By Robert Pruett  999411, aka Simple Man
 
Week 26 2006

July 2, 2006
With it being the fourth of July weekend, I'm sure there are some disgruntled vacationers down by Lake Livingston because it has been raining off and on all day. I can empathize with them. When I was a small boy, just after my dad came home from prison, we rode down to Lake Livingston to spend a few days out on the water, but it was raining cats and dogs when we arrived. Furthermore, an "incident" kept us from having the vacation we had hoped for, we had to leave the next day (See: Chapter Three of my autobiography once it's posted on my website). It was a real shame because I had my eyes set on the bridge by where we were staying; I wanted to jump off of it into the water! Swimming has always been one of my favorite things to do. I was a fish in the water. Maybe I was a fish in a past life? That might explain my predilection for the water. Either that or I'm preparing to be one in the next life! :-) I've always thought that there is enough room on either of the outside rec yards here to dig us a pool, but they totally ignore all of my I-60s (the forms we use to communicate with the powers that be) when I make such a proposal! That's a bit rude if you ask me.

They changed shifts about an hour ago. They count about 30 minutes after they arrive and I was standing at the door when they walked onto my section. A couple of "good ole boys" working tonight. The tall one kind of reminds me of this redneck I had on my jury pool during voir dire. I knew I was in trouble when I seen the ole boy pull into the courthouse parking lot on his John Deere tractor; he totally fit the bible-thumping, holier-than-thou, hang-'em-high stereotype walking into the courtroom with his grease stained overalls, straw hat, and a load of snuff in his lip. Sitting on the witness stand being questioned in order to determine if he was "death qualified" (would he be willing to give the death penalty and would he consider all options; it's a stupid formality that doesn't mean shit, these people rarely don’t know what the hell is going on with all these "important state folks" staring at them), he looked at me with scorn, already convicting me in his head before hearing the evidence. The district attorney asked him the number one question for death qualification: "Do you think you could give this man the death penalty if the evidence calls for it?" He refocused on me and glared at me for a moment, face turning red, then looked back at the district attorney and replied, "Well, I could do it, but I'd have to do it on a weekend 'cause I work all week. If it's a hangin', which I prefer, you gotta bring the rope, the one I got at the house is all shredded up."  Good retarded MFer thought they were asking if he'd kill me himself! Haha! No, I'm kidding, that didn't happen. It's just a joke, but it is exemplary of most Texan's attitude when it comes to killing people.

Anyhow, I was feeling a little silly when the guards working tonight approached my cell to do their count. "What's the chances of you boys letting me run down to Lake Livingston for a quick swim, I promise to come right back, pinky swear!" They both laughed at me and the short one with the funny mustache said, "Since you pinky sweared, I guess we can accommodate ya. One condition though - you gotta bring us a 12 pack of Bud back."
They were smiling when they walked through the crossover door into A-Section. I'm not sure if they were laughing at me or with me, probably the former.

Today is mostly about writing personal letters, but I hope to work on Chapter Three after I finish this up. We'll see how that works out. Usually when I write personal letters I have my headphones on, but I can't always do that with something formal like the autobiography or a letter to the court, etc..... But all day today I've been parked on the alternative rock station, 94.5 The Buzz, except for the quarter hour or so I turned to the horrendous Shout Out Show to catch my shout out. There's some really awesome music out right now and I can't get enough of it: "Through the Glass" by Stone Sour, "Rapture" by Hurt, "The Gift" by Seether, "Everything Changes" by Staind, and I think the name of the new Shinedown song that they're playing is "Heroes," but I could be wrong on that one. I'm impressed with a lot of these younger artists and their grasp of esotericism, even more by their ingenuity in integrating it into their lyrics, often with metaphors. And right now nobody is doing a better job of it than Shinedown! They're rapidly ascending the ladder of my favorite bands of all time, they're GODS! ! I generally channel surf because I love a variety of music, but I'm hesitant about leaving The Buzz right now for fear of missing some of this badass new music! Oh yeah, Blue October, a cool new band out of Houston, has a few sweet songs out as well. Of course, the Chili Peppers and Audioslave have great new stuff out, too, but if you're reading this and care about rock, then you know that already, no sense in being redundant!

I have to abandon all projections to when I'll have this autobiography completed. It might be a couple of months later than I initially thought (September) because I'm lucky to get two chapters a month out at the rate I've been producing. It's frustrating to me because I think I'm taking far too long for the poor quality of writing that has been flowing from my pencil. I'm not sure how long it'll take me to finish this enormous project (easily the largest I've ever embarked upon), but do know that I’m working diligently. Well, I periodically take breaks to ask the guards stupid questions! :-)

I'm a really boring dude right now, all I do is write and listen to music. I haven't been going to rec much either, which isn't conducive to my physical or mental well-being, so I need to get off my lazy ass and start going more often. I do have plans for that, but we'll see how that works out. ... There isn't much else to report, so I'll send this out and get back to work. Before I go though, I'd like to leave you with an excerpt from my bible, aka The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, "...every failure to cope with a life situation must be laid, in the end, to a restriction of consciousness. Wars and temper tantrums are the makeshifts of ignorance; regrets are illuminations come too late" (121).


One Day at a Time,
Simple Man