A Little Background
I am supposed to be doing
"fieldwork" this quarter, which consists of orientation, observation and shadowing at my practicum site. In
other words training, not actually doing. I'm required to complete 30 hours of
said training in preparation for actual doing during my practicum over the next two quarters. Practicum consists of 200 hours (10 hours per week) of
supervised counseling and related activities.
However, the jail is a busy place and there is lots to be done,
so my supervisor has assigned me three clients in addition to conducting
evaluations for Community Corrections (a program that aims to get
people working in the community instead of being incarcerated),
attending group therapy sessions, and meeting for group and individual
supervision.
I have seen my first client and conducted my first CommCorr eval
(see, you're picking up the lingo already!). Wow. I feel ill equipped to
be jumping in so fast, but more problematic is that I have already
worked 29 of my 30 fieldwork hours and we still have a month to go.
Hmmmm.
Inmates
I have learned more in the few hours that I have spent with inmates than I learned in all my classroom hours put together. It is eye-opening to experience a part of our society from which most of us are completely segregated.
I've been sitting in on a CommCorr group that my supervisor runs. These
women have traded a relatively short prison sentence for a much longer
community sentence that involves being under the thumb and strict rules of the system with the threat of prison for any infraction. Many are trying to do this for the second or third time, having been sent back from the halfway house to jail for not following the rules.They are a tough, sullen bunch who warm up only slightly in the course of our session. The purpose of the group is to teach them coping skills, but I'm not sure the presentation - including pages of dense text - is tailored to their interest or abilities.
Sometimes it is very bizarre to transition from my fancy school and house and life into this other world, where it's not the difference in trappings that is so stark, but the difference in opportunity. I wake up and go to sleep grateful every day; it is only through luck and grace that I am not on the other side of the bars.
By the way, if you're curious about what life in jail//prison is like, National Geographic has an excellent series entitled, Lockdown, that profiles many different aspects of living behind bars.
Next: Meet my colleagues!
Friday, October 28, 2011
Late and exhausted, but still going!
Dear Friends,
I miss you more than ever, having not posted last weekend. I had promised my sister that I would go with her and her friend Marjie to the mountain house on Saturday. But I had a 20-page paper due on Monday that I hadn't started as of Saturday morning, so I was torn between going and staying home to work.
Mulling it over, I realized that Fer and I were much more connected before I left NH - we used to talk every day for at least a few minutes. Since I've been in CO, we've both been over-the-top busy, rarely home at the same time, and typically working when we are. If we do finally get a minute to catch up in the kitchen, say, we're usually interrupted within a few seconds by a child or a husband or a phone call. So I decided to go. I typed all the way up and back (a challenge on some of those mountain switchbacks!) and all of Sunday morning and still had to pull a near all-nighter to finish, but it was worth it.
The Mountain House, located in the Granby Ranch development at the Sol Vista ski resort in Granby, CO, is about 20 minutes from Winter Park. My sister chose this development because it offers activities in four seasons and is family-friendly. It's quiet and peaceful and there's a spectacular view out of every room except the loft (although I discovered the desk in the loft is the perfect study spot). We hung out, took a walk, slept in front of a movie (at least this part of we did), and hung out some more. On Sunday afternoon, Fer treated us to massages. MMMmmmmmmmmm
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| We went for a walk and discovered this piece of abandoned farm machinery lurking in a field. |
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| It reminded me of some bizarre mechanical elephant. |
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| Berries brighten the path. |
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| The Fraser River, where Tina and Tony went fly fishing this summer. |
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| This building seemed to be snuggled into the bosom of the earth. |
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| We hiked up to a little gazebo. Pant, pant, puff, gasp. Wow, am I out of shape! |
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| It took a long time for the darn thing to get this big. |
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| But the views at the top were rewarding. |
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| Western beauty. |
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| The Mountain House, seen from the gazebo. |
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| The gazebo, seen later (whew!) from the Mountain House deck (the view over my cocktail). |
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| The hot tub at Devil's Thumb Ranch Resort where we luxuriated in massages on Sunday. |
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Missing You and Meeting the Inmates
Feeling Far Away
This week I'm really missing all of my friends. It's one thing to be away for a while; it's another to be gone. I miss Saturday yoga with Maddy and my favorite yogi and yoginis at The Farm. I miss walking along Rye beach with Christine, meeting Kellie for dinner in Portsmouth, stopping in for lunch with Nadine and the birds. I miss movies with Jean (C) and music with Peggy. I miss eating ice cream with Cindy (Conlin) and laughing til my sides hurt with Jean (S). I miss catching up with the Swanson team and Friday lunches in Portsmouth with Cindy (Connelly). I miss being able to drop in at the Women Supporting Women center for a circle of friendship with Claire. I never thought I'd say it, but I even miss Balmoral Board meetings. Sigh.
