Yesterday, Tom was telling me that he was about 20 pages into my Estrella book and that he suggests I don’t share it with anyone other than him. He said I can’t stop you from doing what you want to do, but things like how you wrote about how Rule told you how to get into Ad-Seg may make people paranoid, etc. He said he doesn’t think I should give it to Teddy Bear or Paula. It’s too late with Paula, but obviously it was okay since nothing bad happened to me for it, but Teddy Bear? I always believed, judging by her personality, that she’d be okay with it and that she wouldn’t tell anyone about it. At least not the wrong people, anyway.

Tom feels journals should never be shared, but to me, anything written away from home is not a journal. It’s more of a story about your adventures away from home, be it being away in jail or in Vegas gambling.

After taking a day to digest this conversation, I said to myself, hey, you need to try to learn to be a bit more independent when it comes to decision-making, as hard and as foreign as that may be. You let him talk you out of writing Palma and a zillion other things, and it’s okay to do what the one you love feels you ought to do, but you need to follow your own head/heart at times, too. I know he means well, I know he isn’t forcing me to do anything, and I know he’s right a lot of the time when he gives me suggestions or advice, but sometimes, I need to do my own thing, even if its results aren’t always very good. Life’s about taking chances. There’s been a lot of times when I was glad I took his advice and there have also been times when I wished I’d taken my own. It’s like sometimes he’s even more paranoid and cautious than even I am. “Do what you want, but I think tearing out and destroying journal pages would be too paranoid,” he told me. And maybe it was, but it’s just as easy for me to say that I can see how could be a bad thing to send copies to Mary, even if there were no N-words or threats in it, but the bear? I don’t know about that one, though her copy would be severely edited.

I still don’t think I’m ever going to see the bear again, but the point is, I’m not going to say yes or no either way as to whether or not I share the story with her. Maybe I will and maybe I won’t. It’s going to be solely up to me with the only influence being herself. Meaning, something she might say/do to convince me either way.

My first thought was to keep it a secret if I did share it with her, but first of all, I never could keep a secret to save my life. My secrets were always discovered one way or another, and secondly, I shouldn’t have to. At nearly 36 years of age my actions, especially to Tom, shouldn’t have to be hidden, explained or made excuses for. I’m always going to do what he suggests I do 8 out of 10 times cuz I love him, know he means well, and trust his judgment, but sometimes I’m going to make my own decisions and do things my own way. Once again, though, I’m not saying either way how I’ll deal with Teddy Bear when it comes to this book. If I ever see her again, we’ll see.

Who knows? I may decide, come May, not to write to her. I wish I could make myself not want to write to her. After being burned time and time again by 9 out of 10 people I’ve had contact with, both on account of my stupidity and my not doing a damn thing to deserve it, you never know what shit she may drag into my life, despite how unlikely that seems. She’s just someone that gives off positive vibes from the get-go. There doesn’t seem to be one ounce of meanness or paranoia in her. I doubt she’d go running to a pig friend, if she’s got any, to type up a threatening letter to her to add to the story, if she got pissed at me. I think that unlike most people, if she was pissed or unhappy with me for any reason, she’d simply ignore me. And that would be the proper thing to do in most cases. She’s never seen the type to get upset easily, though it probably wouldn’t take as much as it’d take Tom. She’s a DO, after all, and you need a little bit of bite to you for that kind of job or else some of those inmates will chew you up and spit you out. Still, unless Tom’s eager to disagree with me for whatever reason, I think he’ll see what I mean if she ever does visit. I wouldn’t count on a visit, though. Especially if I don’t hear anything nice from Mary this week.

If I ever did share the story with the bear, I think that the absolute worst thing that could come of it would be that she wasn’t happy that I wrote about her, even if it was all good, and that she may no longer want to be friends with me.

Early this morning two vehicles showed up in back, but I can’t say how long they were there, what they did, or if anyone else showed up. I was asleep by noon.

Yesterday I scanned my journal covers. Why keep them when I can scan them? I thought. I’m only keeping a few. One specialty journal and two prism-like ones. That’s because those two don’t scan well. They only sparkle with movement.

I wonder - will Scot invite himself over this week?

Later…

I worked on and off throughout the night on my bio. Once I get back on days, I’ll stay that way for a while. I’m tired of rolling, and besides, there’ll be more going on in December (hopefully all good).

I’m up to 1982 in the bio. What am I gonna do when it’s done? I’ll be so damn bored! I already am bored a lot as it is, so what will I do when it’s done? Read and clean?

Better not complain too much. I wouldn’t want God to think I need another adventurous trip to jail to liven things up.