Dear No One,
The jail in Virginia was an entirely different sort of monster. It was older, dirtier, and more crowded than the one I had lived in awaiting extradition. It served five counties, dividing its occupants into color coded security levels. Intake was the only place where you didn't see stripes, their uniform was a uniform canary yellow set of scrubs. When you first arrive in a jail, they give you a laundry bag with your clothes and maybe a bar of soap and a roll of toilet paper. There is always a rulebook that you need to sign for. The rulebook has nothing to do with anything, but they have to have one. Intake was an open dorm on two levels. There were bunks, but the bunks were all full, so I joined the line of other floor people along the far wall. Mattress and pillow, sickly green and ultimately not that uncomfortable. My frame of reference is skewed from years of sleeping on these things, but I've never been too uncomfortable to lay down.
Someone stole my laundry bag while I was on a court run one day. It took a couple of weeks to get a replacement, in the interim someone let me use theirs a few times. You put whatever you want washed into a bag, send it out in the morning, get it back sometime. The bags all go together in huge machines. This is how it works everywhere I've been in Virginia. Other places do an exchange. They bring around washed clothes, and you give them your unwashed clothes in return. What you wear one week was someone else's the week before. Not a fan.
We all shared toilets, one of the many aspects of open dorm living I do not miss. I suppose I should be grateful that the showers had curtains.
This jail had weekenders, people who paid their debt to the state in two day installments. They always stayed in intake, meaning the population fluctuated pretty heavily based on their presence or absence. They brought butt tobacco with then, and other butt drugs. They were paid for their colonic fortitude by those both in and outside of the jail. The corner I ended up bunking in was also the smoking hotspot, sadly. My sleeping area often served as a bench for the butt tobacco folk. I was once given a "roll-up" for being such a sport about it. I sold it for a bag of candy. Not a great price, I've never been a good negotiator and this wasn't something I wanted to hold onto.
I learned how to play spades there, and it was where people first started calling me bank robber. Interestingly, most crimes don't become monickers. I've never known someone to go by Crack head, or Breaking and Entering, but I've met a number of Bank Robbers, and at least one Murder. It didn't matter who I told my real name to, they knew me by my crime for the two years I was there. Being in the newspaper every time I had a court hearing likely exacerbated the issue.
There were some interesting characters in intake I never saw again. Tank stands out in my memory. He was big and flabby, tattoos all along his jaw to disguise the fact that he couldn't grow a beard. It was a hormonal thing. Tank had been in the military, allegedly, a lot of folks claim they were in the military. One day he stood at the top of the stairs screaming at someone about the remote. Them was fighting words, but he never cane down the steps, and the other guy never went up. That sort of thing was common, is common still. Afterwards there will always be some reminiscing about the days of yore, when men didn't let such words pass, or if they did, they suffered for it. Maybe its true.
One day at the poker table there was a bit of a kerfluffle. One man threatened another, his brothers by belief joined him. The threatened man revealed a shank, or the tip of one anyway, and all dispersed. My celly said that in the old days, such a thing could not have been let pass. I'm glad these are the new days, where things just blow over.
Yours,
William Myrl
Thursday, April 28, 2016
William Myrl; Letters to No One (47)
Dear No One,
I was telling you about my first jail. There was an old guy there I talked to, played chess with, once I got out of intake. He wasn't good at chess, and neither was I. His name is lost to me, but I remember how he would track stocks in the newspaper. His brother executed trades for him, nothing huge. On days he made money, we heard about it. When he didn't, we didn't. It was his way of maintaining control.
Probably the most memorable event of my stay before extradition occurred in a holding cell. I had pled guilty to possession of a controlled substance for my mushrooms, they gave me time served. My lawyer had done a good job of convincing our prosecutor that it was best to get me out of their hair and into Virginia's as cleanly as possible.
