M205

I’m sneezing a bit more often because the freeloaders said I can’t have my snot spray. The freeloaders also said I can’t pick up scattered bits of junk around the land this winter like I’d planned to. By the time I get out of here, the snakes will be coming out of hibernation, so it won’t be safe for me to be doing shit like that.

Another lie from the medical department. They said I was scheduled for a physical, but that never happened and I’m still being denied medical treatment. Kim said I didn’t complain enough, but I think 4 medical tanks and 2 grievances are enough. I’m not going to be reduced to begging on my knees for the 3 weeks Kim says it usually takes to get anywhere with these people. I will learn to live without my inhaler. I went 3 days without it, but I did take 2 hits yesterday and one today of my rapidly dying inhaler that the intake nurse gave me.

Tank orders are for requesting library books, legal supplies, religious shit, etc. You can also find out your release date if you’re dumb enough to forget it. Mine’s 4/29.

Medical tank orders are for wasting your time trying to get meds or at least be seen by someone. At least you can see a psych counselor as soon as you need or want to.

Anyway, Kim and I are now together in a 2-man cell over in M Dorm. There are 2 pods each with 5 cells, and a small dorm across the hall. In the pods, there are 2 4-man cells that are about 15x16 and 3 2-man cells that are about 8x12, the same as in A Tower. I’m glad I’m in the small cell, but I’d rather be home!

I’m still having the runs every few days and I wonder if I’ll ever shit normally as long as I’m here. I’d rather cell with Kim than be alone, but I miss my space and I hate shitting with someone in the room! I can handle pissing around her, but if there’s ever a time I wish I were alone, it’s when I have to shit!

I like this cell better overall. It’s better than Florence. It’s bigger, we don’t have to worry about getting a 3rd person in here, and we have a desk with a couple of shelves that are bolted to the floor and wall. The desk is nice and smooth. The table in A Tower was all scuffed up, so its surface was bumpy. Everything’s metal in here too, except these bunks are of built-in concrete. It’s roomier in here, and the top bunk’s not so low. I don’t bonk my head on Kim’s bed up above when I sit straight up.

The walls and ceiling are remarkably clean. No graffiti. No mice either, unfortunately.

The negs to this cell are its ugly, rusty toilet, the sink’s button that you have to hold down to get water, the way it’s freezing in here, as well as windowless. I discovered earlier, though, that there’s a big skylight out in the day room.

We’re on the upper tier like we were in A Tower. Also, and just like over in A, there are phones, showers and picnic-like tables in the day room. M200 is much smaller than A100, though.

They have a commissary price listed posted (they have hygiene stuff and all kinds of snacks like nuts, cookies, cakes and candy), and if you want to know what time it is on your hour out, you can see a clock in the tower.

The showers here are both better and worse. They’re the push-button kind where you don’t have to turn a knob like you do in A, and you get a better stream of pressure, but they’re ice cold! I like the push-button kind, although you have to keep pushing it every few seconds.

Kim filled out a grievance form requesting the water temperature be raised to the standard 120 degrees, and this worries me. I’ve learned the hard way how complaining gets people in trouble, but she insists there are different levels of people you can complain to and that people’s complaints do get resolved without making things worse for them.

Maybe it’s just me who can’t get away with complaining, I don’t know. She thinks I didn’t bitch enough and that’s why I haven’t gotten a new inhaler, but I think I bitched a lot and that’s why they won’t deal with me. So, I’ll learn to live without the thing, lose the congestion, and have one less thing I have to depend on these people for.

Kim and I blocked the vent with cardboard because it’s absolutely freezing in here! Kim says they keep it cold because cold air makes you tired and increases your appetite because it slows the blood down. That way they feel they can control us easier. This is inhumane, though – running an air conditioner in the winter! It may be a swamp cooler, though.

Anyway, as for the shower, the DO told Kim she’d have maintenance check it out, and I’m like – yeah, right! Sure you will.

They don’t always bring meals to our cells. Sometimes we go downstairs to get it, but I’m usually too tired to get out of bed for breakfast.