Heartfelt thanks to all of you who have taken time to drop me a note - your kind words help me feel less disconnected. If not before, I promise you'll hear from me next month when the quarter is over.
On the Other Hand...
So I'm living this schizophrenic existence where I'm desperately missing home and yet terrifically excited about what I'm doing here. You may not categorize the week's events this way, but I found touring the jail and observing two sessions with inmates fascinating.
Denver County Jail
To enter the jail, we show our badges to the officers in the glass booth and they open the first door of the sally port. We walk in and the door closes behind us. Then we stand inside the control area where, presumably, they are checking to make sure our faces match our badges and that we aren't carrying contraband. Once they're satisfied, they open the second door onto a long corridor. Lining either side are four or five tiny rooms just large enough for two people to sit at a small table. When we are seeing clients for individual counseling, we can meet them in one of these rooms. Past the rooms are wooden benches on which inmates sit awaiting their turn.
At the end of the hall a large metal gate opens to let us through. At the end of that hall, we show our badges to officers in a control booth. Although the sally port rooms are available for seeing clients, we may choose to see them in offices nearer where they're housed. We visited several locations, including medical (Building 4, where we file our counseling notes), the men's and women's transition units (Building 22a and 21G, respectively), and the parole offices (Building 19, where inmate files are kept). By the time we arrived at my supervisor's office in whatever other building it's in, I was thoroughly lost. It's not just that the place feels like a rabbit warren, but also that "building" has a whole new meaning here: for instance, Buildings 4, 21, and 22 are not separate buildings but Building 19 is. Go figure.
In general, the jail is what you would expect of an institution that was built in the 1950s: acres of chain link fence, metal bars, dingy hallways, and bullet-proof glass enclosures. Parts of the jail are undergoing renovation and a new building is being constructed on the site. Another new facility is located downtown. We'll get a tour of that sometime soon.
Living Arrangements
The current thinking about incarceration is that better rapport develops when officers are stationed inside cellblocks instead of being at some distant command post. As a result, you encounter what looks like an information desk staffed by deputies at the heart of each cellblock area. This central desk is on a raised platform, but is otherwise unprotected. My supervisor explained that at first the deputies were not happy with this arrangement, but since have adopted a more positive attitude because it fosters less of an "us against them" mentality.
The men (at least in the transitional unit) have their own cells; women live in dorms because there isn't enough room to give them more space. Dree explained that this living situation is very hard on them. They have zero privacy and there's a lot of infighting. Only one halfway house takes women, compared to about a dozen that take men, so prison life seems to be harder in general for women than it is for men. To add insult to injury, the women wear the stereotypical prison stripes (horizontal, no less), while men wear prison workshirts or sweatshirts.
I want to tell you about my two inmate meetings, but I must go write the five papers that are due this week. Aaaaagggghhhhh! More soon...
This week I'm really missing all of my friends. It's one thing to be away for a while; it's another to be gone. I miss Saturday yoga with Maddy and my favorite yogi and yoginis at The Farm. I miss walking along Rye beach with Christine, meeting Kellie for dinner in Portsmouth, stopping in for lunch with Nadine and the birds. I miss movies with Jean (C) and music with Peggy. I miss eating ice cream with Cindy (Conlin) and laughing til my sides hurt with Jean (S). I miss catching up with the Swanson team and Friday lunches in Portsmouth with Cindy (Connelly). I miss being able to drop in at the Women Supporting Women center for a circle of friendship with Claire. I never thought I'd say it, but I even miss Balmoral Board meetings. Sigh.
Heartfelt thanks to all of you who have taken time to drop me a note - your kind words help me feel less disconnected. If not before, I promise you'll hear from me next month when the quarter is over.
On the Other Hand...
So I'm living this schizophrenic existence where I'm desperately missing home and yet terrifically excited about what I'm doing here. You may not categorize the week's events this way, but I found touring the jail and observing two sessions with inmates fascinating.
