Love, Justine

MUNCY STATE PRISON

September 25th, 2024

Wednesday

1:46pm

Swiper has walking pneumonia and bronchitis. I was sick too with whatever virus caused it, but I got over it without antibiotics. She, on the other hand, is as sick as a dog. It’s alarming to me that her immune system is worse than mine, and I have lupus.

Bambi and Daisy got into a monstrous fight the other day and now are best friends again. I don’t get it. During the fight, Bambi shrieked that Daisy even talks shit about me, which shouldn’t surprise me, but did. Daisy apparently thinks that I don’t have remorse for my crime, but should. Like–what–are YOU the parole board? You’ve been using drugs since you were 14 and abandoned your SEVEN children BEFORE you went to prison, if you want to play the judgment game, miss.

Ugh.

But I don’t want to play. 

I don’t. 

Whatever you need to say to make yourself feel better. 

And she calls Bambi high and mighty.

Whatever.

It doesn’t make me feel any better to sling shit at her. I abandoned my child, too. I’m so tired of this place. Exhausted of it, really. I wasn’t on the callout for that drug and alcohol class today. I can’t believe I’m still just sitting here.

Bambi is apparently jealous of Daisy and I being friends, because she brought it up that Daisy talks to me about her kids and not her, so she’s probably trying to drive a wedge between Daisy and I. 

Well, she wins.

Now Daisy ONLY talks to Bambi.
They have their own Mean Girls Club.

Daisy was distraught the other day because she found out her 12-year old daughter is smoking pot. Her solution was to call CYS on the lady that voluntarily took in four of Daisy’s kids when her mother died. How would that solve anything?? Her kids are going to end up in foster care, and it’s going to be her fault. I helped her write a victim impact statement yesterday because her ex-husband is being sentenced soon for the rape of their daughter. Then I wondered to myself how asking a judge for “the maximum punishment allowable by law” meshes with my own person views that all prisons should be abolished.

Short answer: It doesn’t.

I have to write this book. I have about 20 pages written. I never had trouble writing about myself before, but it seems now that I do. It’s just one terrible life event after another, all strung together. It’s beyond depressing, so I’m breaking it up with journal entries from my time here, blogs, and interviews. I’m going to need some more interviews.

September 27th, 2024

Friday

I have court on Tuesday to get sentenced. I wonder what I’ll get. Hopefully no house arrest.

Daisy told me the other day that Morocco told Bambi that I let Burgundy read the manuscript that Bambi recruited me to write about her life and mostly about her affair with a Baptist pastor that ended badly. According to Burgundy, we were making fun of Bambi after I let her read it. 

Now, this seems extra-hateful.

I did not let her read it, although she did ask to. Why has Burgundy been talking shit about me for six months straight? Doesn’t she have better things to do?? 

Apparently not.

First, I’m racist and I stink. Now, I can’t be trusted with personal information. 

Now Bambi hates me. 

Of course.

September 29th, 2024

Sunday

4:40pm

I’ve been vaping way too much. It’s Sunday, I’m out of e-cigarettes, and I already owe four out on Friday. 

It’s bad.

At least I have the money to pay them back, but it seems that nobody else does, so Zuko’s prices went up.

Sucks.

I guess I won’t have any more this week, which makes me anxious and uncomfortable, especially with sentencing coming up on Tuesday.

Ugh.

Babi hasn’t spoken to me at all, which isn’t unusual for her, but there’s a hostility behind it now. 

Whatever.

Here’s what I don’t get–if she wanted to make her story a book EVERYONE would read, who cares if Burgundy DID read it? Bambi’s the one who wanted to make it public in the first place!

Make it make sense.

October 1st, 2024

Tuesday 

5:07pm

I got sentenced today to six months in the Women’s Center and four years of probation. Another six months locked up, and I won’t be out of here until December. 

That’s another 15 months of my life gone.

Then stupid Daisy attacks me for being upset, blaming me for not taking the plea deal from the DA. 

House arrest would have been better.

It’s like Daisy is so feelings–averse that she can’t stand it when anyone else is upset about anything. She reminds me of my mother. She goes into attack mode. Like–this has literally nothing to do with you, asshole.
Leave me alone.

I’m allowed to be upset.