They don’t always use these trap doors. They either unlock the door with a regular key or from a control panel in the tower. I use either the door or traps to stick my mail and tank orders out of to be picked up on the DO’s walks.

There’s an older lady here who was working when we got rolled over here, teasing me about my being all nervous. Well, the unknown can be a bit scary!

I thought I had reason to be grateful we never had a kid in the past – well – imagine how grateful I am now!! I will never bring a kid into this fucked up world, and I will never insist Tom see a sex therapist. Not unless he wanted to, but I certainly can’t see that happening after all this time. Now we’ll both be content to be the way we are. Thank God I haven’t wanted one in years because, to me, it takes a hell of a selfish and cruel person to bring a kid into this sick, fucked up world with the way its people and its government is. The world just isn’t fit for kids.

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It’s later on, and I write this to the tune of a cell full of black bitches right next door in the big cell, laughing and singing. They sound so happy. Just so happy. If I didn’t know any better I’d say they were free and having a party and not in jail. Anyway, sometimes it’s quiet, sometimes it’s noisy, but overall, it is quieter than A. This is what I get for rebelling against God, trying to run away from the city and the noisy people in it!

I wish blacks had never been slaves. Then maybe they wouldn’t use that as an excuse to be so fucking loud.

Dinner was actually pretty good for a change. We had a piece of chicken that tasted a lot like KFC’s, and we had peas with the usual carrots.

They shut the lights off completely in these cells at night, but the day room light is always on, so although it’s darker here than A, it’s not dark like I like it. I was surprised the lights were still off when I got up late this morning, so I asked for them to be turned on.

I requested to use the nail clippers today. You can’t do that in A.

Anyway, all 3 places I’ve been had their pros and cons. Part of me misses the tents, but I know if I were back there, I’d want to come right back here.

Now, let’s back up to the tents. There were some girls I spoke to regularly during the short time I was there, which was only a few days. I’m amazed at how helpful and supportive they were! They too were astounded at my sentence. It seems most of them are in for drug-related offenses. Or hooking or probation violations. Anyway, like Kim, they told me a bit about life in jail.

One girl gave me her Chapstick. What a lifesaver, although I’m dying for lotion!

There was a big woman in her 40s that a lot of us called Mom. She mothered me with hugs, and I was amazed at how many people would come up and hug me when they saw me crying. People I didn’t even know.

A butchy-looking woman named Bentley was my worst nightmare in the tents. This is because she’d fart every 10 minutes and was in the bed next to me.

First I was in the “welfare tent” where all newcomers to the tents go. After just one night there, I was assigned to the laundry tent, even though the more I thought about it, the more I despised the idea of working for free. It was the worst tent because it was the biggest and right by the day room and closest to the loudspeakers they’d constantly scream over.

Not everyone worked during the day. Some people worked at night and they’d scream over the loudspeaker for them to get up. They worked all different hours. Even if I’d had the Melatonin, and regardless of what schedule they had me on, I still couldn’t sleep with all the noise and commotion. I wish I could control my schedule here too, but even that’s out of the question. I’d prefer to sleep here from 9 PM–5 AM, but lately I’m falling asleep at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, woken up at breakfast, then in the early to mid-morning for our hour out or a visit. I’m still a night person. I’m usually up by late morning or earlier, and there are times when I nap for an hour or two in the afternoon.

I only worked in the laundry department for two days and although I didn’t like working for free, it gave me something to do, and I got to like Kevin and Maria, a couple of the supervisors.

This other supervisor yelled at me for swearing, which I apologized for since I was rude, after all, taking my frustration out on him. This was before I found out he lied to the other supervisors, saying I swore at him, rather than to him. Why do people always have to lie/exaggerate? Can’t they just tell it like it is?

Anyway, I folded sheets, paired socks and sorted pants. They had machines that folded shirts and towels.

Kevin told me he felt bad for me, and Maria was shocked to learn that I was the Jodi S she read about in the paper. After that, they were even nicer to me. They were pretty cool people anyway, letting us have cookies and coffee on one of our breaks outside by the picnic tables. Even though the coffee was black, I drank it anyway.

