Our hot showers are officially over for now. I knew it wouldn’t last long. Well, I’ll just have to have Tom get on with sending me the info for where I can file a formal complaint or get someone in here to check things out.

Just when Ida thought the courts were going to ignore her motion to modify her sentence, she gets pulled at 2:00 AM to go to court. She’s got to go to Mesa, so it’s to be a long trek for her. If her motion is granted, she said she’ll help me and will contact Tom. As much as I’m anxious for her to return and tell me all that happened, I loved having the room to myself this morning. I slept from 4:00 - 11:30 with only 3 interruptions, then awoke to find Chambers on duty. It’s about time!

Maria, who calls me Little One like so many others have, wasn’t pleased to find Julia back when she returned from court, but I guess they’re surviving. Maria’s your typical inmate who’s here because of drugs. Because she lied to me twice, there’s no saying whether or not I’d have been able to sleep with her around. I told her up front the two things I hate most – when cellies won’t let me sleep, and when they beg for my commissary. She told me she didn’t care about commissary, yet she begged anyway. She also told me she hardly talks, but she could’ve fooled me! Her voice was so loud and all she talked about God and drugs. Ida told me that Julia, who’s very hard of hearing, bought a radio to drown out Maria’s noise. So, I wasn’t with her long enough to know just how it really would’ve been being with her, but I doubt it would’ve been pleasant.

Ida said she could’ve kicked herself for not taking her own advice which was: Better to stay with the devil you do know, rather than the one you don’t.

Julia, this seemingly sweet old lady, turned out to be the celly from hell for poor Ida. She lied too, telling Ida she didn’t snore. Although she’s truly hard of hearing, she’s not as helpless as she led us to believe. She’s just lazy. She’s in for writing prescriptions. She has a brace around her neck and Ida was even kind enough to give her her bed and put up with climbing up to the top bunk.

She said that as disastrous as it was, she learned a lesson – that I was real. She had thought I was full of it when I said I could feel the air up there if it wasn’t deflected downward, but she learned that I wasn’t kidding.

Also, she was always like, oh, get a grip! when I’d bitch about all the things that’d wake me up. Well, Ida got a taste of what it was like to have her sleep interrupted time and time again. First, Julia’s meds arrived at 2:00 AM, an ungodly hour for Ida. Then at 4:00, she had to go get her blood pressure taken.

Around 9:00, Dixon woke me up to ask why I moved. I told her I offered to move so Ida could have someone her own age and on her own schedule. She told me Ida wanted her lower bunk back and was going to roll her next door.

“Good luck,” I told her, “because she won’t go in a big cell any more than I will.”

“This is jail,” she said. “You guys never should’ve switched.”

I told her I’d go back if I had to and she said I didn’t have to. Then she came back and asked if I’d move back but with Julia. I didn’t want to be with Julia because Maria said she was noisy, always flushing the toilet and running water, which Ida later confirmed she did (she’s only truthful about others). So I told Dixon I felt Julia and I should swap back. I wanted to swap back for the sake of saving Ida from either a big cell or having to go to A Tower and to save myself from finding out if Maria and I were really compatible or not. So back I went, with Ida swearing she’d be as quiet as a mouse (mice aren’t always that quiet), but as tired as I was, I couldn’t go back to sleep because Ida and I were too busy laughing about the whole thing. She knows I’ll never let her live this one down.

Ida and I have really turned out to be good pals. Ida’s shocked to have gotten attached to me of all people, the very one who threatened her (I’ll always feel bad about that one). As she said – sometimes it’s those you least expect who end up being those we like and care for best.

Maria and Julia have finally separated. Julia moved down to the big cell. The spitter moved up to 3, and Maria moved next door. Why didn’t Maria stay in 3? She’s pals with the spitter. She’s too loud to have next door with a vent connecting us. She told me she doesn’t get along with anyone, so I don’t see how she’ll be able to cut it over there. She said big cells drive her crazy, too.

Tom visited and I told him all about when Palma worked and about Ida’s and my brief separation. I felt like I was being selfish by rambling on, but he said it was OK and listened patiently.

He said Mary and Dave are going to Laughlin at the end of February, and Houdini’s grounded again for refusing to go home. He hid out for quite a while. Tom said he had no idea where he was till he suddenly reappeared, and had even looked outside for him. He probably hid up inside the couch, or maybe in either his office or the guest room closet.

I’m having Tom print out and mail me some jokes I have on the computer.

It’s around 1:00 or 2:00 and Ida’s still not back yet. Because she went to Mesa, and because she wasn’t scheduled till the afternoon, she probably won’t be back till dinner time.

What an airhead! Chambers said she’d bring me nail clippers but never did. Bunch is on now. She’s bringing them to me, along with sharpening a few pencils for me.

The spitter’s all alone in 3 because of medical problems. I don’t know what they are, though.

