Tag: books

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Motorcycle, Sporks, and Quacks

Muncy State Prison

May 5th, 2024

Sunday

8:38am

I dreamed about Dubya last night. That I was in love with him and trying to get back together with him. I still think of him every time I hear country music. 

*sigh*

In this book, “Women Who Love Men Who Kill,” these women say that they didn’t have a choice in loving those men, they were just sort of thunderstruck with love. That got my thinking about me and Motorcycle. No thunder strikes there. We love each other–I think–I mean, I know I love him, but…I have a hard time believing that he loves me sometimes. I mean, he says that he does, but it’s just recently that he said he “thought we would make it,” and he stayed in a loveless marriage for 12 years. I mean, should it really take three or four years to believe in a relationship? And the way he didn’t help me when I really needed him to. And the way he somehow saw getting my belongings as a financial opportunity…What the fuck is up with that? Last night he said he took those things of Facebook Marketplace, but that’s probably just because they didn’t sell. He said it was because he “didn’t want anything between us.”

Whatever.

They were for sale for three weeks.

In other news, Bambi wants me to ghostwrite a book about her life. I tol her we could get together at Day Room tonight. She also said she wants to expose pastors who are corrupt for various reasons, so I don’t know if that’s another book, or what. 

You know another thing about Motorcycle? When I asked him on the phone why he didn’t help me when I was psychotic and why he left me alone, his first response was, “Okay, then, you don’t trust me? Why don’t we just not do this anymore.” Like–he tried to break up with me! He’s always saying that he takes care of me and does what’s best for me, but in reality, when it counts, he doesn’t. He breaks up with me rather than take responsibility and face the music. I said, “Oh–THAT’S how you want to handle this??”  And then he changed his tuned and said he was sorry and it would never happen again. I just hate how, when this happens, I’m completely incapable of helping myself and I have to rely totally on other people for help.

It sucks.

It really sucks, because they never come through. 

2:24pm

Daisy was supposed to give me an ecig on Friday and she didn’t, so I 2-for-1’d one. I hate doing that. It’s just wasting a cigarette, and these things are expensive. I tried to take a nap, but it was too fucking loud in here. I called the boys and Motorcycle. The boys were playing a game and had a soccer game in Ridgeway at 1pm. Motorcycle was busy talking about himself, as usual.  It amazes me that he can fill up an entire 15-minute phone call and never ask how I’m doing. I say maybe five words the whole call. I think I’m getting sick of him. Maybe he is just a narcissist, like Gem says. She would know–she’s married to one. I didn’t go to lunch. Daisy gave me some oatmeal to eat, which I didn’t ask for. That was nice of her. I’d rather have the cigarette she said she’d give me. 

I’m gassy and it’s gross. And embarrassing. Ever farted in front of 50 people? Everyone looks around and tries to find the culprit like they’re in kindergarten— “Ew! Who farted??” 

Ugh.

 I’m so sick of being here I could scream. 

No news on the woman who hung herself two days ago. It’s like it’s old news already. Tonight’s dinner is “chef salad,” which consists of a piece of ham, iceberg lettuce, and a boiled egg. Oh, and once in a while, a teaspoon of shredded yellow cheese. Ever tried to eat lettuce with a spoon? Or spaghetti? It doesn’t work. I don’t know how people gain weight here. I’m losing weight, as per usual, which I’m not complaining about. Last time I got out, I managed to gain 30 pounds in three months. Hypothyroidism is a bitch. I can’t eat anything and not gain weight. Now Burgundy came into the room, apparently mad, and said, “When I tell you something, it’s a FACT.” Daisy said, “I don’t know what you’re referring to,” and Burgundy replied, “I don’t know either.”

What.

Ever.

She told the whole unit that I’m a racist, so obviously when she talks about people, it’s NOT always true. Now there’ s tension and silence in the room.

Fun. 