Denver County Jail
To enter the jail, we show our badges to the officers in the glass booth and they open the first door of the sally port. We walk in and the door closes behind us. Then we stand inside the control area where, presumably, they are checking to make sure our faces match our badges and that we aren't carrying contraband. Once they're satisfied, they open the second door onto a long corridor. Lining either side are four or five tiny rooms just large enough for two people to sit at a small table. When we are seeing clients for individual counseling, we can meet them in one of these rooms. Past the rooms are wooden benches on which inmates sit awaiting their turn.
At the end of the hall a large metal gate opens to let us through. At the end of that hall, we show our badges to officers in a control booth. Although the sally port rooms are available for seeing clients, we may choose to see them in offices nearer where they're housed. We visited several locations, including medical (Building 4, where we file our counseling notes), the men's and women's transition units (Building 22a and 21G, respectively), and the parole offices (Building 19, where inmate files are kept). By the time we arrived at my supervisor's office in whatever other building it's in, I was thoroughly lost. It's not just that the place feels like a rabbit warren, but also that "building" has a whole new meaning here: for instance, Buildings 4, 21, and 22 are not separate buildings but Building 19 is. Go figure.
In general, the jail is what you would expect of an institution that was built in the 1950s: acres of chain link fence, metal bars, dingy hallways, and bullet-proof glass enclosures. Parts of the jail are undergoing renovation and a new building is being constructed on the site. Another new facility is located downtown. We'll get a tour of that sometime soon.
Living Arrangements
The current thinking about incarceration is that better rapport develops when officers are stationed inside cellblocks instead of being at some distant command post. As a result, you encounter what looks like an information desk staffed by deputies at the heart of each cellblock area. This central desk is on a raised platform, but is otherwise unprotected. My supervisor explained that at first the deputies were not happy with this arrangement, but since have adopted a more positive attitude because it fosters less of an "us against them" mentality.
The men (at least in the transitional unit) have their own cells; women live in dorms because there isn't enough room to give them more space. Dree explained that this living situation is very hard on them. They have zero privacy and there's a lot of infighting. Only one halfway house takes women, compared to about a dozen that take men, so prison life seems to be harder in general for women than it is for men. To add insult to injury, the women wear the stereotypical prison stripes (horizontal, no less), while men wear prison workshirts or sweatshirts.
I want to tell you about my two inmate meetings, but I must go write the five papers that are due this week. Aaaaagggghhhhh! More soon...
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Settling In ... Sort Of
It was a fun, stressful, busy week. Just when I think I'm in the groove and catching up a bit, I get another assignment from my California client. I'm grateful for for the work, but finding it really difficult to switch gears from my newly reacquired facility with school work to researching and writing legal web pages. Besides psychology is a lot more interesting!
Out in the World
I started the week with my Career Counseling class at the Denver Center for International Studies, a magnet school that serves grades 6-12. We each met with a student and learned a little about his/her background and career aspirations after s/he took the Strong Interest Inventory, a tool that assesses career preferences. We'll meet with our students again in a couple weeks to explain their test results and make recommendations.
My student, Yoanna, is a junior. When she graduates from high school, she'll be only the third member of her family to do so and she'll be the first to go to college. She's a good student, very bright (taking two AP classes) and has a lot of interests. I enjoyed getting to know her and hope I can provide some useful information for her. [Of course, it's not all fun and games: a formal Client Assessment paper on the student is due Nov 18.]
Counseling ... Sort Of
Then I handed in my Techniques midterm, a video of a 20-minute counseling session with a student/client from the other class section, accompanied by a self-assessment paper. The hardest part of school so far is having to watch myself on video. Horrific. What made the midterm particularly challenging is that my partner was using a scenario from a friend of hers, so there was no "snake under the water." In other words, it wasn't possible to unearth any real issue because she had only adopted the facts of the matter. We'll find out how I did when I meet with the professor and TA on Wednesday to review the video.
More Jail
Yesterday, us newbies met with the Denver County Jail (DCJ) psychology staff for our first group supervision. Normally, these semi-monthly meetings consist of a presentation by one of the professionals on a relevant topic (suicide, ethics, group therapy, substance abuse, etc.) and two case presentations by student interns. This meeting, however, was an introduction to how the psych department interacts with the the Denver Sheriff Department (DSD) staff who run the jail. We learned about administrative and reporting requirements and more details about how to dress and conduct ourselves.
