrichment. Now they will also receive extra time off for taking these classes. Not me. This is SOOO unfair!!! I feel slighted. It's bad enough my co-defendant receives 60% less time than me. (He was looking at life and got 15 years. I was looking at 24 and got 24.) Now there are several laws being passed to offer relief from over-sentencing, and because I have a sex offense I am exempt. I know. It does not appear that I am whining about it all and that I really should not have a right to based on the nature of my offense. I get that. IDK. Maybe. It's just that I see soooo much!!! I'll give you an example: There are women (2) that I know that are in here for manufacturing methamphetamines. 10 year sentences each. They both continue to use drugs while they are here. They receive drugs from the pill line and then take them back and sell them to other inmates who are addicts. Those drugs, by the way, they are receiving for fictitious ailments that they reported as having (to receive said narcotics), One of the two of them shoots up. The other one gets phych drugs (as well as her morphine) and sells those. They e-mail their families insisting on money constantly, making their family feel guilty for their being in here. They get into fights. Have sex with each other in their rooms. (uh, did I mention ever that in here we have roommates and no DOORS on our rooms???) They steal from the kitchen. One steals from her job and then pedals the stolen property on the compound. And God only knows what other rule infractions that I DON'T know about. Here's the thing.....both of them received time off already from the 2 point reductions (that was time off given a couple of years ago for lower level drug dealers who are non-violent). I believe it was 1 1/2 years each. Now, they will both receive time off for any programming that they have completed plus will complete. That's minimum. There could be other factors that apply to either one of them as well to make the time even lower. Let's now recap. Low-level drug offenders have already received time off and will be receiving even more. In many cases it could total 40% of their time. Including the two women fore mentioned. (Can we say "recidivism?!!?!?!?") I on the other hand, who have completed over 100 different classes will get nothing. I follow the rules. I have taken many psych classes as I am trying to be a better person. And I get nothing. ... I just read back over this and it seems I am bitter. Going to go pray now....................

January 8, 2016

It's the 8th-ish-because it 12:21 a.m. I volunteer to do the unit rags on the weekend nights but the girl who does them on Thursdays has taken ill. Therefore, I offered to do them tonight. It is a PAYING job. (Well, somethat. What I do I believe pays a whopping 7.50 per month.) Pay being a very generous word. I'm medically assigned still. That means that I am not allowed to have a job, not allowed to get paid for a job, and am basically forced to rely on the financial support of my family. And by 'family' I mean my 80 year old father. Hmmph. I have been trying to be allowed to get a job but to no avail. (Oh yea, the pay for a job here runs usually between 5.25 and 60.00 per month. There are several exceptions to where one can make much more but that involves grades, bonuses, or working for the commissary department). Oddly, one of the worst paying jobs is in education. This is evident by the fact that I took a class entitled, "Obama's Presidency" and on the pretest was the ONLY one who knew the name of our current vice president!!! No kidding!! So, therefore, I volunteer for this job. I may receive no pay, but I can wash as much as I want during the night. I have normally one wash time per week. (Sunday 2:15 P.M. to be precise) More if I have any emergency issues. This way I can have 10 if I choose. Woo hoo! Let the food times roll!!! LOL!!!! There are only 3 regular washers and dryers per unit with 200+ women. So, several washes are a wonderful bonus!!!

Aside from that, my mundane life has been...well...mundane....

I have begun to take college classes. That I am pretty excited about. I suppose if nothing else that I will leave here one day (hopefully) well read and highly educated :-) (I promise to also work on my pathetic typing skills. I have just been typing lately because with my R.A. it is easier to type than it is to write) The first class that I am taking is English 1301. It is just a prerequisite class. It will be followed by various others, such as math, psychology, and other basics. I think that it is wonderful that a representative comes here from Tarrant County College and teaches us. This is considered a satellite school for Tarrant County. Being married so young and then having to work so hard most of my life, I didn't think that I would ever go to college. Sure, when I was 18 or 19, I figured that when things got straightened out on my life that I would go. Then of course one year led into another and before I knew it I was middle aged with a career that I didn't particularly like and no way to get out of it since I had to work so much. This being said, I am very happy about this opportunity for personal enrichment. Albeit a different setting would have been nice...

Almost done with the rags and my clothes. Calling it a night.

February 9, 2016

Yeaaaaaa!!!!! I received the test results from the TSI. (That is a test one must take before entering a college in the state of Texas) On the first part of the English test I made a 571. That is ok. Middle or the road. But on the essay part I made a... (drum roll).....7!!!! :-) :-) The highest grade out of all of us!! It ranges from a 0-8. '0' being that you are more than likely suffering from some sort of mental defect, and '8' being that you plagiarized it from a text book. Well, more than likely because that is a perfect score. So, today is a happy day for me.

Today is also the birthday (I think) of an old friend of mine from high school. Someone that I was in touch with right up until the night before my arrest. I have thought about it, and it would be easy enough to get his address and send him a note to see how he is doing. But of course, I never will. I am so ashamed from all of this that I don't dare even think of doing such a thing. It's weird. In some ways, I consider in the back of the mind most of the people that used to be dear to me dead. I know. That sounds weird.

But to me, it is easier that way. People know where I am at. They know how to get in touch with me—the address is listed on the prison's website. Therefore, it means they choose not to. I understand because if the roles were reversed, I am not so sure I would race to write me and/or send my email address either. Knowing that, though, does not make it hurt any less that these people are out of my life. More than likely forever. That is why I think of them as dead. It makes the hurt not sting so badly.

There are about ten people who I miss soooo much. I am thinking of writing something to them on this blog. Not mentioning their actual names, of course, because of their privacy. More like just thoughts that I have about them sometimes. I don't know. It's just an idea. Maybe I will and maybe I won't.

I went around here for about a week telling my close friends that I have made how much they mean to me, and I thanked them for their friendships. Then I gave them little gifts. All four of them got together and decided I was contemplating suicide. OMG! It was sort of funny but sort of sad. I suppose that when one's close friend begins acting what one may think is macabre, something like suicide comes to mind. My intentions were to just let them know how important they are to me. I have learned that life is so short and that when we care for someone, we should never wait until it's time for the eulogy to say something nice and let them know how I feel.

I remember when my momma lived in Umatilla in some apartments. She had a white refrigerator that she put little magnets all over. Sometimes she would hang different sayings or things that she thought was cute. On the side of her fridge was a cut-out from a newspaper. I think it could have been an Ann Landers column. Anyway, it was a poem about not waiting until someone is dead to give them flowers. People don't want flowers on their graves. If you care for them so much, give them the flowers NOW. That may sound silly, but I took it to heart. One would think that I would have the poem memorized to be able to post it on here, but after my stroke, I forgot many things. Or it could be just old age. LOL!

The gist of it was to care about someone in the moment. TELL them how you feel, and let every day and everything you say to someone be as if it is your last. That is something that I practice with my family now. Those I speak to, anyway. I never let a call or a letter go by without telling them just how important they are in my life. There are many that I miss terribly and would love the chance to be able to tell them. Maybe one day. Or maybe I am dead to them the way that they have been in my mind. Who knows.

At any rate, I hope that D had a wonderful 44th birthday and was able to spend time with his boys and significant other, having the time of his life. :) I also hope that he tells them how important they are to him because we never know what happens after today.