Then I called Motorcycle, and he said he could hear it in my voice that I don’t want to be with him anymore. 

Like–what??

First of all, am I that transparent? 

And secondly–what??

I wasn’t even talking about our relationship. I was talking about being sentenced to six more Goddamn fucking months of incarceration. Like–this is not how I expected people to react. I told him that it was a lot to ask of him to stay with me through this. 

He said his feelings for me haven’t changed.

I started crying.

 I said I didn’t know if he could visit, because he has a violent crime on his record. He said if the DOC hadn’t picked it up, probably the Women’s Center wouldn’t either.

I don’t know.

I don’t know if I want to be with him anymore.

He didn’t help me when I needed him the most, and it’s hard for me not to blame this 15 months wasted on him. If I had more supportive people in my life, this wouldn’t keep happening to me. The DA even mentioned “holes in the system” that led to my incarceration in the first place, and said he’s in “meetings” to address this problem.
All I keep thinking is “another six months, another six months, I don’t know if I can do this for another six months.

Fuck my fucking life.

Another six months.

I should have taken the house arrest. 

 I hate my life.

5:30pm

They still haven’t cleared count. We’re never going to eat. It’s raining. I messaged Stryder, Paul, and Gem. I wonder what they’ll say about my sentence. So far, Kelly next door has been the only one who said she was sorry when she heard about it, which was nice of her.

Swiper didn’t say anything.

I asked her for a cigarette, and she said no.

 Then she had five or six cigarettes on her bed and was charging them. She could have at least offered me a recharge. She wouldn’t even have those cigarettes if it wasn’t for me.

October 4th, 2024

Friday

1pm

Daisy came up to me later after she yelled at me for being upset and asked me if I wanted a hug. 

I said no, I’m sweaty.

She gave me a hug anyway.
That was nice of her. I told her I feel like I’m not allowed to be upset around her. She said she can’t deal with people being sad or disappointed.

I know this about her.

Really, she’s the only good friend I have here. She told me Bambi’s jealous of my friendship with her. 

I know this, too.

I finished Glorie Steinem’s book “My Life on the Road.” Here’s some excerpts about mass incarceration and organizing ( © 2016)

P. 37 

“I could see then, because the Gandhians listened, they were listened to. Because they depended on generosity, they created generosity. Because they walked a nonviolent path, they made one seem possible. This was the practical organizing wisdom they taught me. 

If you want people to listen to you, you have to listen to them. 

If you hope people will change how they live, you have to know how they live.

If you want people to see you, you have to sit down with them eye-to-eye.”

P. 236

“As a former inmate, he wanted George W. Bush, governor of Texas at the time, to be held accountable for privatizing twenty-six prisons in that state alone.

It doesn’t make long to discover the main endive behind this profit-making motive: the American Legislative Exchange Council–a center of corporate political activism that also opposed tax increases and environmental protections–writes legislation and lobbies for the privitization of prisons. It has helped to elect about 30 percent of all our state legislators. If today’s graduating university students indentured by debt want to find a cause, they can look at most state legislatures, where tax dollars that should go into state universities are put into building and running government-owned prisons for profit…In New York City, the amount spent on housing, feeding, and guarding one person in prison for a year could pay the tuition at Harvard for more than three years.

P. 237

What struck me was not how different women in prison are, but how un-different. Inside, women tend to form family-like groups, blame themselves unreasonably, worry more about their children than about themselves, stelize uniforms to look a little better, need kindness, and want to tell their stories. What’s different is not who those women are but the higher percentage of them who have been abused as children or denied an education for forced to fight back in self-defense and then been criminalized for it.”

P. 241

“I am reminded of Bryan Stevenson’s four steps for creating change, in the secret world of prisons or elsewhere: 

There is power in proximity. Get close to the problem you feel drawn to. 

Change the narrative.

Stay hopeful.

Be willing to do uncomfortable things. 

Secrets have power only as long as they are secret.

P. 266

You cannot think yourself into right living.

You live yourself into right thinking.”

–Native Elders

P. 277

“Anybody who is experiencing something is more expert in it than the experts.”

8:30pm

Kelly orchestrated an AA meeting in the Day Room, so I attended. It was really nice.