Letter 26

April 25, 2011


Dear Mom,


I'm determined to render another of these ridiculous pens to where it no longer writes. Unfortunately, that's really the extent of what can be seen of my accomplishments today. I'm sitting here listening to all the loud and ignorant yelling by inmates from their cells about what they want to do because it is impossible not to hear them. All it amounts to is them asking to be sprayed.


I hope I can cut back on what I spend here as already my balance is down to the wire.


I had a real-ization the other day. I found that I was steadily growing angrier without being able to let it out. I'd like to leave here sometime! Easter marks the day for me. I was ranting incoherently, being worked into a state of agitation when it came to me that, in almost this same state, I was taken into custody for badly hurting a guy during Thanksgiving 2009.


I used this moment of clarity to determine that I won't let myself get that way ever again. Nothing in the world is worth feeling as helpless to control myself as I'd become that night. I honestly could not stop myself. I calmed down quick when I put together what the consequences of my actions might be.


It would be a lie for me to write that I don't get angry now. I still do, just not to the extent that I did before, over something I have no control over, i.e., the food. It may not mean much in telling this to others, but this realization was a huge thing to me. I still won't give up being a frustrated artist, though.


I suppose it's an unreachable dream of mine, from here at least, to write myself free of the special people so prevalent in an environment like this. It leads me back to the question I posed most while still doing time in Egypt: Are they simple and incarcerated, or simple because of incarceration? Makes little difference to me either way, as I'm here and it's now.


I just got mail from Chee2, Dad and Renelle; it doesn't rain, but it pours. I got a letter out to Renelle (x2!) I don't have much to say in the way of news to tell anyone. I think it is remarkable how little changes in a place like this.


Yes, I do have some news, too. Due to an uncivil unrest amongst the ones waiting out their C.M. (Close Management) time here, and most likely because of the rotten food we have shoved at us, there was fighting today as soon as the doors were rolled open to take us to the recreation yard. The guards are well aware of the cause, but they don't intervene unless someone gets hurt bad enough to require medical attention. I feel like this is their way of saying it's okay to express yourself by a laying on of hands. That's my theory, anyway. Recreation time lasted just long enough for all the guys to get beaten and worn out. There is more reason than I let on for not being part of that fiasco.


While on the subject, although I haven't read much of Blink yet, an article about the new Gladwell book, The Outliers, sheds a bit of a different perspective on him than I had before. Among the views that Gladwell expresses in the article are some concerning the different ways success is created. Like me, he espouses that native intellect and desire are needed, but not nearly as important to success as doing something that you believe is challenging daily, and sticking it out when it looks like a dead-end. Perseverance.


Major life support had to be accomplished just now; the pen I used on the revision of this page died a violent death and I had to wash off anything that might have gotten ink on it from its passing. As I've got an on-going battle to be seen by an eye doctor here, and my balance is less than $5, please send me a little money. This will forestall my being in the red again, as the cost of a medical nurse consult has risen...again, and I need to cover any unforeseen expenses.


Out of room to write and out of time, all at the same time.


Much love,


James