There were maybe eight people in the holding cell. It was loud, and cramped, and a lot of stories. When lunch time arrived, one of the guys asked for my bologna sandwiches. We hadn't gotten them yet, and I shook my head. He repeated his request when the paper bags were passed out. I again declined, and he was slow about shuffling off. I took one of my sandwiches and my apple out, and with my hands thus occupied, he grabbed under my arm for the bag with my other sandwich and took it to his side of the holding cell. I stood up, walked behind him. I don't know if I said anything. His little brother was there, lovely family situation that, and he stood up as the first fellow sat down with the bag. He said something about commissary. I don't know, likely implying that I could go back to my jail and eat out of my box, as the saying goes. I went back to my space on the bench, and ate what I had already taken out of the bag. One of the other inmate split a sandwich with me.
Eventually we all went back to where we came from. I think this is the only time I have ever been robbed, and losing a couple of bologna sandwiches in front of strangers I never saw again doesn't count as a trauma. The scene stayed in my head for many days afterward. I imagined attacking the person who had made me feel uncomfortable and powerless. I relived the scene a thousand ways, all of them ending quite differently than the real one did. There is no plausible universe in which I acted wrongly. The answer in life is never fighting over bologna, though I could find opposition to that statement by throwing a rock in the pod. No amount of logic or perspective could shake the shame I felt about what had happened. We are animals, and an animal knows when its been cowed. The material conquest is immaterial, it was made clear that I was not the dominant male in the room. That is what I fantasized about changing through so ridiculous a means as a physical altercation. My first fight, in prison and in life, actually came a few years later, and it was for a better reason.
Three months went by with many more holding cells and strangers with strange ways. I remember the titles of three books I read in that period, and only three. Atlas Shrugged, Youngblood Hawk, and Giles Goat Boy. When I was extradited, I got to wear my own clothes again. It was my favorite shirt, a black T with a big scene from the 1989 transformers movie on it. I had lost weight, so it fit me better than when I was arrested in it.
Do you know about the Protomen?
Yours,
William Myrl.
I was telling you about my first jail. There was an old guy there I talked to, played chess with, once I got out of intake. He wasn't good at chess, and neither was I. His name is lost to me, but I remember how he would track stocks in the newspaper. His brother executed trades for him, nothing huge. On days he made money, we heard about it. When he didn't, we didn't. It was his way of maintaining control.
Probably the most memorable event of my stay before extradition occurred in a holding cell. I had pled guilty to possession of a controlled substance for my mushrooms, they gave me time served. My lawyer had done a good job of convincing our prosecutor that it was best to get me out of their hair and into Virginia's as cleanly as possible.
There were maybe eight people in the holding cell. It was loud, and cramped, and a lot of stories. When lunch time arrived, one of the guys asked for my bologna sandwiches. We hadn't gotten them yet, and I shook my head. He repeated his request when the paper bags were passed out. I again declined, and he was slow about shuffling off. I took one of my sandwiches and my apple out, and with my hands thus occupied, he grabbed under my arm for the bag with my other sandwich and took it to his side of the holding cell. I stood up, walked behind him. I don't know if I said anything. His little brother was there, lovely family situation that, and he stood up as the first fellow sat down with the bag. He said something about commissary. I don't know, likely implying that I could go back to my jail and eat out of my box, as the saying goes. I went back to my space on the bench, and ate what I had already taken out of the bag. One of the other inmate split a sandwich with me.
Eventually we all went back to where we came from. I think this is the only time I have ever been robbed, and losing a couple of bologna sandwiches in front of strangers I never saw again doesn't count as a trauma. The scene stayed in my head for many days afterward. I imagined attacking the person who had made me feel uncomfortable and powerless. I relived the scene a thousand ways, all of them ending quite differently than the real one did. There is no plausible universe in which I acted wrongly. The answer in life is never fighting over bologna, though I could find opposition to that statement by throwing a rock in the pod. No amount of logic or perspective could shake the shame I felt about what had happened. We are animals, and an animal knows when its been cowed. The material conquest is immaterial, it was made clear that I was not the dominant male in the room. That is what I fantasized about changing through so ridiculous a means as a physical altercation. My first fight, in prison and in life, actually came a few years later, and it was for a better reason.