Whatever–back to my book, which references psychiatrist Dr. Money, who was widely discredited as a quack after he recommended that a boy with a botched circumcision be raised as a girl in the 1960s. He also made the boy and his twin sister perform make-believe sex acts in his office later in life. I read the book, called, “As Nature Made Him.”

Straight quack.

Now Burgundy apologized to Daisy and is explaining what she meant. At least it wasn’t me this time. 

Interestingly, in this book, the author finds that all of these women come from Catholic backgrounds. Many had alcoholic, abusive fathers. 

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Suicide, Zuko, and Chopper

Muncy State Prison

May 5th, 2024

1:35pm

According to inmate.com, the woman who attempted suicide yesterday is on life support. Very sad. Tragic, really. Daisy surmised that to the woman, death might be preferable to coming back here.

The last woman hung herself on 4/10/24. That’s two suicides in less than a month. The woman who asked me how long I’m here in the bathroom a while ago (with the 18-year min) apparently shot her girlfriend dead because she had threatened to shoot her dog. Then she stayed with the body for three days. God. Her name is Zuko. We’re often in the bathroom at the same time, for some reason. She calls us “bathroom buddies.”

Cute. 

I still don’t think she knows my name. 

This book, “Women Who Love Men Who Kill” by Sheila Isenberg isn’t written very well. She sensationalizes both the crimes committed and the women who love the men who have killed people. This book makes me think about Chopper, a man I went to high school with who allegedly shot and killed a Kane police officer. He was shot too, in the neck, and barely survived. There were two other teenagers in the car that night, and Chopper doesn’t remember the events, but I’ve always felt like the blame was pinned on him because everyone thought he was going to die. I slept with him once in the back of his mother’s car when I was 16. I ended up later working with his mother at the local veterinary clinic. She died of breast cancer years ago. Maybe I’ll look him up and write him sometime. Of course, he got a life sentence. 

6:09pm

I just got back from dinner, where a woman was talking about the lady who hung herself on J Unit yesterday. She’s on J Unit too, and she, like the last lady, was asking for help for three days and saying that she was suicidal before she hung herself. Mr. Reibsome, the Unit Manager, put her in a single cell in response to this, apparently. She said she wanted to go be with her baby that died. The woman also said that there’s going to be “people” here Monday, like inspectors or something, or investigators. When I asked her who they were, she repeated, “people.” Like–lady–we’re all in the same fucking boat. Why wouldn’t you want to share information if you knew something?!

7pm 

I talked to the boys-they were in the tub. They went to the Maple Festival today but couldn’t go into the bouncy house because it rained.

Called Motorcycle–he was excited because he got a new pair of jeans and some costume jewelry from Good Will. I told him another woman hung herself and he changed the subject to fishing.

Strange.

I messaged D. Owl, the reporter from Spotlight, PA, and told her that two women who have hung themselves here in the past two weeks. Same Unit, both asked for help, both were put in single cells by the Unit Mgr., Mr. Reibsome.

We’ll see if she responds.

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Cho-Mo’s, Witches, and Death

Women’s Center

August 28th, 2017

Monday

All my hair is falling out. Super annoying. I’m reading a book called “When the Bough Breaks: Forever After the Death of a Son or Daughter.” What about both? It’s by Judith R. Bernstein, Ph.D. She and her husband are both psychologists who lost their son at 25 to cancer. I wish my kids had lived long, healthy lives–even 25 seems very long compared to three and seven months.

I was supposed to go to Coudersport for bloodwork today, but the Big Boss didn’t put it on the schedule. Time for painting with Jenny–the same woman who does “church.” We’re watching Intervention.

1pm

Now I’m reading my book again. It’s pretty good. It says, “The bereaved parent has to come to terms with a world in which it is possible for children to die; a world of different hopes and dreams, a world of muted sunsets. The victim never sees life through the same lens again.”

Spot on.

