Hi Kelly,
YAY! Great couch! I got your blogs tonight and while it sucks giant donkey dick that you lost our on the Craigslist deal, you now have an almost perfect, super cozy, expensive ass, surrogate date to share your Saturday nights with unitl you find the next object of your affections... And I'm glad you found that couch story onilne. :-)
I was thinking about those perfect pieces of clothing that we find and then wear out and lament over their lost perfection when we are forced to replace them... perhaps like your Flex hoarding, you might consider buying a second favorite coat or pants or perfect little black dress and matching perfect shoes. How can you walk in those things?! I thought about when I get out, I'll do the month-long search for the perfect jeans and buy up 3 or 5 pairs to last me a while. I would even go so far as to buy one a size smaller and one a size larger so I always have them available. I don't wear jeans very often so when I do I'd like them to be just right. I'd spend a lot of time looking for a perfect pinstripe suit and a perfect leather coat.
I see all of your neuroses make NYC perfect for you to live and feel free to be yourself. Being surrounded by peope who are left of center creates an atmosphere of self-expression.
It's been raining all day. This doesn't happen very often. Indiana is famous for its ever-changing weather. Even on rainy days it passes, but not today. It makes me want to be under the covers even more than the usual. I had some energy yesterday, enough to stay a wake and create a drawing for a benefit auction in NYC promoting awareness and raising $ for prison issues, particularly opposing isolation units. I was asked to creat a piece after the curator saw my drawing in a zine I write for--Tenacious. The auction is the first week of Dec. I'm hoping to get a link to an online posting of the event.
Now that we've collected the hands, I have to start working on the exhibit and documentation. After that, I'm considering designing a t-shirt to get a few dozen made to sell online--that idea is still in development.
I have several hands that were sent to me here that I need to send to Mom, and then I"m going to see if she will go buy a new color ink cartridge and a ream of paper and print them all out for me. Then again, maybe it would be cheaper to have Kinkos print them out. We will see. I'm excited. One guy wrote me tonight from Belgium and said that he did a painting and then contacted the prison to see if I would be able to receive it. They said no, so he sent it to the PO box for Mom. I've been proud of her for keeping up with things. She doesn't like technology.
Oh man, check this raunchy shit out: yYou know that the whole premise for me being kept in solitary is that I"m a "threat to the safety and security of the faculty" right? When when I first started asking why I was being help longer than others, it was because I escaped and was an escape risk for their faculty, which was going through changes. THen, as one year metled into almost two years, and all the other escape risks were out and about, their reason for keeping me was because I "manipulated an officer into helping me out" and tha tI was a manipulator and their staff was not ready for me to be released. As if I put a gun to Spliter's head and made him fuck me... Anyway, this faculty has been losing male officers recently---3 officers in the past 3 months have been fired for misconduct with prisoners. The two women that were most recently involved were both getting fucked by the officer, and he was sending one woman money and trafficking pills for the othe rone, yet strangely, they are not being punished and held in the SHU for beinga threat to safety because of their "manipulation" of officers. In fact, none of the women involved were labelled threats, whiel I agree that they shouldn't be, beacue there's such a huge imbalance of power between an offers and prisoner that sex is almost always an exploitation of that power. The whole point is that these four/ five women are treated as victims and I'm treated as a threat. They chose food, money and pills... I chose a ride out the back door. The actionms are all the same. So now, there is absolutely no valid excuse for them to keep me in SHU. They are unfuckingbelievable.
And you think the Universe hates you.
I have become semi-addicted to butterscotch candy. It must be the season. It's rich flavor reminds me of Thanksgiving. Toffee is my favorite flavor for morning coffee in the fall. And pumpkin spice. YUM. I think it woudl be fun to spend the weekend making holiday candy with friends. Peanut brittle, toffee, turtles, cinnamon discs, chocolate covered pretzels, yogurt raisins... and then make little gift boxes to give out to neighbors, friends, co-workers, homeless people. Take some to a food pantry. Brighten people's day a bit. Have you don't any of those cooking classes lately?
Why do women outnumber men so drastically in NYC?
Oh, and I was thinking about Amir's problem with monogamy. In Islamic countries where Sharia law is used as a foundation for its public laws, polygamy is legal. So it is literally in his blood to be a polygamist and collect women. You're fighting thousands of years of genetic programming to spread his seed around and thousands of years of social programming to treat women as commodities.
Ok, I'm pooped.
It's still raining.
Guess it doesn't matter since I can't go outside anyway.
Day 1048 in SHU sucks.
Take care, Sarah
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Letters from the Inside, Sarah Pender, #76
Kelly,
I think the search for the perfect couch was on This American Life. I bet you could go to their website and keyword search for the episode and its follow-up. The show is produced by WBEZ in Chicago with Ira Glass as its host.
