It's national avocado day? How is that not at least once per week for three months of the year? I am confident I have reviewed everything connected to this case I believe offers the legal analysis and authority to bring me home. I speak with my attorney tomorrow and, unless I am mistaken, can see the road to hugging my kids before the holidays. I have read and re-read the case, and every time I do I struggle to keep focus as the wisdom and law in the case spark so many thoughts about the trials I experienced. Now if we can just find an honest judge...? Then the Phoenix will rise from the ashes. My mind continues to try to make sense of this whole prison experience. One of the inmates who collars in the vent to other inmates was saying there is an inmate on a different range who is upset that Jeepers creepers has taken an interest in one of the guys across from me. There are rumors of a lot of tough talk of speculation of the other guy "snaking" (sucker punch) the guy on the same unit as me, if he can find the opportunity. Allegedly, the inmate on the other unit jerks off on the window on his cell door for Jeepers when she comes around. She supposedly always comes by with the medication cart and is loud enough to signal to the inmate who then stands on his chair so he can get himself in front of the window. Then she will stand there and give him a chance to do his thing. Well, she used to until she took an interest in the new guy across from me. Another inmate claims to have walked passed the exact same situation between Jeepers and a different inmate about three years ago. I am not inclined to believe it because these guys love to lie and exaggerate, although I have witnessed her own strained interest so it does invite the possibility. I suppose, to over-simplify my impressions of prison; there are literal jerk offs inside the cells, the figurative jerk offs outside the cells, and the whole thing should be called the penile system instead of penal system. The window peeking weirdos excel at their job for "the security of the institution." WSPF should stand for Window Stalking Pervert Facility. Most staff are okay and exhibit appropriate levels of displeasure for having to be at work. Whether its the people who don't enjoy their job, or the ones who do for the wrong reasons, or the inmates whose familiarities and hopes are maintained as complete disenfranchisement to societal ideals, none of this is a positive social interaction or experience. The prison has this garden club program where a group of women have inmates plant some vegetables in plastic bins. The inmates do not talk about growing food or the lessons they are supposed to be imprinted with by the experience. They talk about which woman's ass looks the best. And they argue about it for hours. Not once have I heard an inmate expound on how watching a bean plant grow was going to stop him from doing drugs or being violent upon release. Actually, the closer they get to release, the more they talk about drug use and being violent. To punish is to cause to suffer or inflict penalty. I don't see punishment as being temporarily proximate enough to be relevant and theorize punishment should be abandoned as a primary interest in the justice system. Not altogether absent, but if/when it is used, it needs to serve a greater purpose. Rehabilitation and rehabituation are great theories but, although old dogs learn new tricks, they don't unlearn the old tricks, and new tricks come much slower with old age. I comtemplate a lot about how health and safety should be the highest priority with productivity being the next. If these people are ever to function in society again, then they should at least be able to function. And if they are never going back to society, to what victory is it for them to be deprived of a version of life that has happiness safely apart from the freedoms of the rest of the peaceful society? In a manner that enables them to provide for themselves and, perhaps, family they are now separated from? Two wrongs don't make right. Make right. We need a people system and not a peeple system? I am going to have to come up with a slogan to help inspire reformation. Education and occupation. Learn and work. Needs more of those elements. More of those ingredients make better people cookies. And who doesn't love cookies?

​Oh, also my back "let go" this morning too. I would be chasing my kids out of bed early to make most of the day if I was home. Maybe get to the beach by the golden hour of perfect light. It is warm enough for that to be a great start to a day.

It is hard to write about dreams when sleep is so constantly interrupted as to only get fragments of dreams. I feel like I have been avoiding writing about any dreams in frustrated protest, perhaps. Last night I did dream a bit. In one fragment, I helped my brother finish painting an apartment that was very spacious and expensive. In another, my grandfather wanted to borrow a pair of socks but the door bell rang and it was a woman presenting her phone with a video of two kids fighting when one kid twisted the others ear lobe. The woman was upset that one of the kids was disciplined by another parent by spanking. Then more kids ran up and pushed her son and the group started fighting each other to which I just closed the door. When I turned around, my grandfather had squeezed himself into a police officer's uniform that was way too tight. I laughed at him as he walked away to go change back into normal clothes. He said something about me pretending to be a gangster to deal with the other kids fighting. I replied that it makes him an "OG" (original gangster) which he laughed at. There was also a fragment about repositioning a stereo and its speakers which was also interrupted by the blast of a flashlight. 

Summer breeze makes me feel fine blowing through the jasmine in my mind. 

Jeepers creepers is back after being on vacation. I prefer days she works because she pays me no attention. She "checks in" with the guys down toward the end of the unit, telling them about her fifteen hour drive to the North Dakota state fair. When she walks away they make fun of her for "wanting this dick." Then, in the afternoon, she passes up the inmate in cell [redacted] who has a large envelope blocking the lower half of his window to stop at cell [redacted] and rap on his door about having a catalogue blocking the lower portion of his. That's the inmate she is always trying to look at. Then the guys make fun of her for trying to steal him away from his girl, who he is on the phone with as much as the system will allow. It feels weird to be collected for someone's satisfaction. Like they would be please to pin us all steady in a shadow box on the wall, that we would just be still of their own curiosity or perverted fantasy. Leave the butterflies alone!