The staff consists of six professionals including four experienced, doctorate-level psychologists. Of the dozen or so interns in the group, I'm the only first year master's student. There are two second year students from my DU program and the rest are doctoral students, including Dree, the TA who has been so helpful in my getting this position. Although some of the doctoral students are cliquish because they're in the same program, everyone else is very friendly and helpful. What I appreciated most was that we got straight talk about the jail politics rather than a party line whitewash. I can't imagine a richer learning environment.
Life Outside School: Does it Exist?
It's a cold rainy day here in Lafayette. The rest of the family is headed up to the mountain house today to check out the new bathroom (number three) and to play in the snow. I'm staying here to write four legal web pages and complete my reading for the week (yeah, right). So I guess the answer to my question above is "not at the moment."
However, next weekend we're all spending Friday-Sunday in the mountains to celebrate my birthday. Although the prospect of another birthday is never pleasant, what a wonderful way to spend it!
I have many emails from you in my inbox and I promise I will answer them in the near future. Meanwhile, know that I very much appreciate your news and kind wishes. <3 <3 <3 Until soon...
Out in the World
I started the week with my Career Counseling class at the Denver Center for International Studies, a magnet school that serves grades 6-12. We each met with a student and learned a little about his/her background and career aspirations after s/he took the Strong Interest Inventory, a tool that assesses career preferences. We'll meet with our students again in a couple weeks to explain their test results and make recommendations.
My student, Yoanna, is a junior. When she graduates from high school, she'll be only the third member of her family to do so and she'll be the first to go to college. She's a good student, very bright (taking two AP classes) and has a lot of interests. I enjoyed getting to know her and hope I can provide some useful information for her. [Of course, it's not all fun and games: a formal Client Assessment paper on the student is due Nov 18.]
Counseling ... Sort Of
Then I handed in my Techniques midterm, a video of a 20-minute counseling session with a student/client from the other class section, accompanied by a self-assessment paper. The hardest part of school so far is having to watch myself on video. Horrific. What made the midterm particularly challenging is that my partner was using a scenario from a friend of hers, so there was no "snake under the water." In other words, it wasn't possible to unearth any real issue because she had only adopted the facts of the matter. We'll find out how I did when I meet with the professor and TA on Wednesday to review the video.
More Jail
Yesterday, us newbies met with the Denver County Jail (DCJ) psychology staff for our first group supervision. Normally, these semi-monthly meetings consist of a presentation by one of the professionals on a relevant topic (suicide, ethics, group therapy, substance abuse, etc.) and two case presentations by student interns. This meeting, however, was an introduction to how the psych department interacts with the the Denver Sheriff Department (DSD) staff who run the jail. We learned about administrative and reporting requirements and more details about how to dress and conduct ourselves.
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| My worst mugshot ever. |
Life Outside School: Does it Exist?
It's a cold rainy day here in Lafayette. The rest of the family is headed up to the mountain house today to check out the new bathroom (number three) and to play in the snow. I'm staying here to write four legal web pages and complete my reading for the week (yeah, right). So I guess the answer to my question above is "not at the moment."
However, next weekend we're all spending Friday-Sunday in the mountains to celebrate my birthday. Although the prospect of another birthday is never pleasant, what a wonderful way to spend it!
I have many emails from you in my inbox and I promise I will answer them in the near future. Meanwhile, know that I very much appreciate your news and kind wishes. <3 <3 <3 Until soon...
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Training for Jail
On Friday I attended four hours of Civilian Training at the Denver Sheriff Department Academy. Ahead of time Dree said, "Don't let it scare you; it's designed to do that. And just look away when the guy blows his head off." So I arrived at the Academy at once curious and trepidatious.
The Cons' Con
The first half of the training focused on teaching us how to avoid being conned by inmates. Our instructor, Deputy Burroughs, reminded us that inmates have nothing to do all day except scheme. They are astute observers and will explore every means possible to get the upper hand. They will try everything from asking to borrow a pen to charming us into giving them special favors to brushing against us as they walk by. We need to firm and clear with the word "no."
We learned how to dress (no open-toed shoes, no heels, no skirts, conservative necklines, no flashy jewelry or scarves with which we could be choked), not to let an inmate pass behind us and to always sit next to the door. We learned to pay attention to our surroundings at all times, to be careful of what we say that could be overheard, and to always maintain a safe distance between ourselves and the inmates.
