From Dragonfly: It Takes Two Months

I guess you could say that I'm acclimated to the prison life now. I know what I'm doing, where I'm going, who to avoid, who to talk with, most of the rules, and how to spend my time. I used to be in my room 80% of the time, but now, I am closer to 25% of the time. Living on the first floor, near the open atrium, made all the difference. I tend to hang out at one of the tables, with South, Danbury, Freckles (before she was moved), Star, Appeal, and others that happen along. We usually are working on some craft idea, making dinner, or watching one of the TV's. I wish we gossiped less, but that is the par for the course in prison. What happened to whom and when... the highlights of the day. For example, a new officer was working on our unit last night. She searched numerous lockers and made rounds, making sure her chains weren't jingling so she could catch people doing things they weren't supposed to be doing. Every time she found something "wrong," we just sat there, watched (like everyone else sitting at the tables) and then gossiped. It is not the right thing to do - as any of us could be on the other side of that gossip any day. I try to know what is going on, but I try to not judge the person getting in trouble. The rules here do not always make sense and, often, until we are caught doing something we aren't supposed to be doing, we don't even realize that we are doing something wrong!

Yesterday, was a good afternoon. I sat in the tv news/sports room and watched college football. The team from my university was playing and won big. Unfortunately, the other games we were watching due to other fans in the room, didn't fare so well. It was nice to be rooting for my team, though, and have a little normalcy for a couple hours. Star and South watched along with me. Army and Ark were there too, but they were watching other games. We had to flip back and forth a lot between the various games any of us were keeping an eye on. Too bad they don't have a screen within a screen tv and we could watch numerous games at the same time!

I also wrote a couple letters yesterday, but realized quickly that the pain in my right arm/hand, made it impossible to write as many as I had hoped. I need to just write 1-2 letters/day and know that I can't get back to everyone as timely as I want to. I hope today can be as easy a day as yesterday. There's no telling. Any moment can change a day around here. I guess it takes two months to be able to just accept that this is life for now. Every day feels like a week, every week, a month, and every month a year. In my head, I've been here 2 years, rather than 8 weeks. Still more days to do than days til I am home. One day at a time.