The inmate in [redacted] got a disciplinary ticket today. The Pluto TV service only works well in the early morning hours, so inmates are being habituated to sleep during the day because the service doesn't work during normal "prime time" hours. The ticket was for failing to stand for count when he was sleeping. I asked him if Jeepers creepers issued the ticket but he says it was a different guard. He says Jeepers is "on this dick" always trying to look at him while he is laying in his cell. So, he is perfectly aware of her behavior. He also says that she makes sure she is the guard doing pat-down searches when he leaves the housing unit for school, and that when she does, she makes sure to make contact with his junk when she does. He says he got used to it because another guard treated him that way during a previous incarceration and the there isn't anything he can do if she wants to go home and play with herself about it. I don't believe working for the government should enable sex predators, no matter how flattering the attention may be. The inmate has a positive attitude about it so the question stands; no harm, no foul? The creepiest part is that the guy is always on the phone and Jeepers has persuaded different sergeants to rotate her into the control cage where she supposedly listens in on guys with the intercom system. Usually inmates have a fan running so we don't hear the subtle click of the intercom activating but it took property weeks to bring the inmate his fan. With the calls blocked for twenty minutes in between, and no fan, her eavesdropping was found out. I was labeled a stalker and confined to a concrete box just to watch a stalker prey upon a man locked in a concrete box. Is that irony? Behind ironic bars?

I continue to spend all the time that my tired eyes can handle wandering through cases on the law library app. I haven't been keeping up with letters people are sending me and I hope my friends can forgive me. The really cheap headphones with microphone that was provided with the state issued tablet already broke. I was being super careful too. The sergeant said a new pair will cost $2.20 should be here by next Friday. No. These things are such garbage. I need to do without until I can order a decent pair from a catalogue. Back to not having a phone. The sergeant even commented how they just delivered a heaping cart of headphones because they break so easily. What a scam, to sell inmates junk so they have to pay for replacements regularly. And the ocean is full of plastic? All the plastic spoons and garbage headphones end up somewhere.

I just cannot get enough of the legal access. Today, they call for "no movement" so I will be denied the opportunity to explore the discovery material. Not being able not answer questions keeps my mind stuck in a loop while I pace for hours in my cell. I will even read the law library on the tablet while I pace back and forth. I don't know the correct legal jargon but I find something today that has me electric inside. The whole trial was such a bunch of fiction. I have struggled to really ask the right questions or use the correct words. The two issues I presented to my attorney yesterday just wouldn't get out of my had. Today I found some cases that address one of the issues and it is well explained. I just figured something out. Not just the common sense part but the legal theory that deals with the issue.

Never enough sleep. I get up and continue my law library grind. When Natalie gets here we get right to going over all sorts of stuff. When we get some of the oddball distractions out of the way we go over the monumental work she has so far completed in my post conviction motion, which occupies most of the day until 3pm with about an hour break for me to go to my cell for lunch. Both of us were burnt out on the post conviction review and she was good to field a few questions or make a few notes to research some answers for me. She was really good at navigating documents and evidence and she really knows the trial and the case well. It was impressive how well she could recall details. Today I am reassured and extremely confident in her and so grateful for all the help to hire her. 

I continue to be astounded at the excitement some of these inmates to demonstrate for each others use of the phrase "booty cheeks." They get exceptionally loud about conversation involving ass comments. They are so loud it is hard to hear the tablet phone calls I now have access to. Now that I have some better access to call people I am not sweating profusely in anxiety to speak to people. The guys keep asking me to get a tv subscription for the tablet but I am not writing or doing much else but reading and looking up cases with the law library app access.

I was staring at the tater tot casserole we have for dinner and thinking I would make something like this for my kids. I continue to fail at breaking four hours of sleep and the spongy fog that encumbers the back of my head to the back of my eyes I would not be surprised to learn is a brain tumor. My pulses of energy fade quickly and I fear it will never get better. Forever poisoned. People suppose I am strong but I am all but defeated and just try to keep my hearts compass pointed at my kids. True North. I did hear that a few more shows have come out about the trial or the case. I understand people fail to imagine the truth about anything they may feel looks bad about me. Eventually I expect to speak for myself and I shouldn't be persecuted for anyones lack of imagination. The prosecution was eager to feed information out of context and completely inaccurate to satisfy eager fantasies but missing important pieces makes quite a lot of difference. Think about the "L" the next time you Halve your cake and eat it "instead of 'have your cake and eat it.'" It would be bad enough if they just added an L, but the S and H prove it wasn't a simple mistake. How do you disprove false facts?

I had the opportunity to look at the discovery material briefly this morning. An hour is all they allow and the computer took almost forty minutes to load a cell phone extraction. I got to view some pictures I had taken of my kids and I don't know how to sort my feelings about how they do not look the same and I still dream about them as they were four years ago. Yes, I cried, and heavy when I got back to the "privacy" of my cell. 

The state-issued tablet has a slow and awkward version of law library access which I have been using to read about cases with hopes of finding the best verbiage to express my own arguments. It annoys me that they call assertions facts and even call obvious non-truths "false facts." It is such a liars game where even blatant lies must be referred to as fact? Everything I stumble through reassures me greatly, as long as I get an honest judge. Against my skepticism I remain optimistic. My head obsesses about them taking from me something they cannot replace for their convenience and gratification. Oaths do not assure honesty and the system should require more to be called justice. 

6:00am until 12:00 noon, I am taken to Gundersen Health in La Crosse and do a preliminary interview with Paula. I was really hoping for any sort of treatment but alas no. Still not. When we were done the two guards that drove me made me sit in a room while each took turns going to eat and make phone calls until I got upset about being forced to sit in shackles while they sponged extra time to steal a larger paycheck. Not enough staff? No. Staff just don't have to do anything so they can always claim to need more people. The trip should have taken less than four hours total, including the interview. DOC deserves budget and staff reduction. Taxpayers are getting robbed.