Letter 27

April 26, 2011


Dear Mom,


Just got your letters and will try to write what I can before our (badly needed) showers. I'm doing okay I guess, for not getting the fresh air and exercise needed to help us fight illness. To be succinct, I haven't set about plotting anyone's demise today. Worrying about someone is understandable, but I'd be better served if those worries were creating actions on my behalf as well. I'm convinced the kitchen manager here is actually a Nazi war-criminal, and I don't mingle well.


Actually, my days here aren't all that awful, when I stop to consider I've got a better life in prison than many who are free. I'm doing some shining on the duller parts of my personality. I've hit on a basic core of my personality which is helping me deal with the garbage I have to go through here, though I'm not sure how this will actually be accomplished. I'm a non-conformist. Somehow, putting a name to it makes it easier to be me.


My school work has come up short in the area of rapidly calculating different formulas to assign to complex geometric designs. I never was good at being able to tell at a glance how much space an object occupied. Maybe it's correct to write "occupies," I don't know. It's hard to see how being able to tell by looking at something how much it would hold is going to make me a success.


I'm requesting that from now on, when you get a letter to me from Happy, you take it back to the post office unopened. Send it back to him as he is violating the boundaries I thought were clearly established when I was still at Lake C.I. This will seem a harsh response, though I'm a bit heated thinking about it. To make sure no future letters arrive from him, you could contact the warden of the prison he is in to request that no letters from him are addressed to you.


Not much else is happening here now, except for me racing to get this letter written so it will be included with tomorrow's mail. The last shipment of books I received were two by Millman and a couple I read without pause. I'm about half way through Twist, I barely started Blink, and the two Millman books haven't been cracked yet. So, I'm not hurting for reading material yet. You could send a word seek book to me, although I'm not sure how it works for me to get literature directly from you. They tend to regard that dimly.


That's about all the time I've got. I should serve water with my letters! Anyhow,


Much love and best regards,


James