I looked in the front of this book and saw the name of a local woman who lost a daughter to a suicide in jail. Horrific. She must have donated the book to the Center. I hope it helped her. I can’t imagine.

Judith Bernstein calls the “aftermath of the trauma of intense grief “a barren, inhospitable wasteland.” I like her. At least she is able to express herself without the uncontrollable rage that I experienced when writing my first book, “Kidowed.”

Then again, Ronald J. Knapp wrote in “Beyond Endurance” that, “It was discovered that all parents eventually develop a primary and fundamental need to talk about this tragic experience and about what they can remember about their child. They develop an intense desire or need to reveal their sadness, to release their anger, to allay their guilt, and to have others understand their reactions. This is not only how they remember; it is also how they confront the reality of what has happened to them.”

Judith Bernstein says, about conducting a study of 50 bereaved parents that, “I came away with profound admiration for the courage of ordinary people who never presumed to be courageous at all.”

Everybody’s bitchy now. Now there’s another new woman here. She looks to be in her 50’s and got in trouble for “boosting” electronics in Buffalo and a bad check in Potter County in 2004. I feel kind of bad for her. But not really because she only got 60 days. Some people have all the luck. Tori is passing around a note that says that she looks like a Cho-Mo version of Peter Griffin. Mean.

“When a child dies, the very ground on which we depend for stability heaves and quakes and the rightness and orderliness of our existence are destroyed. The loss of a child is shattering, unique among losses.”

One of the parents, Pauline, that was interviewed after losing a child wrote, “…I was angry at all of them [family], for something. I felt that they needed me, and I was annoyed that they needed me. I didn’t have anything to give; I was vacant; I was empty. I wasn’t sure that I was going to live.

8:30pm

I forgot to make my 12:40pm phone call, so I called my parent’s house and my mother answered. 

I said, “Any news?”

“No.”

“Are the boys in bed?”

“Yes.”

“What did they do today?”

“They were happy to stay home all day and they picked berries and played good and didn’t fight at all.”

“Um, okay…Bye.”

“Bye.”

Fucking Witch from Hell. She could at least try. God. 

The new lady seems to like it here. Of course, anything’s better than jail. They forget that after a while and then the bitching starts. I didn’t get to go to the meeting tonight, which sucks. There’s so many people here now that they have to pick and choose who can go because their stupid van only seats seven. Chantilly is making door signs. She’s very artsy. I forgot to give Tiger the bracelet I made her. I hope Dubya lets her come every week, but I know he won’t, so I’m filing a Modification of Custody motion tomorrow when I go get my bloodwork.

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Motorcycle, Minivans, and Man–You Don’t Even Want to Know

May 3, 2024

Muncy State Prison

11:29am

Friday

We just heard over the radio that CPR has been started on someone on J Unit. Jesus Christ. I hope it’s not another suicide. The Unit is silent, waiting to hear what happens. There’s tension in the air. Some people, like me, are eyes-wide, looking around, and others just shake their heads and put them down, as if to say, “Another one bites the dust.” Burgundy says it’s always J Unit. There are rows  of single cells, like S Unit, with automatic doors that are usually closed, only to be opened by an officer in the bubble by pressing a button on J Unit.

11:40am

Ambulance en route. It’s harder to hang yourself on an open Unit, like this one, BB. The walls between the pods only go up to chest level, so if you’re on the top tier and have a top bunk, you have a bird’s eye view of the entire Unit. People on this Unit are mad that lunch is going to be late, because they may not get to “shop” at Commissary. Someone is dying, and they’re made about coffee and e-cigarettes. It’s sad and infuriating that suicides are commonplace here.

11:52am

Ambulance en route (to the Unit?).