Three months went by with many more holding cells and strangers with strange ways. I remember the titles of three books I read in that period, and only three. Atlas Shrugged, Youngblood Hawk, and Giles Goat Boy. When I was extradited, I got to wear my own clothes again. It was my favorite shirt, a black T with a big scene from the 1989 transformers movie on it. I had lost weight, so it fit me better than when I was arrested in it.
Do you know about the Protomen?
Yours,
William Myrl.
William Myrl; Letters to No One (46)
Dear No One,
I remember how big the first pod I was ever in felt. A fresh jumpsuit, no underwear, and a blanket in my arms, I went to the cell number I had been given. My celly was a man in his twenties, Spanish, with large and lively hair. He had stolen cars, and this was not his first visit to the county jail. We talked a little, not in that first night but in the days afterward. We were in intake, a sort of quarantine with an hour a day out of the cell. The time rotated, so your hour could be in the afternoon, or it could be five in the morning.
I asked a passing officer what CO meant, we all kept calling them that. My celly hadn't known either.
Correctional Officer, it makes sense. It was a few days before they sent me upstairs to population, and I never saw my first celly again. Jail is like that, people appear and disappear like interviewees on a serial cop drama. I don't know how many people I met in that place. It was three months there before being extradited to Virginia. The jail was a tower built in the middle of the city. Apparently, the feds owned the building and leased it to the county. One never knows. I remember Spider and Jr and Tauro and L. My experiences with the spanish have always been positive, these three (Spider, Tauro, and Jr) were young and outgoing and optimistic. Spider was doing three years for accessory after the fact. A friend of his had killed someone in an altercation and then come to stay the night with him. One assumes he had a good idea of why his friend was laying low. Jr had drug problems, and Tauro? Who even knows. They were my first almost friends in what is now a long history of almost friends.
L was interesting for other reasons. He was a part of a tragically misguided movement that certainly has a name that I certainly don't remember. In brief, the government creates a "straw man" legal entity in the form of your social security number, and it is that "straw man" that falls under the governments legal jurisdiction to prosecute and tax. L knew a lot of legal sounding terminology, and legal sounding arguments. He could quote any number of irrelevant statutes and pretend they were pertinent. I was at the right point in my life to be taken in by this nonsense. It was at the tail end of my anti bank Ayn Rand phase. That lasted the latter half of my teens, sorry to say.
At that time I was still imagining I would be home in four years. No reason for that number in particular, it was something that seemed long enough to be significant but not too long to be unbearable. The pseudo-paralegal and I had many conversations. My letters from that period are full of that idiocy. The strange part was that I knew how ridiculous it was even while I was writing it down and practicing the dialogue in my cell. There were a set of phrases you were supposed to say during your arraignment that would, through the magic of wordplay, divest you of all charges and give them to your lawyer. (Because a charge is really about money, has a monetary value assigned to it, and your lawyer can be made out as your fiduciary in relation to the charges pending. Its all quite complicated and made up, and I had it memorized at the time.) Its one of the few things I can thank my constitutional passivity for, that I never brought up any of my fresh faux legalese in the actual courtroom. I did mention it to my lawyer once, and got a bunch of paperwork on civil law sent in. Neither sally found its port.
I lost thirty pounds while I was there, all in the first six weeks. I had stopped eating everything but bread and jello. This was good, I had been chubby, and I didn't like it. Thanks incarceration.
Yours,
William Myrl
I remember how big the first pod I was ever in felt. A fresh jumpsuit, no underwear, and a blanket in my arms, I went to the cell number I had been given. My celly was a man in his twenties, Spanish, with large and lively hair. He had stolen cars, and this was not his first visit to the county jail. We talked a little, not in that first night but in the days afterward. We were in intake, a sort of quarantine with an hour a day out of the cell. The time rotated, so your hour could be in the afternoon, or it could be five in the morning.