Amir just wants to be loved. He needs a whole lot of love and by having multiple partners, he hedges his bets so he'll never be alone. It's in his Persian blood---generations of men with five wives. If he moved to Utah and became a polygamist Mormon, he could have 20 or 30 wives openly.
I'm not sure why the commissioner got fired, but I think it had to do with how he handled several riots/violent incidents in that state system. I finally got the first set of questions answered (25 pages of answers) and 175 pages of supporting documents sent out. I doubt that it will go to trial. The evidence is pretty clear that they are violating my rights and making me mentally ill. I have been struggling with another bout of depression this past 6 weeks, and it only gets worse. I lay in bed for hours, sometimes 14-16 hours a day and can't get out. When I do, I easily tire and get right back in. I have no motivation to do the things that I want or need to do. I hate it. I hate it. I feel like a bum. I've only been up for three hours and I'm nearly propping open my eyelids with toothpicks just to write this. I crawled into bed yesterday at 4:30 and didn't get up until 10:30 am today. What's worse is that I only sleep 1/2 the time. The rest I spend daydreaming about my future free life. The sad part is that I have to get out of bed to get things done in order to go home, yet I'm glued to the bed dreaming of home.
Are all of your clothes black, white and red? What if you change your last name so when people Google you that old stuff wouldn't show up? Your employer would know, but wouldn't have to divulge it to customers. Or are you so well known that it would be useless to change your name.
Maybe you should move to Los Angeles.
The UN Reporto n Torture and Abuse said that all members of the UN should stop the use of solitary confinement or at least severely limit its use to 15 days or less because of the long-lasting mental effects. Great! i'll be in therapy until I'm 50. These people are clueless about what it is like to be locked in a room for months without end. They must be. How can you do this to another human being?
I vote you sell the video to TruTV. People should be responsible for their actions in public. She has the right to feel and think whatever she wants about other people, but by openly saying these racist comments to someone on a bus and treating her tenants badly because of their color, she only gets away with it because she has no consequences. If she loses her job and is humiliated, she did it to herself. You aren't doctoring her words or reporting them out of context. she needs to be responsible for being hateful. Selling it to TruTV is doing the world a favor. Racism persists when we cover it up and let it keep happening.
I like reading your blogs.
My flower story is too long to rewrite by hand, but if it wins and gets published, I'll get an extra copy to you. I'm tired. Back under the covers I go...
Sarah
I think the search for the perfect couch was on This American Life. I bet you could go to their website and keyword search for the episode and its follow-up. The show is produced by WBEZ in Chicago with Ira Glass as its host.
Amir just wants to be loved. He needs a whole lot of love and by having multiple partners, he hedges his bets so he'll never be alone. It's in his Persian blood---generations of men with five wives. If he moved to Utah and became a polygamist Mormon, he could have 20 or 30 wives openly.
I'm not sure why the commissioner got fired, but I think it had to do with how he handled several riots/violent incidents in that state system. I finally got the first set of questions answered (25 pages of answers) and 175 pages of supporting documents sent out. I doubt that it will go to trial. The evidence is pretty clear that they are violating my rights and making me mentally ill. I have been struggling with another bout of depression this past 6 weeks, and it only gets worse. I lay in bed for hours, sometimes 14-16 hours a day and can't get out. When I do, I easily tire and get right back in. I have no motivation to do the things that I want or need to do. I hate it. I hate it. I feel like a bum. I've only been up for three hours and I'm nearly propping open my eyelids with toothpicks just to write this. I crawled into bed yesterday at 4:30 and didn't get up until 10:30 am today. What's worse is that I only sleep 1/2 the time. The rest I spend daydreaming about my future free life. The sad part is that I have to get out of bed to get things done in order to go home, yet I'm glued to the bed dreaming of home.
Are all of your clothes black, white and red? What if you change your last name so when people Google you that old stuff wouldn't show up? Your employer would know, but wouldn't have to divulge it to customers. Or are you so well known that it would be useless to change your name.
Maybe you should move to Los Angeles.
The UN Reporto n Torture and Abuse said that all members of the UN should stop the use of solitary confinement or at least severely limit its use to 15 days or less because of the long-lasting mental effects. Great! i'll be in therapy until I'm 50. These people are clueless about what it is like to be locked in a room for months without end. They must be. How can you do this to another human being?
I vote you sell the video to TruTV. People should be responsible for their actions in public. She has the right to feel and think whatever she wants about other people, but by openly saying these racist comments to someone on a bus and treating her tenants badly because of their color, she only gets away with it because she has no consequences. If she loses her job and is humiliated, she did it to herself. You aren't doctoring her words or reporting them out of context. she needs to be responsible for being hateful. Selling it to TruTV is doing the world a favor. Racism persists when we cover it up and let it keep happening.
I like reading your blogs.
My flower story is too long to rewrite by hand, but if it wins and gets published, I'll get an extra copy to you. I'm tired. Back under the covers I go...
Sarah
