I never did get into yesterday’s events, because I really do want to try to get updated and close the gap between the 30th and now.

Let me tell you a bit about my two cellies Kim W and Jessica W. If I had to choose one of them to cell with, it’d be a tough call. Kim’s the smart one and Jessica’s the flaky one who sometimes gabs non-stop and gets on our nerves. They’re in Ad-Seg waiting to go to M Dorm where the Ad-Seg area is, too.

Kim’s swastika and lightning bolt tattoos were getting her into fights, and I guess someone was ganging up on Jessica too, so that’s why they’re in Ad-Seg.

Although we usually get along well, I thought they were going to get into a brawl yesterday, and that me and Jessica would too, but we didn’t. We all had a rough day, but we were chatting and laughing later on, as usual.

Jessica is a pretty girl who’s half-white and half-Mexican, although she looks white with her red hair and freckles.

Kim isn’t the monster one might think she’d be for the tattoos she wears. In fact, she’s one of the most intelligent and interesting people I’ve met in this place so far, despite the fact that she’s an Aryan. Especially for being just 21. She knows things at her age that most people in their 30s don’t know, and she really helped get me going here by teaching me the ways of jail and things like that.

She combs and braids my hair for something to do, which I really appreciate, and I feel like I’ve known her and Jessica for years. That’s what happens when you spend so much time locked up together in a room smaller than the master bath at home. Kim’s told me a lot about her life which is very different than mine.

She’s helped me with filling out forms and she’s taught me that everything has more than one purpose in jail. Maxi pads also make great washcloths. I wouldn’t want to, but you can make tampons out of pads by rolling up and tying the cotton core. Ripping off the tops of socks makes great hair elastics, and tearing strings off of frayed blankets makes good string to hang things on or wear as bracelets/anklets. You can make curlers out of toilet paper, put pictures on the walls with toothpaste, and even make gum too, though it’s nastier than hell. You take a Styrofoam cup and rub orange peels on it to soften it with its acids, then you flavor it with toothpaste.

Kim’s attitude is like mine – if a black or Spanish person is kind to her, she’ll be kind back, but in general, she hates them for the same reasons I do.

The only negative thing I can say about her is that she seems to care much more about doing drugs and hanging with the wrong people, rather than doing what she needs to do to get her kids back, but she just permanently lost them, so it’s a bit late for that.

I’m going to get Kim a pad and a manila envelope through the canteen for all she’s done to help me, but that’s it. I won’t be used.

Jessica has really been a help to me in her own way by making me laugh. She has a way of bursting out laughing for no apparent reason at all, and it’s contagious. She gets obnoxious at times when she whines in a shrilly voice that’s annoying. I also sometimes find her staring at me with a dreamy look on her face. At least neither she nor Kim snores or smacks their lips when they eat.

I’ve decided to mail Tom these loose journal sheets to put in my office. I won’t have a whole pad of paper till Monday when they do the canteen. That’s when inmates can buy pads of paper, pencils, makeup, candy, lotion, shampoo, and shit like that. I’m going to see if Tom can put down $50 a month because I really need lotion, paper, and a few other things. I need a whole $50 because the fuckers here at the jail take $30 a month for rent (I had no idea you had to pay to go to jail). For now, till there’s money on my books, I get the weekly indigent package. That consists of a small tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush, a small thing of deodorant, a pencil, 10 sheets of paper, and 5 stamped envelopes.

Kim doesn’t hate Jews, she told me, because that’s a belief - the Jewish religion, and she hates Hitler as much as anyone else does. Speaking of religion, that’s what I hate most about these inmates – all the fucking delusional talk about God! Well, God’s no friend of mine, that’s for sure!

Other inmates, as well as the DOs, don’t feel I belong here despite what I did. They too feel I’ve been railroaded, but I want to finish with the basics of this place before I get more into my emotions.

Another thing I hate to have to deal with is the farting. Why is it people fart so badly in jail? I’ve had the runs because of this shit for food they have, and nerves, but I don’t fart like these things do!

Occasionally we get something good, but we’re fed slop (sauce with bits of meat in it) and cold food most of the time. And we get the same old shit, too. Imitation cheese, potatoes, and raw carrots for every dinner, salami for every lunch, and it’s just gross! The meals are served on these ugly thick brown trays, and tonight’s hamburger was the most sickening thing I ever had, although I was hungry enough to eat it anyway. I swear they took the thing and burned it, then let it sit for a while so we could have this cold, crunchy burger.

Also, all we get are plastic spoons. No forks, knives or napkins.

I’m trying to hurry because they’ll be dimming the lights any sec. Unfortunately, they never turn them off. I miss sleeping in the dark! I’m learning, though, to sleep through noise here, but I can never sleep straight through. There’s something always getting me up – meals, our hour out, visits, etc. Visits are worth it, though.