I asked a passing officer what CO meant, we all kept calling them that. My celly hadn't known either.
Correctional Officer, it makes sense. It was a few days before they sent me upstairs to population, and I never saw my first celly again. Jail is like that, people appear and disappear like interviewees on a serial cop drama. I don't know how many people I met in that place. It was three months there before being extradited to Virginia. The jail was a tower built in the middle of the city. Apparently, the feds owned the building and leased it to the county. One never knows. I remember Spider and Jr and Tauro and L. My experiences with the spanish have always been positive, these three (Spider, Tauro, and Jr) were young and outgoing and optimistic. Spider was doing three years for accessory after the fact. A friend of his had killed someone in an altercation and then come to stay the night with him. One assumes he had a good idea of why his friend was laying low. Jr had drug problems, and Tauro? Who even knows. They were my first almost friends in what is now a long history of almost friends.
L was interesting for other reasons. He was a part of a tragically misguided movement that certainly has a name that I certainly don't remember. In brief, the government creates a "straw man" legal entity in the form of your social security number, and it is that "straw man" that falls under the governments legal jurisdiction to prosecute and tax. L knew a lot of legal sounding terminology, and legal sounding arguments. He could quote any number of irrelevant statutes and pretend they were pertinent. I was at the right point in my life to be taken in by this nonsense. It was at the tail end of my anti bank Ayn Rand phase. That lasted the latter half of my teens, sorry to say.
At that time I was still imagining I would be home in four years. No reason for that number in particular, it was something that seemed long enough to be significant but not too long to be unbearable. The pseudo-paralegal and I had many conversations. My letters from that period are full of that idiocy. The strange part was that I knew how ridiculous it was even while I was writing it down and practicing the dialogue in my cell. There were a set of phrases you were supposed to say during your arraignment that would, through the magic of wordplay, divest you of all charges and give them to your lawyer. (Because a charge is really about money, has a monetary value assigned to it, and your lawyer can be made out as your fiduciary in relation to the charges pending. Its all quite complicated and made up, and I had it memorized at the time.) Its one of the few things I can thank my constitutional passivity for, that I never brought up any of my fresh faux legalese in the actual courtroom. I did mention it to my lawyer once, and got a bunch of paperwork on civil law sent in. Neither sally found its port.
I lost thirty pounds while I was there, all in the first six weeks. I had stopped eating everything but bread and jello. This was good, I had been chubby, and I didn't like it. Thanks incarceration.
Yours,
William Myrl
Thursday, April 7, 2016
William Myrl; Letters to No One (45)
Dear No One,
Magic: The Gathering is a collectible trading card game, the great strange uncle of all such games. We aren't allowed to buy the cards, but we can purchase information. Families send in lists, or they are bought from the predatory vendors of gaming supplies that cater to inmates. (Noble Knights...Hit Point....) I've begun making my own small collection. Writing out card data on copy paper, using packing tape to give them durability and enough body to shuffle, I have a little treasure box that used to hold saltine crackers. Saltine crackers are fabulous. Its all contraband, because anything modified from its original purpose is contraband. To be clear, if I put a different brand of cracker in the saltine box it would all become contraband in that instant. Fortunately, most correctional officers aren't all that concerned with harmless nonsense. The biannual shakedown would be the greatest chance of loss, but even then, we will probably make it through. And if its all thrown away, the information remains. So we begin again.
Our first eBook should be available on the site by the time you get this. Its just M1, but getting the process down will make publishing M2 and 3 a more streamlined process. Typing on this thing is as fun as ever. Well be putting it up for 3.00, so our cut will be a bit over two dollars a download. I only mention this because that means thirty downloads will be the equivalent of my monthly wages.
Aiyah.
If I ever make more from writing than I do from working I'm quitting my job. That is a squat goalpost, sir. Squat.