Book: “Women Who Love Men Who Kill: 35 True Stories of Prison Passion” by Sheila  Isenberg © 2021

P. 7 “Today, prison phone calls a $1.2 billion industry under the control of two large corporations, Securus and GlobalTel. They claim to reduce the cost os inmate calls up to 90 percent, including local, long distance, and international…Securus and GlobalTel are very profitable. They and some individual states earn huge profits on calls; many states pay legal kickbacks. For example, in 2018, Connecticut state prisoners paid $13.2 million for phone calls, of which Securus returned nearly 60 percent to the state. In 2010, the state of Hawaii profited by  $3.3 million from prisoner phone calls…But today, even our carceral society that penalizes so many, often unfairly, gives us the online revolution a place behind prison walls. The internet allows prisoners to stay in touch with families, and wives and girlfriends. According to experts, this cuts down on recidivism because of the prisoner’s ability to maintain a connection with the outside world.”

P.8

“First, there is JPay, ‘aiming to become the Apple of the U.S. penal system…’ Founded in 2006, JPay’s app can be downloaded on Apple’s App Store or on Google Play. It partners with institutions on all levels–federal, state, and county–in thirty-five states. A million and a half ‘offenders [prisoners],’ parolees, and probationers’ use it for money transfers, emails, and video visitation.”

p.8

“Since 2009, federal prison inmates have been able to send and receive emails through a system used by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons: TRULINCS (Trust Fund Limited Inmate Computer System). TRULINCS is operated by CORRLINK, a privately owned company that is a subsidiary of Advanced Technologies Group.”

12:15pm 

Count is clear.

12:40pm

Lunch.

1:15pm 

It was Sharon M. who hung herself. No one knows if she’s dead or alive. 

I didn’t go to lunch and called Motorcycle instead. He got my letter and said that he was upset that I think he doesn’t believe I’ll be faithful. He said he believes me. And that, “I love you very much, Jess.”

Sweet.

He also told me that he’s never said that he would “bend his knee” for anyone before, ever. I meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen…he was married once, but whatever. I’ll take it. I love him very much too. I wrote him a letter:

5/3/24

Motorcycle, 

I talked to you earlier today. You were so sweet. I love it when you’re all romantic with me. I mess spending time with you too, and crawling into your lap when I need a break from work. And cooking and eating together. Everything, really. I miss normal things. Shopping and driving around together. Just spending time together. I miss everything. I hate this. I hate being away from you, and not knowing what’s going to happen. I hate not knowing where I’m going live when this is all over.

Ugh.

Anyway, I love you very much too, and I can’t imagine my life without you. 

In other news, another woman here hung herself today. It’s so sad that it’s so normal here that no one really cares. People are just mad that we’re locked down, or they can’t go to Commissary or whatever. 

Terrible.

My worst fear is dying in prison. I haven’t gotten any letters or correspondence from Paul, so I stopped writing him. I give up. If he doesn’t want to be friends anymore, that’s fine. I can’t do anything about it anyway. I talked to Gem this morning. Nothing new with her except for the rumor about the DA and the Judge being under investigation. I sent the letter today to the Public Defender asking him why there was a conflict with the last case and not this one. I also sent a letter to Tabby. She writes huge long messages on the kiosk and I can only write her back a line or two. My mother told me the Maple Festival is this weekend and she’s taking the kids. Stryder has messaged me a few times with jealous bullshit about me choosing you over him. This after he didn’t speak to me for five months. Whatever. I didn’t respond. I can do without his drama just fine. 

Anyway, I love you very, very much and I miss you like crazy.

Love Always, 

Justine

5:47pm 

I have one piece of yellow paper left for writing letters. I’m going to call the boys at 6:30pm. I keep wondering if I should write Tiger. I don’t see why I would. She won’t care anyway, but I think about her a lot. 

Bambi, the Vietnamese lady next door, wants me to ghost write the story of her life for her. Daisy got colored pencils today on Commissary, so she’s happily coloring.

Burgundy asked the young Black lady next door yesterday what her charges were, her name is Momo, and she said that someone put some drug in her drink and she went nuts and stabbed her young daughter. Her daughter survived, but she’s not allowed to have any contact with her. She said she called her mom, where her kids live, and her daughter (the victim) insisted on talking to her She said, “I still love you, Mommy!”

