8 May 07

Odds & Ends

As temperatures stretch into the nineties, speculation continues to mount as to whether the transsexual with the breast implants on Yard 2 will go topless.

Piggie (who helped clean up the blood in my cell when I moved to Yard 1) may have set a new record for the shortest length of time out of captivity. Sixteen hours after being released, he was arrested for violating parole. “I reported in to my parole officer wasted on Mickey’s Ice, and he busted me for being drunk,” Piggie said.

Frankie is looking for someone to live with in England in 2008. Any takers? His only requirement is that your home is well stocked with lube. Depending on the state of relations between Frankie’s faction of the Mexican Mafia and the rival faction that tried to kill him at the Madison Street jail, you may end up with a burro’s head in your bed.

The short-timer madness I discussed with Dr. T. is over. My attitude is now along the lines of, Bloody Hell! I’m getting out in a matter of months.

I've been doing burpies with Iron Man, a martial-arts expert and fitness powerhouse, serving a nine-and-three-quarter-year sentence for various crimes including smashing down a door to collect a debt: “I didn’t hurt anyone. I just wanted my fuckin’ money.” After working out with him, I limp home barely able to smile or utter a greeting to my amused neighbours.

To size up the short-story market, I’ve sent subscriptions in to several literary journals including The Chattahoochee Review, The Paris Review, and Zoetrope. For book reviews, I’ve sent a subscription in to the New York Review of Books. Being new to this field, I welcome advice from anyone who has had short stories published.

Royo Girl wrote that she wouldn’t be visiting for a while. It seems she has taken a lover. I don’t blame her. Maybe I should do likewise. I wonder if Kat’s available. I should have known something was up when Royo Girl said, “I’m going off British accents, and moving onto Australian ones.”

For mental sustenance, I’m reading Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo: “The saying of yea to life, and even in its weirdest and most difficult problems: the will to life rejoicing at its own infinite vitality in the sacrifice of its highest types…”

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