New news. My family can't visit this weekend because there registration expired. You have to put in your paperwork three months ahead of time to be approved as a visitor, and renewals aren't much faster. Why you have to renew anything when you already visit and have your identity confirmed on a regular to semi-regular basis is beyond my puny mortal brain. Another item on the index of uncontrollable phenomenon.
I so want to make these letters interesting, but it isn't an interesting life I live.
Eternal apologies.
Yours,
William Myrl
Magic: The Gathering is a collectible trading card game, the great strange uncle of all such games. We aren't allowed to buy the cards, but we can purchase information. Families send in lists, or they are bought from the predatory vendors of gaming supplies that cater to inmates. (Noble Knights...Hit Point....) I've begun making my own small collection. Writing out card data on copy paper, using packing tape to give them durability and enough body to shuffle, I have a little treasure box that used to hold saltine crackers. Saltine crackers are fabulous. Its all contraband, because anything modified from its original purpose is contraband. To be clear, if I put a different brand of cracker in the saltine box it would all become contraband in that instant. Fortunately, most correctional officers aren't all that concerned with harmless nonsense. The biannual shakedown would be the greatest chance of loss, but even then, we will probably make it through. And if its all thrown away, the information remains. So we begin again.
Our first eBook should be available on the site by the time you get this. Its just M1, but getting the process down will make publishing M2 and 3 a more streamlined process. Typing on this thing is as fun as ever. Well be putting it up for 3.00, so our cut will be a bit over two dollars a download. I only mention this because that means thirty downloads will be the equivalent of my monthly wages.
Aiyah.
If I ever make more from writing than I do from working I'm quitting my job. That is a squat goalpost, sir. Squat.
New news. My family can't visit this weekend because there registration expired. You have to put in your paperwork three months ahead of time to be approved as a visitor, and renewals aren't much faster. Why you have to renew anything when you already visit and have your identity confirmed on a regular to semi-regular basis is beyond my puny mortal brain. Another item on the index of uncontrollable phenomenon.
I so want to make these letters interesting, but it isn't an interesting life I live.
Eternal apologies.
Yours,
William Myrl
Saturday, March 26, 2016
William Myrl; Letters to No One (44)
Dear No One,
I told Ender that this was either going to be very exciting month, or a very disappointing one. So far, disappointing has proved the champion of that duel. Recall that I entered in all four categories of the PEN prison writing contest back in September. No luck. It was a blow, but I can understand how it happened. There are thousands of entrants, thousands more pieces to cipher and judge. That my crap might be overlooked is not beyond the realm of possibility. I knew going in that my style of poetry (not free verse, but actual verse) is out of the vogue and has been for decades. My drama work was short and humorous, I doubt either quality played well. (Iambic pentameter was not requested) My short story was titled "Mel works for Satan", so we can both guess what went wrong there. I had been holding out serious hope for the nonfiction segment, my essay wasn't long, but it was highly quotable. I'm going to have my brother post my entries on the site (williammyrl.com), so you can see what lost compared to what won. I only had a month to prepare my entries, still, expectations were dashed.
More realistic were my expectations of participating in the Washington and Lee course this year. I wrote my application seriously this time. They asked for a paragraph explaining why I wanted to be in the class.Here it is.
I am the first member of my family not to attend college, the first not to finish high school, and the first to go to prison. These distinctions are not a source of pride, so when an opportunity arises to further my education without cost, to visit, if only in facsimile, a classroom like the ones I could have known, I am compelled to take it. I am grateful and surprised that the Washington and Lee program exists, and hopeful to have a chance to participate. I believe I could make a real contribution to the discourse of the course, as I already maintain a blog about prison life; quotidian concerns, education and mental health issues. (Letters to No One, williammyrl.com) Also, in May of this year, one of my essays on a related subject will be published in Reed magazine of San Jose University. The nature of freedom and unfreedom is a topic I can't help but be attracted to. Ten pages wouldn't be enough to hold every reason this class appeals to me, but you asked for a paragraph, so this will have to do.
