Letters from the Inside, Sarah Pender, #20

Dear Kelly,

Great story, Absinthe- many years ago I read an article in my science magazine about what Absinthe used to be and what it is now (the lighter version). I thought my ex-boyfriend would have loved it. Reading your story CRACKED me up--especially the taxi-cab cigarette incident. Perfect!

A good bathroom stall fucking. Haha. That's what a lot of prison sex is. I shall liken it to Absinthe in my mind next time I'm in population and I hear soft moans coming from the stall next to me.

Still, nothing beats a drunken cigarette incident.

I'm excited to hear how your Christmas and New Year's vacaction goes. I bet the Tokyo fireworks will be fantastic!!! You enjoy such a wonderful adventures in your life.

You travel, enjoy creating food, stories, oral and written have a job you enjoy, live where you want to live, have perfect body, great friends, and yet still, you are depressed often. It shows that no matter your circumstance, good or bad, happiness doesn't depend on that.

What do you think you are missing?

Are you swapping your apt or Stef's?

What was the thrift store item? What were your six words? I'm curious.

So, you haven't dumped NoteGuy for his miming or mannequin wrists?
:)

So, now that you have gone further in the process of Teaching Fellow will you follow through with it? And get your Master in Edu? Or will you go through it all just to experience the process?

You are so talented.

Oh. Well, in news here--we've moved the entire institution. Saturday morning I was fed potatoes and grits followed by a not so friendly strip search , then greeted by a dozen black clad officers, some in bulletproof vests, helmet w/ shield and headsets (what exactly did they think we were going to do?) Who chained us up, put us on a bus designed to transport prisoners. An hour wait and 20 minute police escorted ride later, we arrive. Greeted by dozens of officers, some familar, and other 1WP staff, we are locked in our new rooms. Cold. Bright lights. Hard angles. Unfriendly. Chaos. Confusion. We get fed bologna lunch, dinner, followed by pizza. The Superintendant's gesture for rough day.

Sunday was full of craziness. Lights blaring at 5am. Can't shut off. Guard says it's punishment so we won't come back. One woman, infuriated, demands it off, then rips up her pillow and mattress, stuffs it in her toilet, floods her room and the hall. They put her in a padded room, then strip her room to bare concrete and leave her in there to freeze. (It's 67 in here. Feels like 55.)

Then we got fed more bologna. Some genius takes away everyone's toilet paper. Why? Because we might flood our rooms as well. yet they leave our blankets, clothes, and a dozen other more appropriate things to use to clog a toilet. Duh. More bologna. I get threatened w/ a write up for using sign language to communicate across the hall. More pizza. (2nd day of lockdown). The shower experience was simply weird. We get locked in a cage, with nowhere to put our clothes/towel inside the cage. The shower heads are positioned at 3' and 5' high. WTF? Press the button. Squat for 10 seconds it flows. Stand. Lather. Squat. Press. Rinse. Stand. Etc. The lower nozzle only served to spray my kneecaps. The top nozzle watered my armpits. I manage to get my towel, only to accidently drench myself. When I got out, I tell the guard, "I feel like i've taken a hallucingen, become the protagonist in Gulliver's Travels and I'm in the Land of the Lilliput." She loosk at me weird. I say, "These showers are built for 8-year olds." She answers, "This was a juvenile facility." I say, "Yes, but I haven't been that short since I was like ten. Are all the showers like this? (There were three other cages.) She says, "No but this is the one that the juveniles liked the best."

She put me in the handicapped shower.

Things are better today. Still, I feel like I might have a meltdown. Keep you posted.

Happy Turkey Day!

Sarah