So sad.

She got 6-16 years for felony child endangerment. She’s been down four years so far. I wonder if she’ll get paroled. I would think not. 

In other news, I got a yoga packet from some Activities person I wrote. Daisy says we’ll start tomorrow. I didn’t eat lunch today because it was fish. Dinner was spaghetti, so I ate it. Burgundy is working on an 1,000 piece puzzle. No thank you. I guess I’ll read. Library Monday, thank God.

6:33pm

Lockdown again. I was in the middle of my phone call with King. Jesus God. There’s no telling how long this will take. “Secure your Unit” over the radio. Henry sprained his ankle during soccer. Hopefully I’ll get to talk to Superman tonight. 

Who knows what happened this time.

6:40pm

“Compound is clear” over radio.

6:43pm

“Keep compound secure”

Showers and phone calls only. I’m not going to call Superman for two minutes. Inmate.com says that they found contraband in a shower. Daisy and I were talking about dating Black men, and I recounted a story about the first Black man I dated, when I was 19. He had the whitest name ever–Robert–and he sold a magazine where I worked as a bookstore clerk. He would buy me Boone’s Farm drinks and I would get drunk at his apartment, where there was black shag carpet and an entirely glass coffee table. When I broke up with him, he couldn’t believe it. He looked at me, aghast, and said incredulously, “But I licked your asshole!”

I had no idea that asshole lickery had bonded us for life.

Silly me. 

When Daisy dated her first Black man, they went to see the Exorcist in the theater, and to hear her tell it, the theater was so cold that her nipples were hard, so she tried to cuddle up to this guy, but she couldn’t get too close because his breath was so bad. “He had a turd in his cheek!!” she shrieked, and then fell over on her bed laughing. “NEVER AGAIN,” she said. She saw him later at a party and he said, “What happened to you?” She was like, “What happened to YOU, man?? Like, why would your breath smell that bad?!

Next, my first husband apparently thought I wasn’t very good at blow jobs, because he bought some DVD when I was 20 to teach me the ABCs of giving head. It featured real couples and also featured the least sexy sex I had ever seen. Some of those couples had to be 60 years old, with mom-bods and beer guts galore. “Oh, that’s hot,” I thought, and proceeded to never give him a blow job again. 

Daisy then told me about some porn she saw where a woman had a ton of sex toys up her vagina. She was like, “She had the Mary Poppins of pussies! Like–just when you thought she was done, there comes another one!”

Then she asked her boyfriend, Wizard, to look up Urban Sex Positions for entertainment while she was incarcerated, and he came back with “the minivan.” Sooo….you’ve heard of “the shocker,” right? Two in the pink and one in the stink? Okay, so this one is two in the front and FIVE in the back, like a freakin’ minivan. “What, so you just punch them in the butthole?” I asked, mouth agape. She shrugged and said nonchalantly, “Some people like being fisted.”

Ew.

Then we got into a conversation about men on meth who want to fuck for six hours straight with their “al dente” dicks and do butt stuff, but never get off.

Boy, do I NOT miss those days.

*sigh* 

Good times.

Daisy says that in her county jail, Somerset (not Fayette, it turns out I was wrong), five people have hung themselves in the past five years, and four of them died.

They also make the inmates paint over the black mold before inspections by the state and there are no counselors. Inmates have been known to eat dentures, shoes, and pens, or stick razors up their rectums in order to get a trip to the hospital and get out of the jail for a while. The woman here who hung herself earlier today apparently “did it wrong,” according to the blue shirts in the kitchen, because she lived. Now she has to come back here.

Dear God.

Also, in Somerset County jail, they don’t let ambulances or the coroner into the building, so nobody actually is pronounced dead until they’re in the alley. This way, I’m assuming, they don’t have to count the death as in the prison. How nice of them. I’m sure this skews the statistics of suicides in the Somerset County Jail in their favor.