Encounters with Contraband
The second half of the training consisted of Deputy Yamaguchi explaining about contraband. Due to recent cutbacks, there are about 70 prisoners for every officer, way too many for the jail to be thoroughly policed. Consequently, contraband is found all the time. Contraband is anything that prisoners aren't issued or allowed to buy, which is pretty much ... well, anything. The rule is, if you bring it in with you, take it out with you.
Drugs
The most popular contraband is repurposed prescription drugs, especially the anti-psychotics that are distributed twice a day to inmates. Inmates swallow them, regurgitate them, dry them out, stockpile them, and use them for currency. (The nationwide closing of mental hospitals has turned jails and prisons into unstaffed mental wards - see PBS Frontline The New Asylums).
In jail, there's a lot of marijuana, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and meth, with the latter two being the most popular in Colorado. Prisoners are ingenious in the ways they hide their stash. We saw pictures of various caches, including flip-flops soles, hollowed out soap bars in cleverly resealed boxes (toothpaste, apparently, is an effective adhesive), and a bag of marijuana fashioned into a penis and sewed into boxer shorts.
Weapons
After drugs, the most prevalent contraband is weapons. There are guns, knives and shanks - objects with pointed ends designed to maim or kill. Shanks can be and are made from just about anything, from pens, to deodorant twist-up mechanisms, to newspaper. One clever inmate removed the tongue plate from a door jamb, made a duplicate from the shiny side of a potato chip bag, replaced it, and then sharpened the metal plate into a nasty weapon (they sharpen objects by scraping them on the concrete floors of their cells).
One enterprising inmate used newspaper and water to create paper mache armor and a lethal spear.
Another item that inmates manufacture is handcuff keys. Apparently these are very simple to create from almost anything - a small piece of chainlink fence, a paper clip, a metal envelope clasp. Hence, handcuffs are no guarantee of safety.
The Cost of Contraband
Contraband is brought in by arrestees, inmate work crews, the U.S. mail, corrupt staff, and civilians. We heard stories of official visitors - counselors, lawyers, a priest - who'd lost their livelihoods because they brought in contraband for inmates. One lawyer fell for an inmate's romantic con and ended up being debarred for bringing him in a phone.
The deputy told us the story of a fellow who was arrested in Denver and brought to the city jail. He was detained overnight, brought to court the next morning for arraignment and then transported to the county facility. We watched a video from the closed circuit TV of what transpired next.
Although it wasn't quite "blowing his head off" (thankfully!) seeing a man kill himself was pretty disturbing. And this was after viewing photos of a guy lying in the street with his intestines on the outside of his body after his mobile meth lab exploded and of several inmates hacked up and sliced open by contraband knives, shanks and razors. It was not a morning for the squeamish.
Am I Crazy?
I know that's what my sister wanted to ask me after I recounted some of this. I had asked myself that question on the way home. My conclusion: no, I don't think so. The training was designed to scare us into putting safety above all else and not becoming complacent in a room full of potentially dangerous people. But we won't be counseling people in handcuffs and leg irons. All counseling is voluntary, so these will be people on their way to halfway houses or trying to earn early release or actually wanting to make sense of their lives.
My interest in the incarcerated began many years ago when I read Jack Henry Abbott's account of his life in prison. In the Belly of the Beast contains Abbott's letters to Norman Mailer, who ended up championing for Abbott's release. (This backfired on Mailer when Abbott fatally stabbed a waiter after he was released.) What intrigued me about Abbott was his distorted values and complete desensitization to violence - he describes the pleasure of feeling the waiter's warm blood on his hand. His is a world apart from ours, but it is part of the real world.
I've likened this whole experience to an internet date: looks good on screen, but you won't know until you meet whether there's any future together. I suspect I'll find out quickly whether this is for me or not. We'll see what happens when the rubber meets the road. More soon...
The Cons' Con
The first half of the training focused on teaching us how to avoid being conned by inmates. Our instructor, Deputy Burroughs, reminded us that inmates have nothing to do all day except scheme. They are astute observers and will explore every means possible to get the upper hand. They will try everything from asking to borrow a pen to charming us into giving them special favors to brushing against us as they walk by. We need to firm and clear with the word "no."
We learned how to dress (no open-toed shoes, no heels, no skirts, conservative necklines, no flashy jewelry or scarves with which we could be choked), not to let an inmate pass behind us and to always sit next to the door. We learned to pay attention to our surroundings at all times, to be careful of what we say that could be overheard, and to always maintain a safe distance between ourselves and the inmates.
