A different kind of job

This morning I was sleeping nicely, with my covers over my head and a few sheets of thick paper in the window to keep out the light, when my door started clicking, meaning the picket officer wanted our attention for something. When I opened the door to see what he wanted, I saw the commissary lady standing below my row.

"You want to help with the commissary truck?" she asked.

I'd been in my cell for the last three days on lockdown so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get out and move around.

My dorm was shaken down (searched) yesterday so now I'm free to work, as long as I am called out. The library isn't doing inventory this go 'round so they don't need my help. But most of the commissary workers are still waiting to be shaken down and there was a truck outside waiting to be unloaded.

I spent the whole day taking commissary off the truck and moving the inventory to different warehouse locations around the unit. It was the most physical labor I've done in a while - not hard work, but enough to get me tires by the end of the day. When I came back to the dorm, I took my first shower in two days and napped listening to All things Considered.

I liked the library much better. I still had enough energy for rec in the evenings I worked there. Escaping the cell during lockdown was great, though.

Happy Birthday to me! And what's my gift from TDC? Lockdown!

I really can't think of a worse way to spend a birthday than on lockdown in prison. This is definitely the worst I've had. And I get at least four more days in my cell all day long.

On the bright side, I had all day to read and write with the only interruptions coming from having to face away from my cellmate as he used the toilet five feet away and from forcing him to do the same when I took a restroom break. Ah, the joys of lockdown.

The day was much brighter when I received my mail for the day: seven birthday cards! Thank you to everyone who sent a card. That was an incredible show of love and I really appreciate it. And, like I said in my last posting, I will be out next year, which should save y'all some postage. That's worth looking forward to.

The last birthday on the inside

Tonight's birthday celebration wasn't as good as last year's - less food, less friends, and self-funded - but it was still alright. I made a cheesecake-ish pie and my "famous" orange chicken and rice. The pie slices were spread to many guys in the dorm while the orange chicken and rice was split with West.

I made the pie by mixing powdered milk, powdered whipped topping and orange fruit drink. The crust was crushed vanilla wafers with a layer of chocolate syrup and flattened pieces of candy orange slices. The milk mixture went on top in a gooey consistency and thickened to a kind of dry cheesecake. All the different textures worked very well with each other, and I ate almost half the pie on my own. :-)

The orange chicken and rice was made with my "orange slices in barbecue sauce" recipe and turned out quite well, too. For the first time, West ate his whole serving on his own, but maybe he was just hungry.

The best thing about this birthday, though, is that it will be my last in prison. Even if parole is taken for some reason, my sentence ends in June and there is no way to keep me here any longer. Next year I will be able to celebrate in freedom with family and friends and that's worth celebrating in itself.

Goodbye to the library woes

Over the past few weeks I have grown increasingly stressed about getting out of here. Through prayer and counsel from friends, I decided that quitting my job in the library would be best for me so I could relax and get out of that negative environment.

Yes, the library is a negative place, despite my efforts to transform it into a place conducive to learning. My boss has always had a foul mouth and she also loves to talk badly about others while complaining about her own life as a young single mother. Sorry, but at least she gets to go home to family instead of sharing a prison cell with a stranger. I've encouraged her to go to school so she wouldn't be stuck at this dead-end job but, apparently, none of my ideas are any good. If she's not going to try to improve her situation, I wish she would stop complaining.

Of course, since this is a prison library, the patrons that stop by are not the most polite bunch; in fact, most are quite rude. I'd rather not serve rude folks all day since it just wears me down, so I told my boss a week ago that last Friday would be my last day. The only response I got besides "OK" was a comment that, if she called me out, I would have to come. Even though I had one of the best coworkers yet, I would not be working at her beck and call, and I told her as much. I will go in on Monday and Friday afternoons to help out, though.

Today was my first day without working and it was great. I woke up around nine, read a book until lunch, then spent the afternoon at rec running and working out. I will probably be helping the maintenance department with an inventory tracking system every now and then, but I hope to spend most of my time on personal projects like writing poetry, making progress on my book list, and drawing. I also have a graphic design business to make plans for.

I have to make an effort to be purposeful with my time, but making only a little positive progress is better than treading water in the toxic library until I leave. And my release can't come soon enough.

LOTR

I've been a fan of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings since first picking up The Hobbit in middle school. Tolkien created a world I could see in my mind's eye and filled it with characters I could hear in my imagination. I was so excited to see the world come to life on the big screen that I saw Peter Jackson's "Fellowship of the Ring" five times in the theater. You can imagine my elation when a Lord of the Rings card game appeared that expanded on the written canon.

The card game, which came out earlier this summer, allows you to play as a group of heroes working to complete a mission. Instead of pitting players against each other, players cooperate to defeat a deck for each mission, and the game can be played solo, especially good for me because it can sometimes be tough to find people who want to play games.

My friend, West, and I broke in the game today and were surprised at the level of difficulty - not in game play but in defeating the missions. That should provide good replay value as well as a scoring system to compare past accomplishments against. There aren't many options for building player decks but that should get better as the monthly adventure packs are released.

The Lord of the Rings card game isn't the best game I've ever played but it is certainly above average and is a good first experience in the new "living" card games - games with monthly packs that expand the game.