8:50pm

The women here are discussing how much they get paid. Most of them will get around $30/month. Some of them work six hours per day in the kitchen or doing maintenance for this amount. And that’s IF they don’t get 25% taken out for fines. None of them seem to know or care that this is legal slavery.

There is a Sergeant walking by who is training a new CO with very tight pants on. While they walked by our cell, he told her, “When you leave this place, leave it here. Don’t take it home with you.”

Must be nice.

“We’re going down, down in an earlier round,

And sugar, we’re goin’ down swingin’

I’ll be your number one with the bullet, 

A loaded gun complex

Cock it and pull it.”

“I’ll tell you what you want to hear

Keep my sunglasses on while I shed a tear

It’s never the right time…

I’m unstoppable…

I’m a Porsche with no brakes…”

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Life Uncategorized

Thoughts on Human Stupidity…

April 21, 2024

Sunday

“Unstoppable” is playing on the radio. I slept most of the day. It’s surprisingly cold out today. I didn’t call Motorcycle today. At least I took a shower. I didn’t bother yesterday. Daisy says she’s going to request to be moved to another unit. I can’t imagine what I’m going to do without her. She’s the only one I talk to. She can’t stand anybody, especially Burgundy, who she pretends to like. I wonder if she pretends to like me. She can’t stand the neighbor cube either, who are very loud and obnoxious. I can’t stand Burgundy either. She was laughing about stealing people’s credit cards yesterday. Then in the next breath, she’ll be talking about how she’s changed so much for the better and she’s a different person since being in prison. I read the stuff I wrote on Friday to Daisy yesterday, which was a mistake. It seemed to make her completely miserable. She seemed to agree with me, but the more she talked about it, the more hateful she got. I’m afraid I’m dragging her down into my pit of misery and despair.

4:11pm

The rumor is that Library is going to be cancelled for the next two weeks. Of course, Daisy and I are on the schedule to go tomorrow. I’ve had the same books for two weeks, since I missed last week. I’m reading, “The Hot Zone” by Richard Preston about the origins of the Ebola virus. Turns out it came from humans keeping too many animals–monkeys–in confined and unnatural environments. Same as HIV, SARS, Avian Flu, Swine Flu, Mad Cow, COVID, etc., etc., etc. Will humans ever learn??

Another book I picked up today off the Unit is called “The Seat of the Soul” by Gary Zukov. © 1989. It’s about the spiritual evolution of the human race. I’m not sure we’ve evolved…I would be more inclined to say we’ve devolved since the ‘80s. Humans are mostly idiots, I tend to think. At least the majority of the ones I’ve met are. Think: People dying in droves from a preventable virus because they refused to wear masks or get vaccinated…Maybe the stupidity is focused on the United States…this makes me very worried about the Westernization of the globe.

Categories
Life

About Suicide in Prison

April 17th, 2024

Wednesday

3:30pm

I felt like shit all day. They finally gave me back my thyroid medication yesterday. I wrote Motorcycle wondering if this shit is just going to keep happening to me. 

Then I called him and he was bizarrely happy, singing and talking a lot. He says it’s going to rain for three days so he’s going to take CBD gummies and relax. 

Must be nice.

Will I ever be free?

I prayed to God for Him to get me out of here and said that I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. I have a pretty high pain tolerance, but I’m pretty sure I’ve reached my limit.

I’m reaching the place of no hope for the future.

What do I really have to look forward to?

Nothing.

To the Girl Down the Hall 

Concrete and hatred

She said

To describe the prison at San Quentin

But she forgot

Despair

Childlessness

Hopelessness

Bitterness

And a huge amount of emotional pain

And suffering

That are also held in the 

Cages in this prison

How will the light ever get in 

When there is so much darkness?

How can there be hope 

In a place that God forgot about?