What did the other people write? I am told by the inmates who work in the school that some of the people who did get in have difficulty with basic punctuation and sentence structure. I found out earlier today that I wasn't selected, so excuse any bitterness in my tone, but what criterion was the principal looking for when he made his selections? What is the point of a class if the people who will be best able to take advantage of what is offered are not allowed in? It isn't as if this is a GED class, its an elective college course that gives real credits.
Venting, venting. I've been playing a lot of Magic: the gathering, lately (The cards aren't allowed, we make our own). I can't listen to "This is Me", by Draft King, without feeling better. Damn my emotional robustness!
Yours,
William Myrl
I told Ender that this was either going to be very exciting month, or a very disappointing one. So far, disappointing has proved the champion of that duel. Recall that I entered in all four categories of the PEN prison writing contest back in September. No luck. It was a blow, but I can understand how it happened. There are thousands of entrants, thousands more pieces to cipher and judge. That my crap might be overlooked is not beyond the realm of possibility. I knew going in that my style of poetry (not free verse, but actual verse) is out of the vogue and has been for decades. My drama work was short and humorous, I doubt either quality played well. (Iambic pentameter was not requested) My short story was titled "Mel works for Satan", so we can both guess what went wrong there. I had been holding out serious hope for the nonfiction segment, my essay wasn't long, but it was highly quotable. I'm going to have my brother post my entries on the site (williammyrl.com), so you can see what lost compared to what won. I only had a month to prepare my entries, still, expectations were dashed.
More realistic were my expectations of participating in the Washington and Lee course this year. I wrote my application seriously this time. They asked for a paragraph explaining why I wanted to be in the class.Here it is.
I am the first member of my family not to attend college, the first not to finish high school, and the first to go to prison. These distinctions are not a source of pride, so when an opportunity arises to further my education without cost, to visit, if only in facsimile, a classroom like the ones I could have known, I am compelled to take it. I am grateful and surprised that the Washington and Lee program exists, and hopeful to have a chance to participate. I believe I could make a real contribution to the discourse of the course, as I already maintain a blog about prison life; quotidian concerns, education and mental health issues. (Letters to No One, williammyrl.com) Also, in May of this year, one of my essays on a related subject will be published in Reed magazine of San Jose University. The nature of freedom and unfreedom is a topic I can't help but be attracted to. Ten pages wouldn't be enough to hold every reason this class appeals to me, but you asked for a paragraph, so this will have to do.
What did the other people write? I am told by the inmates who work in the school that some of the people who did get in have difficulty with basic punctuation and sentence structure. I found out earlier today that I wasn't selected, so excuse any bitterness in my tone, but what criterion was the principal looking for when he made his selections? What is the point of a class if the people who will be best able to take advantage of what is offered are not allowed in? It isn't as if this is a GED class, its an elective college course that gives real credits.
Venting, venting. I've been playing a lot of Magic: the gathering, lately (The cards aren't allowed, we make our own). I can't listen to "This is Me", by Draft King, without feeling better. Damn my emotional robustness!
Yours,
William Myrl
William Myrl; Letters to No One (43)
Let's talk about the gays. In prison, most folks are either homophobic or all too comfortable with the genitalia of other men. Earlier today, I was gunned down while speaking with my family on the phone. Gunning has a very specific meaning in this context. I was talking about magic cards with my brother and my dad when I perceived motion in my peripherals. There wasn't anyone else around the phones, it was our pods time to be outside and many prisoners had availed themselves of the opportunity. The gentlemen in cell five was standing on his toilet pleasuring himself in my direction. I turned away, because making eye contact means your into it. They actually believe this. They think that an officer who doesn't write them up immediately is in favor of their masturbation, and one who meets their gaze at any point is "locking in." Later that afternoon he apologized to me and asked that I not mention what had happened to anyone else. This works for both of us. He doesn't want other people to know hes into dudes, and I don't want to tell the story. Also, the homophobes, which is a category that I sometimes think includes everyone other than me and the gays, would insist I fight him over it. Like other primates, the homo-sedereus needs to prove himself physically to others. It isn't a real issue, he was testing me. Most people will lie if you ask them whether they are gay, so the easiest thing to do is show them your dick and see what happens. It seems odd to me, but this is the way of things. I've had it happen on one other occasion. I was at another prison, and had just come out of my yearlong stint in segregation. .My celly seemed nice, and he was. Also, he whipped it out halfway through the Sherlock Holmes movie on TNT. I expressed my flabbergast, and he apologized. We never spoke of it again, and we were together two months without any issues.
