Got a Christmas card and a manila envelope containing a letter and story drafts from Mary today. I also got some news from her that could be bad. I don’t know. I’m not sure what to think. Teddy Bear left Estrella and is now at Madison. She said she asked a DO nonchalantly where she was and that’s how she found out. She thinks even Palma could be there. Thank God for Mary for being my inside source of info! I guess this means I’ll be sending my letter to Madison in May instead.

Tom had said this could happen, too. He said they’re county employees and they get moved around a lot. He said she might only be there throughout the holidays since that’s the central booking station and there are more arrests around the holidays, and maybe she’ll be back at Estrella by May. He agreed with me when I suggested Teddy Bear didn’t know last April that she’d be going to Madison. She certainly didn’t act like she knew when we were talking about my sending her a letter.

I wish I knew what was going on. Did Teddy Bear request to go to Madison? Or was she involuntarily transferred, and either way, exactly why is she at Madison?

Although he hasn’t said so, I get the feeling Tom’s tired of hearing about Teddy Bear. He said it’s like I never came back from jail.

I came back, alright. I just miss my bear. It has nothing to do with Tom. It’s not that he’s bad or not good enough. I’d love and miss her whether I knew Tom or not. It makes me wonder, though - would Teddy Bear cause problems for Tom and I (not intentionally) like Kim did? Well, it’s just a chance I’ll take if we truly ever do meet again. I don’t know what to think about that at this point. It’s still too far away for me to get any accurate vibes on. I would think that by March at the latest, I should start sensing something. I guess it’s a good thing I gave her our address/number, though she may be too shy to be the one to make the first move. Maybe we are meant to be and God used Mary as a way to inform me of the transfer so I can write to her there. Either way, if we’re meant to be like I always said, we will be. It’s just that I have so many mixed emotions about both Tom and the bear! I have absolutely no lust for my husband whatsoever, yet I love the man and have no desire to leave him, after all we’ve been through and done together, both good and bad. As for the bear, a part of me wishes we never met, or at least never fell for each other. It’d be so much easier. Also, it hurts knowing we’ll never be together, and I really think we’d have had a good relationship. I think I would’ve been very happy (the fantasy of us together, both in and out of bed, sure seems pretty good anyway). I think that as long as she accepted me as I was, we’d have been very compatible. Probably even in bed, too. I’d have loved to be with an Officer, even if her beat was the jail and not the streets, that I was attracted to and got along with. I’d have been so proud to be with her and to be seen with her. It’s not that I’m not proud of Tom, who’s no doubt the smartest person alive, as smart as the bear is, it’s just that he doesn’t turn me on in the way she does.

For Tom’s sake, though, even though I am who I am, as he says, and I appreciate his tolerance and acceptance, I’ll make a point of talking about jail-related and bear-related issues less.

Mary said that although she didn’t say anything, Ida knew I liked the bear. Yeah, I guess I could’ve mentioned it. Also, she probably noticed that she liked me when we’d chat, while I was still too blind to see it myself.

She also said that she has a friend whose brother-in-law is a publisher, and asked me to send her copies of what she has so far, so she can send them to him. The drafts she sent me are confusing, which she admits. She’s changed her writing style a bit so it’s not self-narrated, which she thinks sounds more journalish. Nonetheless, I’ll make sense of the drafts, but probably not tonight. My mind’s been too preoccupied with absorbing this Madison transfer and with all kinds of speculations about it and whether or not I’ll still see her.