I didn’t realize why at the time, but I thought that a few DOs had been a little too nice to me, in a sense, not that I can complain.

Officer Flores, who I only saw once, the first night I arrived, let me change my top bunk to a bottom bunk.

Officer Trilock, who was notorious for being a bitch, also let me move to a lower bunk when I was moved to the laundry tent on my second day. At first she seemed reluctant to give a damn about my fear of climbing, then she asked me, “Are you Jodi S?” I nodded, then she softened right up, smiled at me and said, “You’ll be OK.”

Later on, she assigned me to a lower bunk.

I ended up feeling as bad for Kevin as I did for myself. I didn’t know this till afterward, but he was the one that called channel 3. The poor guy was just trying to help, and I got all psyched up thinking – Yay, the media wants to help! – but the joke was on me, as usual. They didn’t come to say they felt my sentence didn’t fit my so-called crime that wasn’t even a crime. They were friendly at first, but by the 4th or 5th question, I knew I was being attacked. And this is after these lying assholes told me their job as reporters were to remain neutral. I should’ve asked for the questions up front, or better yet, I should’ve ignored them. You just can’t trust anybody in this world, but as I learned very young, if you can’t trust your own parents, who can you trust?

After she asked me stuff that seemed irrelevant to why I was in there like whether or not I celebrated Christmas, my age, and how I was doing, she asked if I was a racist, why I sent the stuff, etc. She wouldn’t ask me if I were a racist if I’d sent the shit to a white person, the fucking, mother-fucking bitch! Damn, I just want to strangle some of these people at times! Whenever there’s a problem between two different races, they always say race is the issue.

Even a couple of male officers – Rosales from the tents, and Montoya from inside, said I got a raw deal. Montoya said he would’ve told that bitch off. I tried, but obviously it got me nowhere.

I’d been up nearly 24 hours by the time I slept my first night here, but I was up early the next day (Tuesday) I worked Wednesday and Thursday, but Thursday night I freaked and that’s when Officer Rule cared enough to do what I believe was going beyond the call of duty to help me. She didn’t even have to tell me what she did to help me, but she did. She told me about a certain shortcut that would enable me to get out of the cold, smoky tents, yet to a place where I could still keep my privileges (phone calls, visits, commissary). I never would’ve known or thought of it myself, and she really was my savior that night!

It was 1 AM and I was still up. It’s just as noisy then as it is in the daytime. This is when I flipped out and panicked, knowing there was no way I could get up for work in just a few hours. They usually got us up at 4:00, then after we ate, we’d walk cuffed in pairs to the laundry building, outdoors in the frigid darkness.

Anyway, I felt like life was suffocating me with all the people around me and with all I had to deal with and I just wanted to drop dead! Usually, those who refuse to work go to lockdown, so I assumed I would too, but I didn’t care. I could not sleep; therefore, I could not work.

I approached the DO station (their area is fenced in so they can lock the desk when no one’s at it) and cried hysterically to Officer Rule about how I was feeling and how much I wanted out of this world. She called medical right away, then she took me over there where I spoke to a kind, patient older nurse. Although she listened to all I had to say and insisted I sign a contract promising not to hurt myself, she basically couldn’t do anything more, so I left with the impression I’d go to the hole and give up my privileges. I just didn’t think I had a choice.

As soon as I left, more determined not to hurt myself because of how kind she’d been, and because I haven’t really the means to do so in here, Officer Rule let me know there was another option. I never named the names of those who were smoking because they’d been really nice and even helpful to me, but I mentioned that as being part of the reason I wanted out of the tents. Well, Rule suggested I use that as an excuse when filling out an Ad-Seg request form. She coached me on how to word it too, saying it was very important how I worded it. How sweet, huh? Anyway, I wrote that I feared for my safety in the yard because I snitched people out for smoking. Then she wrote in comments, saying I was extremely upset and emotional and not suitable for the yard. Afterward, she escorted me to A Tower. I could hug her for taking care of me that night and allowing me to still be able to see Tom.