Title: Personal Journal - 8/6/2020, Thursday

I slept in again this morning--something I can get used to right now. I told you I got a negative on the COVID-19 test when we took another test. :) They moved a lot of people around during the evening moving them out of 'C' section. Today they're supposed to move all the CTQ's over there to make it easier to feed them and give out their meds. I got your message yesterday afternoon. I know about depression. I force myself to get up, then find myself laying back down and do it all over again. I will get my paints out, then just sit there and stare at them. After six now--warming up a little. It has been cold here for a while now--middle of summer--looking at 100+ weather; it was in the 50's last night. I'm happy to hear you're feeling better. We started the 14 days quarantine all over again Wednesday with new cases, so we still have 12 or 13 days, and that's if no one else turned up positive. :) As long as we're on quarantine, I can't go out to see the doctor for my throat treatment, or get the skin cancer taken care of, but this is better than coming down with the virus with all my health issues. This morning, words are flowing out more easily (now if I only had something to say). Thanks to Tevans for transcription of my last post and for the note.

Feeling good, feeling bad--just too much cell time.

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8/7/2020

The more I lay on my bed, the more--all I want to do is to lie on my bed and it makes my body ache. It brings back the aches in my joints. These cells are too small for one person and there's two of us in here. One person off his bunk at a time. :) I've done a lot of hole time, but I was younger. I don't remember it hurting like this--a lot of times alone and when I did have a celly we would split the cell time into one or two hour slots. I was able to exercise during my floor time, and read and write during my bank time. I would write letters to my family every day--never or rarely got any back. Now I'm lazy and it hurts if I do many exercises, so I don't--I'm not a pacer, so I don't. I've had cellies who want to pace--made me nuts. :) I am doing the exercises for my throat. It'll take me some time when we come up to get back to walking the way I was. I feel I've been putting some weight back on laying around not anything, and I'm thinking a lot of boost nutrition protein drinks--they want me to drink 10 a day. I'm not doing that, 5 or 6 a day, and I'm always feeling bloated--250 calories in a drink, and that would be 2500 calories a day. Way too many for someone my age. I wonder what my calorie intake should be (73 years old, 5'11"); need to have someone look at a chart for me if I can find one. :) I think I wouldn't mind maintaining it between 170-180. :) I'm not sure if they will have an Art Show at Pier 5 this year. I was going to start getting ready on the 1st, but now I've decided to skip it this year. I can't see anyone showing up for it and this lockdown is making it hard to mail it out. I have the artwork ready if I change my mind.

Happy Birthday my love <3 Thinking of you every day. I got your note--don't know if I mentioned it in my last post. Depression, I know it well, fight it every day. Writing is one of my defenses against it, painting is another. Sometimes I can get lost in reading--daydreaming of you helps a lot <3 I'm happy to hear that you're doing well. Yes my love, I do want to dance in the garden with you--wear that smile of yours and be safe. 6:15 already--I'm sleeping in a lot--taking naps during the day. :) Not depression, just boredom and tired of being in the cell all the time, missing my walks and conversating with my friends (conversating is a Texas word :)). We know why they empty out all the cells in 'C' section. Last night they brought out back all the positive COVID-19 cases from the gym, putting them back in the building with us. Stupid, yes, or maybe someone just wants to make sure that we all get it. They're letting us use the phone now--I tried to call yesterday afternoon--just you, knowing I was well enough to call should ease your worrying. I will call again when I can get a morning call. Showering every 3 days is not working for me. I showered yesterday and I'm needing one this morning--a bird bath. :) Wait until it warms up; I get cold very easily since I lost all that weight. I need a typewriter, one with spell correct on it :) This is a mess. I'm just rambling :) I got the last COVID test back, it's negative. They've stopped the phone calls already, for now anyway.

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8/11/2020

Woke up with a headache this morning from trying to sleep too much :) Too much cell time :) Don't remember lockdown being this hard. Yesterday (Monday) we got an hour of yard time one section at a time. There are quarantine signs on four buildings--the other building 12 being the ad seg. + SHU, they don't get much contact to begin with. So now I'm guessing we'll be down for a while longer. Not sure what's up with the other yards. I do know that a guard and another inmate die at 'Q' a death roll inmate, they get news so that's more than 20 at Q. Chino's worse than that. About half the prisons in California have some degree of COVID-19, maybe more. My bad, looking at July's Lifer's Newsletter, 21 prisons had positive cases. Mule Creek was one of 5 that did. There were 47 deaths at the beginning of the months. I'm going to close for now. I'm well. Keep me up on how you are, if just your name. If you thought the food was bad last month, today I wouldn't even look at it. :)