Thursday, October 15, 2015

William Myrl; Letters to No One (29)

Dear No One,


All the signs say I will have my player replaced this week. I have been putting off writing you because of the expectation of its arrival. Now I see the folly of my ways.


It's Columbus Day. Is that still a real holiday in your world? Does the post office still close for national rape a native american day? Do schoolchildren put on ridiculous paper hats and sing of oceans blue? Here, the shop is closed, so I will have a three day week. The mail will not run. They shut that down for any possible excuse, including General Lee day, which exists only in Virginia. Property isn't running, so one more day to wait for my music machine…


I finally pushed over my hump in M4. It always happens the same way, the writing gets hard between fifty and one hundred pages in. I don't enjoy it. It doesn't happen. There are the two and three page days; the ones. Last month I wrote less than seventy pages of fiction. This month I have higher hopes. Over the beginning book bump, we can do our five pages in under two hours and keep the days moving happily along.


I am so annoyed with Jark. A friend of his has a friend who works in publishing as a Junior Junior Junior Editor or something along those lines. She reads manuscripts that have gotten passed the query stage. His friend gave her the prologue of his book, and apparently, she enjoyed it. He is dilly-dallying about typing up the rest. It has been a month and he hasn't started. I understand the overwhelming seeming nature of the undertaking, I've been there. But I don't understand not doing it anyway. He's hit that place where he's decided he'll get to it eventually. That is not a good spot to visit. There is no guarantee that this Jr Jr Jr will like his book, or if she does, that she will be able to convince anyone else to like it. If it was my opportunity, the biggest difficulty would be typing with my hands shaking so much. (From adrenaline, not from palsy or toxic lithium levels. I did experience a couple of minor tremors when I first started taking it, no more though.) I told him about black swans, and about PCs and NPCs, but he refused to read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality; there is no helping some people. I will keep badgering though.
Running out of time again. The next letter shouldn't have a limit on it.


Yours,
William Myrl(29)

Friday, October 2, 2015

William Myrl; Letters to No One (28)

Dear No One,


We had our annual "field day". It had its successes and failures. We went to breakfast in the morning as on any other day, and there was much grumbling that because of inclement weather forecasts there would be no picnic at all. That is what the memos suggested. We locked down after breakfast, and at or after nine o'clock the counselor came into the pod to begin giving out and affixing the paper bracelets, like carnival tokens, that signified our superior status. Those without bracelets could not participate. Anyone convicted of a charge within the last year would be barred from participating.


My name was on the no fly list because of a charge I received in May; I was accused of eating a regular tray when I was assigned to common fare meals. That charge had been dropped, not that anyone told me this, but I had request forms confirming it saved up for exactly this eventuality. I did get my strip of green wrist paper, if an hour after everyone else.


The picnic itself consists of everyone going outside and being rationed hot dogs and hamburgers. It's the best food we receive all year, even if they did give us stale white bread instead of buns. It is also the annual opportunity for the inmate bands to perform for the population. As we haven't had a rec supervisor for a few months, they hadn't been allowed to practice. You could tell. Live music was a novelty, though, and given the eternal absence of my music player it was a nice change.


It was dreary and wet throughout, and we were locked down until twelve thirty, herded back in at around two. We went back outside at three thirty, returned inside at five o'clock. It was about as much outside time as a normal day, but with more being locked in our cells in between. Still, the hamburger meat was real meat, and that's just madness.


They didn't want to let me out in the evening either, because the wristband system was not sufficient security to protect the hamburgers from the bad kids, I had to get the sergeant to clear me again so I could participate.They had a printout in the booth with pictures of all the people on the blacklist.


I'm a tad sick, just a tad. And the other day I had another psych visit. There was a girl who clapped, involuntarily, like a baby seal, when I read one of my shorter poems. Gratifying. She had a french name I could never spell.

I'm down to my last minute of kiosk time, so I will have to say goodbye.


Yours,

William Myrl (28)