I seem to be getting into the habit of waking up around 5AM. Today I just went with it and listened to NPR rather than fight it and try and go back to sleep. It’s better to listen to the news than to lie there and let my mind spin.

 

It’s a beautiful sunny day outside. I think this afternoon when we go to yard I may do the long form (taiji) regardless of what the other yard does or says. There really isn’t room to do it in the gym since there’s a half basketball game, 2 handball games and weight lifting going on already. But on the yard there’s space…and sunshine. *smile*

 

-break-

 

Yard was nice this afternoon, beautiful weather, but I didn’t try and do taiji. I showed poor judgement and drank a cup of water before going out and of course there isn’t a toilet on yard so I didn’t feel like doing taiji with a full bladder. *chuckle* While we were at yard the facilities equipment manager came out and started questioning why we had a basketball. Apparently a while ago someone kicked the basketball and it went into the razor wire and popped so this guy had decreed that we should not have a basketball for a month. He was being a total prick about why we had a ball and when Ness, whom I was sitting next to, tried to say it had been over a month the guy said he hadn’t authorized us to get a ball yet and it was his call if we did or not. When Ness started to say we were just doing what the COs said the guy went off on Ness that it wasn’t the CO’s call and did we want to loose the ball or another month. Ah, now there’s the dehumanizing abuse of authority that I was used to in CA. It does exist here, it’s just rarer. Eventually we quieted Ness down while some white guy went to talk to the equipment manager. Apparently he reacts differently to white inmates as opposed to black ones like Ness. Petty tyrant and racist, bad combination.

 

For lunch today we had grilled cheese sandwiches and soup. Since I didn’t have much choice but to eat the grilled cheese I tried cutting off the edges and just eating the part with “cheese.” I quoted “cheese” because whatever was in there wasn’t really cheese. It kind of tasted like some orange, melted plastic rather than cheese. So I only ate 1 and gave the other away. I have to say it was the worst meal I’ve had here yet. Most are pretty good but this was horrible. And the soup, though it tasted OK, had bolonga, ground beef and I think diced ham, basically all left-over meat from other meals.

 

Then tonight we got canteen. Woohoo! But the CO purposefully took his time handing it out so we lost our 6-7PM dayroom and just as we were getting ready to go to gym from 7-8 we got locked down. B side was at gym and there was a fight. Since we are all housing unit 1 we all get locked down. Never mind that we didn’t have a fight or that we missed our dayroom time for the evening. I was kind of disappointed because I was supposed to call home and McK and Justin were going to be there. *grrrr* In spite of our frustration we sat quietly in our cell but someone else on A side started banging their door and yelling. The higher up officers who had just brought B side back from gym came running in and asked the guy what was up. He asked why we were on lockdown to which the CO said “all you need to know is you’re on lockdown.” The inmate didn’t like his attitude and yelled “fuck you.” Luckily all the CO did was laugh at him and walk out of the unit. Whomever the idiot was that was yelling didn’t help in any way and if we’re on lockdown tomorrow still it will likely be because of him and his big mouth. *sigh*