Encounters with Contraband
The second half of the training consisted of Deputy Yamaguchi explaining about contraband. Due to recent cutbacks, there are about 70 prisoners for every officer, way too many for the jail to be thoroughly policed. Consequently, contraband is found all the time. Contraband is anything that prisoners aren't issued or allowed to buy, which is pretty much ... well, anything. The rule is, if you bring it in with you, take it out with you.
Drugs
The most popular contraband is repurposed prescription drugs, especially the anti-psychotics that are distributed twice a day to inmates. Inmates swallow them, regurgitate them, dry them out, stockpile them, and use them for currency. (The nationwide closing of mental hospitals has turned jails and prisons into unstaffed mental wards - see PBS Frontline The New Asylums).
In jail, there's a lot of marijuana, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and meth, with the latter two being the most popular in Colorado. Prisoners are ingenious in the ways they hide their stash. We saw pictures of various caches, including flip-flops soles, hollowed out soap bars in cleverly resealed boxes (toothpaste, apparently, is an effective adhesive), and a bag of marijuana fashioned into a penis and sewed into boxer shorts.
Weapons
After drugs, the most prevalent contraband is weapons. There are guns, knives and shanks - objects with pointed ends designed to maim or kill. Shanks can be and are made from just about anything, from pens, to deodorant twist-up mechanisms, to newspaper. One clever inmate removed the tongue plate from a door jamb, made a duplicate from the shiny side of a potato chip bag, replaced it, and then sharpened the metal plate into a nasty weapon (they sharpen objects by scraping them on the concrete floors of their cells).
One enterprising inmate used newspaper and water to create paper mache armor and a lethal spear.
Another item that inmates manufacture is handcuff keys. Apparently these are very simple to create from almost anything - a small piece of chainlink fence, a paper clip, a metal envelope clasp. Hence, handcuffs are no guarantee of safety.
The Cost of Contraband
Contraband is brought in by arrestees, inmate work crews, the U.S. mail, corrupt staff, and civilians. We heard stories of official visitors - counselors, lawyers, a priest - who'd lost their livelihoods because they brought in contraband for inmates. One lawyer fell for an inmate's romantic con and ended up being debarred for bringing him in a phone.
The deputy told us the story of a fellow who was arrested in Denver and brought to the city jail. He was detained overnight, brought to court the next morning for arraignment and then transported to the county facility. We watched a video from the closed circuit TV of what transpired next.
The arrestee and officer enter a room. The guy sits down in a chair across from the door. The officer leaves and returns with a cup of water for the arrestee, and then the officer leaves again for a minute or so. As soon as the officer leaves the room the second time, the guy reaches into his waistband, takes out a sizable revolver and fatally shoots himself in the head. We see the officer reappear and holler, "Aw shit! Nobody shook him."The lesson for new recruits was obvious: this guy could have done a lot more damage than just killing himself because several people failed to search him when they should have.
Although it wasn't quite "blowing his head off" (thankfully!) seeing a man kill himself was pretty disturbing. And this was after viewing photos of a guy lying in the street with his intestines on the outside of his body after his mobile meth lab exploded and of several inmates hacked up and sliced open by contraband knives, shanks and razors. It was not a morning for the squeamish.
Am I Crazy?
I know that's what my sister wanted to ask me after I recounted some of this. I had asked myself that question on the way home. My conclusion: no, I don't think so. The training was designed to scare us into putting safety above all else and not becoming complacent in a room full of potentially dangerous people. But we won't be counseling people in handcuffs and leg irons. All counseling is voluntary, so these will be people on their way to halfway houses or trying to earn early release or actually wanting to make sense of their lives.
My interest in the incarcerated began many years ago when I read Jack Henry Abbott's account of his life in prison. In the Belly of the Beast contains Abbott's letters to Norman Mailer, who ended up championing for Abbott's release. (This backfired on Mailer when Abbott fatally stabbed a waiter after he was released.) What intrigued me about Abbott was his distorted values and complete desensitization to violence - he describes the pleasure of feeling the waiter's warm blood on his hand. His is a world apart from ours, but it is part of the real world.
I've likened this whole experience to an internet date: looks good on screen, but you won't know until you meet whether there's any future together. I suspect I'll find out quickly whether this is for me or not. We'll see what happens when the rubber meets the road. More soon...
P.S. Thank you for your kind emails. I miss you all terribly and wish we could just spend an afternoon catching up. Soon, soon, I promise!
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