Sometimes, I find out from other people that I'm gay. While I was at work a few weeks back one of my confreres passed me a note. It was a couple of paragraphs asking whether I was into "that life", which is what they call it. I wrote "nope" on the bottom and handed it back.
He later told me that he had wanted to talk to me about it because someone else had told him that was my persuasion. That someone else continued to insist to him that I was. I knew this other fellow, though not well, so I discussed the matter with him in he chow hall not long after. Apparently, he was at the other institution when I was, and he had learned there that I was engaged in activities of the kind with my aforementioned celly, and also this other guy I used to play scrabble with. It is amazing how many homosexual relationships I can be party to without knowing it. To clarify, I'm not into dudes, and I did clarify that with him. I don't care about what people do to themselves or to each other, but I would rather they left men apart from their bacchanals.
This isn't something I get excited about, but that's true of almost everything. Is ataraxia a medical condition or just a fun word?
Yours,
William Myrl
Sometimes, I find out from other people that I'm gay. While I was at work a few weeks back one of my confreres passed me a note. It was a couple of paragraphs asking whether I was into "that life", which is what they call it. I wrote "nope" on the bottom and handed it back.
He later told me that he had wanted to talk to me about it because someone else had told him that was my persuasion. That someone else continued to insist to him that I was. I knew this other fellow, though not well, so I discussed the matter with him in he chow hall not long after. Apparently, he was at the other institution when I was, and he had learned there that I was engaged in activities of the kind with my aforementioned celly, and also this other guy I used to play scrabble with. It is amazing how many homosexual relationships I can be party to without knowing it. To clarify, I'm not into dudes, and I did clarify that with him. I don't care about what people do to themselves or to each other, but I would rather they left men apart from their bacchanals.
This isn't something I get excited about, but that's true of almost everything. Is ataraxia a medical condition or just a fun word?
Yours,
William Myrl
William Myrl; Letters to No One (42)
Dear No One,
I am sitting in the pod, ten o'clock at night, listening to LGFUAD on repeat. Its one of those songs that doesn't dull until it does, and then I can put the volume up one more notch and it feels fresh again. I had cheese and biscuits for breakfast, so I saved the cheese. Lunch was a pepperoni sandwich, not terribly enticing, so I saved the meat. Before they let us out after nine o'clock count I cooked a ramen noodle and a half with a handful of saltine crackers in an old chip bag. If you use just enough water and put pressure on it to sit for a while it becomes something the locals call a brick. I cooked the pepperoni and cheese with some crumbled crackers in the microwave, then I put them in a bowl with the squished out brick. Coincidentally, I had some of the commissary pizza a sauce at hand to complete the dish. It looked sort of like a pizza pie (a literal pizza pie, not a regular pizza) and I know you must tire of me talking about my inmate cookery but it is interesting to me. I was quite pleased with myself. Including a Pepsi the meal would be about a dollar fifty, a third of a days wage. Living large.
Back to the music. Mania is difficult to describe. Whenever the med kids ask me about it I get vague and flounder. Music makes it easier, because that is what mania feels like, I think. LGFUAD, by Motion City Soundtrack (I've never listened to another song of theirs all the way through) and I Can't Decide, by the Scissor Sisters,(another band I don't actually listen to) are both fantastic. The entire debut album of The Protomen will also do just fine.
