"Sometimes we are less unhappy in being deceived by those we love than in being undeceived by them."
—Francis la Rochefoucauld, Mephims

11-01-18

Dear Readers,
Happy All Saint's Day! Even though I'm not Catholic (or Christian), if there's a holiday, I'll celebrate it. Also, happy belated Samhain (Halloween) for my Pagan friends and general party goers.

This has been quite the week so far. And not in a good way.

This past Tuesday they had the shoe fiasco. The previous Tuesday they did unicorn ("uniwhore"), food service, and one or two other job-related places. But this week, they had it for everyone else—which included me. So what they did was—in their infinite wisdom—the BOP decided to have everyone turn in their boots and issued us these fugly-assed tennis shoes. Workers who required bots kept theirs, but everyone else got the tennis shoes.

Okay, so these shoes are black and clunky, with velcro straps and clear soles. No one with any sense of fashion would be caught dead in them. I did hear that they were actually comfortable and would save on wear and tear on my own tennis shoes, so I might actually break down and wear them. So far, though, I just can't bring myself to do it.

Anyway, this whole process of changing out shoes took all freakin' day. As usual, they started on the far end of the compound and slowly worked their way to my unit. My unit didn't make it to laundry until dinner time. Further, they had education and the rec yard closed until everyone got their shoes. OMG. I didn't make it out to the rec yard until 7 PM. So that was Tuesday. Then there was yesterday.

Okay, so yesterday was Samhain (Halloween), and all the Wiccans—myself included—had a religious holiday. Samhain is the biggest holiday for Pagans (Wiccans). Well, the game plan was that I would go to the library and type until 10 AM. Then I'd scoot over to the chapel where we would have meditations all day in preparation for the big ritual that night.

Unfortunately, I found out that morning that this would be the day that they would be coming to my unit to cut the bolts off the lockers. We had to empty everything out of our lockers. Awesome. Our lockers were bolted to the wall, and there were complaints about mold and trash accumulating under the lockers. As a result, I had to completely empty out my locker and the spare third locker since there are three bunks in here, they're three lockers. I keep mainly yarn and overflow in the third locker. They finally got to my cell a little after 10 AM. With a pause for lunch, I spent until almost 2 PM cleaning the cell and putting stuff back where it belonged.

It was a really rotten day. Now I'm going to have to pause 'cause it's getting close to 12:40 PM, and I need to get ready to go to work. I missed two days of typing this week with all the crap going on.

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11/01/18
9:14 PM

Okay. Had a great night out on the rec yard.

Anyway, back to Samhain. We had a ritual that night at the chapel. It was really nice. I've probably mentioned before that there is a large Wicca group here. We also have a regular outside volunteer drive here for several hours, Sister April. She is so cool. I really like her. She's from upstate Virginia and originally British.

We had the service in the outdoor worship area with the usual bonfire. There was the regular circle and another circle where you could go to talk and meditate on people in your life who have passed away. I went in there and thought about my parents. I really miss them.

As an added cool bonus, I also signed up for the out count, where we stayed after the 9:30 PM lockdown and count at the chapel. We didn't leave there until after 10 PM which only happens that once every year. We're always locked in our cells by then, usually.

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11/07/18
2:51 PM

Howdy! Listening to C3PO. It was Live Tour Life by PeeWee, a good Spanglish dance song. Then our beloved George Michael comes on. It's Faith, one of his best.

I'm "in" today. Can't work in the library 'cause it's closed today for some special program. I do enjoy days off, but I also don't make anything.

Okay, so I've got a story to share. I've mentioned my new friend Lee before. He is... well known and has a wide history of time in prison. He's a super nice guy. Well, someone planted some drugs in his cell. Anyone with half a brain knows that it was orchestrated by "Pito" who is the biggest rat on the compound and sell drugs from time to time. He's trying to get rid of Lee. It was most likely planted by Joe-Joe, some lameass white guy who is one of Pito's minions (read: bitches).

So Lee reports this to the unit CO to SIS (investigative office) and says that they should run the cameras back and see who went in there. Not a peep out of them, and that's because they don't want anything to happen to their snitches. They, or someone, could justify that informants are important, but if this same guy is carrying around drugs (which would imply selling too), then how do you justify that? What's really going on here?

Also, Joe-Joe was caught smoking dance (x2) the other day by the unit CO and sent back to the unit with some bullshit shot (and excuse) instead of going to the hole. Huh?

It's the day after the election. I don't want to go into politics too much, but I am so glad the Dems won the House back. I stayed up till 12:30 AM last night listening to the results on NPR. I was surprised—and unhappy—about some of the results, but we can't have everything.

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11/10/18
8:05 PM

Howdy! Okay, I have a bit to add, but I may have to continue this in another posting since this is getting long.

It's Veterans Day weekend. Had a very lazy day and a nice—but mainly uneventful—evening. Listening to the Tempus Figit Mix by Banana-rama. It's a mix of three of their songs. Love it!

Okay, so I broke down and started to wear those fugly-assed shoes they issued us. I was on the rec yard one night, and there were eight of us standing around talking. I looked down and saw that out of the eight of us, only three guys didn't have those fugly shoes on. I was one of them. They actually are comfortable, and it really doesn't make sense to wear out my own shoes. It does make sense. It does. Fashion will have to wait.

Until next time, I wish you...

Love and blessings,
Kelly