This place doesn’t just strip you

Of all your rights

In this “free” country

It also strips you

Of your very personhood

Your humanity

I wonder what the woman 

Down the hall thought about 

Last

Before the darkness

Consumed her?

When the noose she fashioned

Tightened around

Her neck

Was she relieved

That the suffering

Would be over soon?

No more concrete and hatred

For her

Maybe she was

Finally free.

–To Ashley Hernandez

6:10pm 

So, I’ve been wallowing all day, and then a lady named Zuko asked me in the bathroom how long I’m here. I said I didn’t know, but my max is next year. Zuko said her minimum is in 18 years.

I wouldn’t be able to do it.

I have no idea how people do this.

How do people do this??!

I especially don’t know how people know they’re going to die here and stay alive anyway.

6:50pm I called the boys and King stayed home today with a stomach bug and Superman was having a sugar rush from all of the Gatorade he drank.

Categories
Life

Motorcycle, Tiger, and Hep C

April 5th, 2024

Friday

8:18am

Tomorrow is the 19th anniversary of Ethan’s death. That’s all I have to say about that.

10:30am 

Apparently there was a small earthquake here and some of the women felt it.
Hm. 

4:01pm

I talked to Motorcycle. I think painkillers make him really romantic. He said he had a dream while under anesthesia and I was in it. He says he doesn’t remember what the dream was about, but that he remembers that I was in it. He said, “I love you so fucking much. I miss you.”

Sweet, coming from him.

He said that the bleeding from his nose is sporadic now, but that he wasn’t able to sleep very well. 

Today is Commissary day.

The women in the next cube are discussing their children and who is teaching their daughters how to use tampons. I’m sure Tiger has had her period by now. I wonder who teaches her life skills, with no mother and no stepmother. I guess you can Youtube anything now.

God knows she doesn’t want me in her life.

The last thing I said to her was, “I love you very much.”

The last thing she said to me was, “I wish I could say the same.”

I wrote her and called her for the past five years. She never once wrote me or called me back. I wrote her father several letters, too, that all went unanswered.

Daisy is reading a book on strange murders in Pennsylvania. She says she likes to read about people who are crazier than her. She and I are on the schedule for Library on Monday. Tomorrow I have to go to some clinic, probably because of my Hep C antibody test. I don’t know what else it would be for. Back to wheelchair pushing tomorrow. Maybe I’ll try this other book: “Death and Other Penalties,” © 2015.

Categories
Life

lupus and daisies

Photo by micheile henderson on Unsplash

Saturday

3/23/24

8:45am

I’m a wheelchair pusher today, so I took Ms. Grumpy Crabass to the Library. I was able to get a book, so there was an upside to walking in the rain. I have to return it on April 6th. Another one of Ethan’s death anniversaries in prison.

10am

I called the boys. We didn’t have much to say to each other. I wonder if I’m losing them like I lost Lilly.

That didn’t take long.

Ten must be the magical age where they begin to hate.

12:15pm

We got searched. No problems, thank the Lord. Now they’re taking somebody’s stinger, which is a contraption people cook with.

Did I mention that I feel like shit today and I’m having a lupus flare? I just want to sleep all day. This book, about people serving Life Without Parole (LWOP) sentences, is very depressing. Although I feel like I should bear witness to their suffering, instead of giving up on the book like a coward.

I cannot get comfortable.

I’m sad, depressed, and I feel like shit. And it’s raining to boot. Why is it always raining?

***********************************************************************

INTERVIEW

“Daisy”

Age: 41 years

Female

White

7 children from 7-22 years old

From Somerset County

History of trauma and abuse?

Yes, watched a lady get stabbed 17 times when daisy was 14

Father drowned when she was 8

Had had five abusive relationships–last one—> Met ex in 2019, extremely abusive, stalked Daisy to get to know her, then tried to kill her several times during the course of the relationship. They met after Daisy’s first incarceration–started incarceration cycle

History of addiction?

