This, That, and the Other.

I haven't written anything about me for a while. I'm not trying to toot my own horn here because my life really isn't that fascinating anymore, but I feel compelled to keep you all in the loop.

This very moment I'm in the break room at work. I have just finished a sandwich I made before I left the house, and I am at a table listening to two people devouring their microwaved lunches. It's a catastrophe.

Human lips serve many purposes, one of which makes it possible for things to stay in your mouth like food and noises. Neither of the two employees at this table are using their lips properly, but I can't help being fascinated by the situation. It's like they're having a contest to see who can make the worst noise and they are both in first place. But I digress.

Me. So I've been either going to the gym or running for about 40 days straight.... Shit, I skipped Sunday. So I've been going to the gym or running every day since yesterday and I am seeing some results. I don't mean that I can see new muscles, I mean I can see a change in endurance and strength. On Friday I ran a 5K in 29 minutes, that's twice around Como lake. Now that's not going to get me in the Olympics, but it's pretty damn good compared to where I started (again) a month ago. Also, for the first time in my life, even at boot camp, I can bench press my body weight. Actually, I can bench about 20 over my weight, and I keep going up. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

The Quandary: I have heard a lot of comments from you folks and I am happy to keep going with it. It's quite an experience making something out of nothing. It brings me to a dark place, but I know it's fantasy and I can take myself away from it when I choose. Although each post is connected in some way, I like to think 1-10 have their own uniqueness and a story that only belongs to it. That sentence makes sense to me, how did you do with it? I’m starting to see that I’m straying away from reality a little more each time, and I think that’s forward progress.

Hey, I’m home now! What a long day at the laminating factory. I went to the gym after work and ran on the treadmill for a bit and now I have no plans for the rest of the evening so I think I’ll take Willie out for a stroll or out back for a little fetch, who knows.

I really can’t think of anything else I think you need to know about yet but I promise to let you know anything important. But for now, I will keep on writing the Quandary, and see where it goes. Peace.

The Race Card

This is a great clip. Watch it before you continue reading.

I wish I knew enough about current events to have been able to have said that myself. The truth is, I really don’t like watching the news because of days like today. After work I went to the gym and ran on the treadmill for half an hour and watched all six televisions reporting their angles on all of the shootings that have occurred over the past few days.

What can I say? It’s sickening. One of the reports was that of a woman who had been pulled over recently by the same officer who shot Philando Castile, and had a gun drawn on her after he told her to remove a small bag of marijuana from her purse. I’ve seen the Lavish Reynolds video a couple times now and I wish she had started recording sooner, because it is this very video that will probably lead to the officer’s eventual exoneration. But that is not what this post is about.

I found this comment as I scrolled down after watching the Castile video. It's proof of ignorance and racism in our country.

As a child growing up in the then small town of New Brighton, I had no clue that people could be hated based on their color. My day care provider whose house I stayed at half of the time for years was a mixed race house.  These people became as close to me as family, and I grew up with their children. To this day, it is because of Mary and Dwayne that I still cringe every time the N word is used by bigots at work, and in daily life. Prison was tough for a lot of reasons, I mean, the worst of every race of people are in there, and it is incredibly segregated. Many people told me that prison would make me a racist, but it did not. If anything I lost even more respect for white people. Not all of them of course, I don't want to generalize.

Today I overheard the boss (an avid trump supporter) picking apart the video with another employee who frequently uses racial epithets during routine conversation. He's learned quickly that I don't like to participate in those conversations, but it's hard to avoid a coworker all day. He and the boss claimed that that N-word (Castille) probably wasn't doing what the cop told him to do, that's why they all get shot. He then went on to explain why he would never be shot by a cop, and they both agreed with eachother that they were better than everybody. I'm not in a position where I can simply walk out of a job, that's grounds for a violation of the terms of my parole, but i really don't like that type of work environment. Who am I supposed to tell about my discontent of the subject matter in regards to the boss' conversation? All I can do is pray for them. 

Now, about this shooting in Dallas. The T.V. told me that the suspect was on a mission to kill white people. Shit. Well he did, and they all happened to be police officers. The reporters kept saying the shootings were well planned and carried out by a military veteran. Well, I guess if you kill enough of a certain type of citizen, that same certain type of citizen starts to fight back. I'm referring to a black male of course, there's no reason to hide it. I don't know what to think about this one. Actually, I do, I just don't want to say it because it might be a little immoral. But if you keep killing people without provocation and just cause, people will fight back with equal force. 

That's all my brain can put together today. I have not stopped writing my fictional story, in fact I already have some written, I'm just waiting for something that I think will enhance the whole experience for you people. You'll see soon enough.

A.C., Pizza, Murder, and The President

For a little under a week I had a great life. That has all changed as a significant event occurred causing irrevocable damage to my existential being. Things will never be the same unless I make a drastic change, or maybe just a phone call.

Never in my lifetime have I owned a car that had had air conditioning or power windows. Two weeks ago I bought one of those A.C. refill kits, and it actually worked! With the touch of a button I could make my car cold inside. Sadly, after six days, the refrigerant leaked out through a crack in a coolant line somewhere and when I try to refill it again it just hisses out. I even tried some fancy stop-leak stuff, and it failed. I had it all, and it slipped away.