Ida ought to be back soon. I hope for her sake she gets out early. That’d also give me a little hope as far as doing my own motion. However, the longer we’re cellies, the better because I just don’t know what I’m in for next. I would have to guess that the odds of her getting her motion granted are next to nil, judging by the statistics, though I don’t know a damn thing about her case. I’m sure it’s quite different than mine and I’d probably be stupid to file a motion, regardless of what happens to her because I’m the wrong color. Also, Ida has no “victim” in her case.

Kahn’s a strange one. She’s sneaky, in a way. She wouldn’t even tell me where I was going when she moved me in with Ida till she actually did it. For some reason, it had to be some big secret. Ida told me she was being secretive when she came up the stairs with my visitation slip, hiding it behind her back. She said, “OK, girlie,” when she came to get me for my visit.

Girlie? That’s a new one.

I asked and she told me Alpha can hold up to 30 people. Definitely the smallest dorm in the jail and this is definitely the smallest pod in the jail. This and the juvi pod. The towers and other dorms can hold 120-128 people, but M only holds 58 altogether. That’s quite a difference. And of course, there are about 300 in the tents. I’m just glad I’m in a cell and not a dorm or a tent!

Kahn says she’s worked here for a long time. I told her I wouldn’t name names, but someone told me she was a bitch when I first saw her (she laughed at that), and that after I met her, I told the person (Mary) that I disagreed. She admitted she could be a bitch, though. Can’t we all!

Hann was doing escort yesterday and was like, “Oh, it’s you!” like she was glad to see me or something. She had an amused smile on her face for some reason. I told my latest joke to both her and Kahn and they thought it was a good one.

McDurmont was pretty funny yesterday after my visit. She came around to where I was waiting to be picked up after Tom left, and I asked her who the escort was. She goes, “What? Do I look like chopped liver or something?”

I didn’t realize she was escorting. She normally works in the open contact visiting area.

Ida’s back now. She returned right before dinner, and boy is she pissed! I don’t blame her. She’s not going home today. Not because they denied her motion, but because the incompetent assholes in court fucked up. She filed the motion on December 15th and 10 days later, like she was supposed to, the prosecutor responded to her. However, she wasn’t scheduled for court a couple of weeks later like they were supposed to schedule her. So, it was a wasted trip for her because now she has to wait another two weeks, but by then her time will be up anyway.

Although Ida did go to court today (she was supposed to go a month ago), the judge hadn’t yet ruled on her second motion. She had two different motions and the judge hadn’t ruled on either one, actually, because the prosecutor had yet to give his answer to this second one which was the same as the first one. The stupid shit of a prosecutor was supposed to be in court for Ida but was in a trial instead. What a stupid fuck!

The question I’ve been asking myself is – do I really want to bother with my own motion, knowing how much they fuck up (most of the time it’s deliberate) and knowing it’s destined to fail? Any cold-hearted, cold-blooded judge who could do what he’s done to me would not be willing to undo any of it. I just don’t know if I want to sit in an ice-cold cell for 12 hours in shackles, belly chains and handcuffs on a cold metal slab with no mattress, all because I’m too white.

Since she hadn’t had her hour out, she was given time out after dinner. I gave her our number so she could call and tell Tom all about what happened and what we could do in my case, but there was no answer. I guess I’ll just have to talk to him tomorrow when I see him.

Ida said that according to what they say downstairs, the spitter’s got an infection. Thank God I didn’t stay in 3 because I’d have ended up in a big cell. I’d have refused and gone to A Tower first.

I also forgot to write that no, I was never the least bit attracted to Maria. She has close-set eyes with an upturned nose. You could see right up her nostrils. Her face reminded me of a monkey’s.

It must’ve been cold today because they had the heat running in the middle of the afternoon.

Both the decongestant and allergy pills I got from commissary turned out to be worthless as far as making me drowsy enough to fall asleep earlier and keep a day schedule goes. And I thought I could use that to keep a schedule and work out in those cold, smoky tents – yeah, right!

It’s about 10:00 and one of the coldest nights since Kahn first put me here. I’ve got everything I’ve got on, minus my bra.

Ida said Kahn described me as “a sweet little girl who doesn’t snore” when she was pulling Melinda out and moving me in.

Now how would she know I don’t snore?

The closer we get to February 15th, the more I don’t look forward to Ida leaving. I have come to care for her a lot as I said before. I wouldn’t mind having her as a mother. She has two grown, married sons. She and her husband are retired. Ida’s worked for legal offices and written for newspapers, in case I haven’t already said so. She and Ron live in Chandler in a 2500-square-foot house.

I hate getting comfortable with a celly and then having to lose them like with Kim, Rosa, and Mary, although Kim turned out to be a phony. And a liar. If I stay with Ida till she leaves, I’ll break two records. It’ll be the longest celly and the longest time in the same cell, omitting the 16 hours I spent in 3. Then what kind of rude, inconsiderate, crazy, loud celly will I get? I know God’s going to compensate me for Ida and Mary. Just like he compensated me for Carolyn and Monday who weren’t great cellies.

Ida would’ve called Tom had she gotten out today. I told her it would’ve been long-distance, and she said money was no object for her. I guess not if you can pay $10,000 for a cruise to Antarctica and $7,000 on a ticket for the Concord to fly to Germany.