Letters from the Inside, Sarah Pender, #79

Kelly,
I forgot to ask--How's Mini? Is he feeling better? I know how totally attached I became to the two dogs that I raised/trained over 2 years. I cried when we parted, and the thought of Barclay or Dewey being ill hurts my feelings.

Though recently, I haven't cried. Or laughed or felt real emotion. I feel flatlined. I was sure that I must be the most boring person alive, but I seem to entertain others who come in contact with me. I suspect it has more to do with my cynicism and blunt comments or admissions. I am also extremely irritable. Loud or repetitive noises grate on my nerves. Two women spend 2 hours yelling a conversation though a wall vent and made me consider the pros and cons of suicide.

"Excuse me. Excuse me!" I have a public service announcement. while I am well aware that boredom in isolation is like a grizzly bear that will devour you if you sit still too long, and that having conversations with other human being is one way to stave off the beast, it is also an effective means of annoying the shit out of your neighbors. Please be kind and learn how to sign. Thank you."

We have little windows in our doors for the guards to look in on us and we use the sign language alphabet to communicate across the hall to the few people we can see. At least the decent people do. The assholes yell.

You asked what I wear in prison. General population's uniforms are khaki shirts and pants, white shoes. During recreation or the dorm, they are permitted to wear grey sweats, white t-shirts, black shorts. In SHO we wear bright red scrub uniforms, but in our sell we can wear sweats or pajamas. We have a porter who washes our clothes for us. After our shower, we put our laundry in our mesh bag and the guard collect it to be washed and returned. They are always losing my little bootie socks the most. My ass must be really fat because it never eats my panties. I can buy underwear, bras, socks, sweats from commissary or request state-issued underwear, which are all low-quality, don't fit correctly, and either itch or come unraveled after two washes.

I can't believe that you don't know how to drive. That is so weird to me. In Indiana, teenagers dream of turning 16 1/2 so they can drive. Our public transportation system is spotty and not well-funded. Even poor people have cars; a couple of them might be on concrete blocks or have holes rusting through the floor boards but cars are essential here. But we have lots of driveways, parking lots, and open roads. When in Chicago, I took the L-train and buses everywhere. Up there, like in NY, you can do that. People have no idea how much money they spend on their driving. The money you save by not having a car, you pay in ridiculous rent. A $350 per month car payment plus $100/wk in gas, plus plates, tags, insurance, tires, oil changes, car washes, maintenance, and parking at downtown events comes out to probably $900 a month. A one-bedroom apartment in a middle-class neighborhood is only $600/month. A two-bedroom house, $850/month.

Have you accepted a full time job offer?

How are things between you and Bruno?

Lately I've been obsessively creating my future farm. A small market organic farm on 5 acres. I have all sorts of ideas, have done modest research, have visual aides and have created 5 designs so far. The on I am working on now takes up 9 sheets of paper, all drawn to a 1"-10" scale, including a greenhouse, caretaker cottage, chicken coop, barn, bed and breakfast cabin, my residence, and dozens of garden plots, from as little as 20 sq. ft. up to over 4000 sq. ft. each, an arbor, an orchard, and rain ponds to recycle grey water. I have picked out a 1000 sq. ft. sample garden, calculated how many of each plant I can grow, the seed needed, the yield per plant, germination rates, season extensions, on and on... It's sad because I sleep between 16 and 20 hours per day and can't bring myself to do the things I need to do, yet I spend most of those hours awake creating a farm. It's like I am coping with the present by completely avoiding it and living in the future. I avoid mulling over the past because it depresses me even more.

I reread the LIVE that was your friend Frank's email about his exotic vacation. It was telling my father that sometime in like 20 years, I would like to travel around and collect neat stuff and sell it in a store. It could be stuff from my travels like fair-trade embroidered jeans by Guatamalan women or something I really like from Trader Joes like all-natural personal lubricant. It could be my own hand-made gourd birdhouses or wildflower seed-embedded stationary, or local artisan wares. A Korean War Zippo lighter or fresh-baked blackberry cobbler. An Indian sari next to a hand-made quilt. I thought about calling the store Non-Sequitor, but maybe it should be called NEAT STUFF. The store where neat people shop. Anyway---I'm always dreaming.

I hope you are well.

Sarah

Letters from the Inside, Sarah Pender, #78

Swelly Kelly!

I TOLD you Bruno like you the first time that you said he had IM'd you at midnight about a movie/book. No good-looking, wealthy man does that without a tingle in his heart or his pants. The good news is that you are still hot and exotic to good looking, wealthy men. The bad news, they are liars and cheaters. What a bummer. However, the very fact that Bruno admitted while sober that he has a crazy crush on you means that you are the center of this thoughts at least an hour out of every day. That has got to feel good. A nice diversion from Amir.

You are such a lucky person Kelly. You win lots of stuff, get exactly what you need when you need it. Plus, you are a great writer who refuses to accept her genius and it's a real shame because you could be happy and successful writing if you could get over your self-criticsm. Congratulations on willing $1600!!! I can't even win on scratch-off lotto tickets.

I do realize that being depressed gives me a reason to view the darker side of life and not feel guilty about it. My usual optimism gets smothered by all of the dark clouds hanging, over my head. So I was finally able to write a good Die! for your blog. :-) So, when you don't have something to post, here's a guest blog. Hope you like it.

I've been up for a total of ninety minutes and I am already tired and want to go back to bed, despite the fact that I have slept 18 of the last 24 hours. I feel pathetic. At least I am grateful that I can sleep.

Happy Thanksgiving,
Sarah