In the grand scheme of things it's not really a big deal. First world problems are a real bummer sometimes, I would know. I hate heat, and I hate sweating, that's why I bought a gym membership- I wanted to run in A.C. But it would have been even better to finish a run and be able to drive home in a cold car. Oh well. There are more important things I could write about.


For instance, I'm sitting at a desk at work right now eating an entire Davanni's pizza. The boss ordered lunch for everybody today, and I chose a medium veggie lovers. Now, I'm also a bacon lover, so I added that. And that brings me to the Orlando incident. I'm not calling it a massacre because too many things come to mind when I think of that word. I'm not playing it down, it was a tragedy. It's pathetic to think how many actions could have been taken by our government or even the perpetrator's wife, to prevent this. It's not the first nor the last mass shooting in this country, and in many countries these things happen daily, we just don't see it on the news because let's face it, Prince, The Kardashians, and I'm sure a shiny new tooth in a rapper's mouth are more entertaining.

I could go on and on but I don't have all of the facts. I'm not entirely sure anybody does, but it seems these days things are reported before any real evidence is gathered. Every news station wants to be the first to report people getting killed, and what terrible thing our Presidential candidates have done or said. I can't stand it.

I haven't read more than a couple headlines or watched a single news-related show in years. I may not be up to date on politics, but I'm a pretty anger-free guy.

Right years ago, through some miracle, my rights had been restored and I was legally able to vote for the first time in my life. I was excited because a certain candidate really caught my attention. He focused on himself and what he could do for our country, and not what the opponent did wrong. Today, I no longer have the right to vote and I couldn't be happier.

So there are a few topics to consider. I sort of jumped all over. I'm at work and I think this is where I am least creative. I'll write something with more substance (abuse) tomorrow.

Jobs Part 9 (On the Inside)

St. Cloud Prison, as I’ve written before, is a terrible place to live. Not too shocking, I’m sure, that a prison wouldn’t be the ideal place to rest your head. Unfortunately for most people stuck there, there’s very little time spent outside of the cold steel cells. I was very fortunate to be one of the few selected to be a swamper in B house. I worked with three other guys from 2-10pm cleaning the giant concrete room that housed nearly 200 men, most of whom didn’t care much about cleanliness. Thankfully, our work rarely entailed going inside cells to clean, rather walking by with cleaning caddies and offering the supplies to the offender to clean their own space. It got me out of my cell for half of the day, and I think the best part was that I got to shower by myself most days.

I got to know some of the Corrections Officers pretty well while I was there. Nothing personal because asking questions would be taboo, but some of them had a sense of humor or at least saw the humor in things there, and we got to chat about that. It was nice for me because it seemed like I was talking to normal people even if for only a little while. It was the only place during my incarceration where a few of the C.O.’s seemed like normal people.

That all changed when I was moved to Moose Lake in preparation for Boot Camp. I would spend the next four months there as a seamster, sewing the crotch flaps together on men’s briefs. According to this Word document, seamster isn’t a word, but that’s the term we devised for ourselves as we worked nonstop under watchful eyes for 50 cents per hour.

More than a few times, a C.O. walked over to me and a co-worker to tell us we were talking too much while we were working. It wasn’t disruptive, and we were working while we were talking, but they wanted us to know that they were watching, and that they were in control. We had to fill out a production sheet every day and I was told that I needed to do 200 sets per day or I could lose my job. 200 required me to basically stare directly in front of me at my machine and go, go, go. We were given breaks, but only for standing head counts, and one for lunch. I was never eligible for a raise, but I could have made up to $1 per hour if I had stayed on, never more. Of course if I had applied to sew cases for MyPillow, I could have made minimum wage. Of course, at 50 cents, or minimum wage, the prison took their share of what we made. Thankfully, I was relocated out of that dreadful place to C.I.P. where I started out as a laundry worker, but very quickly traded that job in for one where I would have a little more quiet.

Quiet: Non-existent in every prison atmosphere. But for an hour a day at the Challenge Incarceration Program, I walked the halls of the chemical dependency treatment building where all was as still as night. There were groups meeting, and employees meandering about, but I wasn’t allowed to look at them or talk to them without permission, so I just kept my head down. I wasn’t allowed to use a vacuum, so each day I would start by sweeping the carpet on to the bare floor, then sweep all of that up, then mop. After that, I would clean the bathrooms which were only used by staff and scrubbed twice per day so they weren’t really ever that gross. And at the end of my shift, I would gather up all of the recycling and trash and take a nice slow walk to the pole barn where I would deposit it all in its place, and make the walk back to ask permission to carry on for the day. I did that for five months, and I don’t think I could have had a better job there.

That brings me to now, and I have already written about the laminating job.

Looking back over the years, and over these nine posts I see some patterns. When I’m sober, I am an honest, hard worker who tries to give every day. When I’m not, well you better lock up the expensive dinnerware, because I will absolutely take it.

And that’s it, folks.

Oh, I’ll be away from the blog for a few days while I write out my fourth step. I need to be focused and dedicated to this thing or it might not take. And for me, this is the most important thing in the world, this recovery. If I don’t give it my all, I will likely relapse, and you’ll never hear from me again. So, I’m not sure how long it’s going to be, but I think under a week. You’ll know as soon as I post again.