Yes, started using at 14–weed, cocaine, then coke/crack until 27, alcoholoc from 27-35, then from 35-present-meth

Had periods of sobriety, went to rehab twice to stay out of jail

Never has gone to rehab voluntarily

History of mental illness?

Yes–attempted suicide at 15, diagnosed with Battered Woman Syndrome, ADD, PTSD, depression with mania, night terrors

How much time have you spent incarcerated?

Off and on since 2019

How were you treated by the court?

“They just assumed I was an alcoholic…I was fleeing my husband because he had tried to kill me…I had the kids in the car. The cops didn’t care that my husband was abusive, they just wanted to know where he was. They said if I was going to leave him, I already would have. Now he’s taking his case to trial and they’re bringing up the abuse. He raped our daughter. There was a no-contact order and they put us in the same jail.”

Charges?

2015–DUI third tier, Child Endangerment

2024–Simple possession, Possession with Intent to Distribute, Hindering Apprehension

Paid private attorney or public defender?

Public Defender

Plans for the future?

“I don’t want to get high. There’s no support for women in my county. I want to work in a field that creates healthy support systems for women. I’ve missed a lot of time with my kids. I want to go home and be a better mother to my kids. I have to get out of Pennsylvania. I’m going to have a grandchild while I’m in prison. I’ve missed two graduations.”

What do you do for fun?

“I paint furniture and pictures. I make wreaths and garden. I like to grow things.”

Categories
Life

Neither Here nor There: Musings from the Other Side (of the razor wire fence)

Jess Mug Shot

BLOG #1

Welp, I’m in Muncy State Prison now, which is as bad as it sounds, but just for fun, I’ll give you some highlights–there’s ants, we get four whole minutes to eat meals, and the hopper where we’re supposed to wash our clothes has no pipe to the wall, just a filthy mop bucket under it.

But that’s not the best part.

The best part is that in the bathroom, there are separate stalls, but only boob-level dividers between them, so it’s like this horrifying game where you try not to make eye contact with anybody while you pull your underwear up after having a diarrhea-shit from the freeze-dried coffee.

Yeah, that’s right.

Speaking of diarrhea, Daisy, my cellie, got some sugar-free candy here with this warning label: “Excessive consumption may have a laxative effect.”

So you’ll literally shit the bed if you eat too many.

In other Muncy news, the same dentist  who pulled two of my teeth at Cambridge Springs (Prison) called me “bud” and was glad to meet me.
We’ve met 10 times.

In celebrity news, Jessica Biel wrote “a kid’s book about periods.” Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Daisy is having hers, and described it as a “massacre,” and is, “bleeding all my blood out,” according to her. I, on the other hand, have 1,000 zits, so my face is having Daisy’s period, too.

Back to celebrity news, Campbell’s Chunky Soup honored Jason Kelce’s retirement by putting his beard on their cans, and Katy Perry showed  her entire butt at the Women of the Year Awards. 

Next: Katy Perry’s butt on Pepsi cans to honor National Women’s Month.

Then, Colin Firth’s wet shirt from Pride and Prejudice sold for $32,000, and Robert Irwin is a model now so instead of wrestling alligators like his Dad, he wrestles with his gag reflex. Maybe he should try Daisy’s laxative candies to stay thin…

In world news, fish in the Florida Keys are mysteriously spinning around in circles and then keeling over–my guess is that they heard about the earthquakes and the eclipse and so are committing mass suicide.

In Around the Block News, Daisy has just returned from the shower, where she nearly severed her ankle with the dull, one-bladed razors provided for us, and the neighbors are hurling insults at each other in the vein of, “You’re a colostomy bag!” and “You’re a pain in my peehole!”

Meanwhile, Dan, Daisy’s son, 7, recently pooped in the household litter box. He may or may not  identify as a furry.

Hey Jessica Biel! Do you have a book for that??