Day 31 - 7/23/21 - Fri

From the confined stories of the SHU to the "openness" of Camp, a new challenge emerges: my email. Why am I still being singled out?

Actual Journal Entry:

“Skipped breakfast; was awake at 2 AM and dozed back off till around 5:30 AM, then up at 6 AM. Dreamed something, but no recall. Still don’t have any email. Apparently, it is because of my charges, and I might be able to get an exemption. If that’s what it is, we’ll see next week. I have to talk to the Unit Team. Finished the first draft of The Man Who Loved to Die. I may do another draft to see how I feel about it. The story is a bit different for me—simple and stupid. But since I was inspired by the ‘Great Baro’ story in the Cuban book I read in the SHU, Dream with No Name—because the story, while simple and ridiculous, was fun to read and stuck in my head more than any other story in the book. Might take a shot at Walking Distance today. I realized I ‘stole’ the title from another SHU book that I spent a lot of time with, The Twilight Zone Companion. There was a Twilight Zone episode called ‘Walking Distance,’ but my story is nothing like that classic episode except, of course, the title. I guess I should say: inspired, not copied or stolen.

LUNCH: Fish. While it looked good (if you like fish), it was perfectly grilled. I gave the sandwich to ‘E’ and ate the rest of the tray.

SUPPER: Lasagna (very good), Roll (also good).”

Notes for Day 31 (Four Years Later)

Most of this entry was about my early incarceration writing projects: The Man Who Loved to Die and Walking Distance. I was struggling with maintaining the writing output level I achieved in the SHU. Four years later, I’m way more confident about these stories and will be sending them out soon to submit for publication, as soon as I find where they might fit. But either way, they both will be in my book of short stories.

The other thing that was developing was the mystery of the email access. Both ‘E’ and RO had already gotten their email access. I was still blocked. My case manager was working on it, or at least trying to get an answer why. In asking around, no one else in the Camp had their email blocked. Why was I still being singled out? It’s part of a bigger mystery that I am still trying to solve to this day, as while it seems like a minor thing, there were more "minor things" that had to be revealed to me, but they would eventually. More to the story…