Life is looking well for me. My essay comes out in two months, and I have every expectation of getting into the Washington and Lee class. My brother is keeping the site together, and the eBook version of Mythopoeia and the Riven Shield will be a thing in the near future. Mom is worrying that the Square head and Triangle comics won't send the right message about me to future readers, but I feel it will be alright. In a lot of ways, my time here is not like other peoples. Maybe that makes me a bad reporter, except I am all you've got, so that makes me the best reporter. I'm pretty sure that's how it works.
I have been trying to get moved to the same pod my buddies went to, so far no luck. Our unit manager is more amenable than most to making changes, especially for shop workers. Technically, you can't request specific cells, if they move you it is supposed to be a swap to whatever spot happens to be open somewhere else at the time. It is one of the few instances where the reality diverging from policy comes out in our favor. Our guy is allegedly leaving the prison soon, so I may not have long to secure my spot. I will be comfortable either way, my current lodgings aren't bad. It was nice having friends for a while, there was no reason to expect it to last. At least their wierd blood fued with Mao has cooled.
Sooner or later, everyone starts playing quidditch.
If you got that reference, thank you.
The song has changed. This is Me, by Draft King. That's another flavor of crazy for you, and a much pleasanter one than the previously mentioned.
Yours,
William Myrl
I am sitting in the pod, ten o'clock at night, listening to LGFUAD on repeat. Its one of those songs that doesn't dull until it does, and then I can put the volume up one more notch and it feels fresh again. I had cheese and biscuits for breakfast, so I saved the cheese. Lunch was a pepperoni sandwich, not terribly enticing, so I saved the meat. Before they let us out after nine o'clock count I cooked a ramen noodle and a half with a handful of saltine crackers in an old chip bag. If you use just enough water and put pressure on it to sit for a while it becomes something the locals call a brick. I cooked the pepperoni and cheese with some crumbled crackers in the microwave, then I put them in a bowl with the squished out brick. Coincidentally, I had some of the commissary pizza a sauce at hand to complete the dish. It looked sort of like a pizza pie (a literal pizza pie, not a regular pizza) and I know you must tire of me talking about my inmate cookery but it is interesting to me. I was quite pleased with myself. Including a Pepsi the meal would be about a dollar fifty, a third of a days wage. Living large.
Back to the music. Mania is difficult to describe. Whenever the med kids ask me about it I get vague and flounder. Music makes it easier, because that is what mania feels like, I think. LGFUAD, by Motion City Soundtrack (I've never listened to another song of theirs all the way through) and I Can't Decide, by the Scissor Sisters,(another band I don't actually listen to) are both fantastic. The entire debut album of The Protomen will also do just fine.
Life is looking well for me. My essay comes out in two months, and I have every expectation of getting into the Washington and Lee class. My brother is keeping the site together, and the eBook version of Mythopoeia and the Riven Shield will be a thing in the near future. Mom is worrying that the Square head and Triangle comics won't send the right message about me to future readers, but I feel it will be alright. In a lot of ways, my time here is not like other peoples. Maybe that makes me a bad reporter, except I am all you've got, so that makes me the best reporter. I'm pretty sure that's how it works.
I have been trying to get moved to the same pod my buddies went to, so far no luck. Our unit manager is more amenable than most to making changes, especially for shop workers. Technically, you can't request specific cells, if they move you it is supposed to be a swap to whatever spot happens to be open somewhere else at the time. It is one of the few instances where the reality diverging from policy comes out in our favor. Our guy is allegedly leaving the prison soon, so I may not have long to secure my spot. I will be comfortable either way, my current lodgings aren't bad. It was nice having friends for a while, there was no reason to expect it to last. At least their wierd blood fued with Mao has cooled.
Sooner or later, everyone starts playing quidditch.
If you got that reference, thank you.
The song has changed. This is Me, by Draft King. That's another flavor of crazy for you, and a much pleasanter one than the previously mentioned.
Yours,
William Myrl
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