I finally forced myself to work out after having a good cry after Tom went to bed. I’m up to about 880 calories so far. I doubt I’ll crack 1000 today. I’d only be at 580 if it weren’t for the weekly sampler pack I get of 4 wonderful, sugary, flavored coffees. Carmel, vanilla, mocha, and something called Straight-up Latte.

Later…

I’m still 117 pounds. I’ve been on the diet for a week and losing 7 pounds in one week is still good. Now’s when it’s going to get tough and slow down. I’m already stuck.

Last night I began to feel better. Don’t get me wrong, I’d still undo my stupidity of trusting Mary and take my bear back in a heartbeat, but I can’t. What’s done is done and I put my foot down and decided not to be miserable over this shit day after day. I’ll be damned if I’ll let any inmates put the same stress on me in my own home that they put on me when I was stuck there with them. Mary G and Ida F are not going to bring me down. They stole any chances I might have had of having some kind of friendship, relationship or both with Teddy Bear, but they’re not going to take any more from me. Enough is enough. There, I couldn’t just ignore those who bothered me, but here I can. There are no vents to connect us, there’s no nothing to connect us.

I’ll still respond to any non-nasty letters I may be surprised with from Mary, but Ida will not hear from me no matter what she says.

My first guess is that I’ll never hear from Mary again. My second guess is that she’ll send me a letter bitching all about how I “used” her as if asking her to do something I told her she didn’t have to do is using her in the first place. If she hasn’t already, tomorrow’s the likely day she’ll trash me to the bear. Especially if she’s on her usual Monday M Dorm routine lately, and if Mary hasn’t gotten my “let’s be friends” letter, which still may not necessarily help things. People hold grudges. And for the dumbest things, too. And this is right after she contradicted me too, saying she wouldn’t give the address out to anyone, and how we got screwed by the government and the rest are criminals.

Anyway, the bear was never really mine to lose and I’m not gonna dwell on it. Yes, I’ll still write to her. Yes, I’ll miss her. Yes, I’ll always wonder about her, but she will live forever in my heart and memory. I will always cherish the memories of the brief time we had together. I will always appreciate and be grateful to her for going out of her way for me. She went beyond the call of duty and she really was my jailhouse guardian angel. I loved her with all my heart, though I’ll never really get the chance to know her, and I always will.

My bad vibes have backed off a little more, but I still have every reason to believe I’ll never see the bear again until and unless proven differently.