Thursday I almost did not make it to the polygraph appointment. My sister did not open the email I sent her with a map to the new job and a photo of the place. She did not look at either. Instead, she drove up and down Kilgore Avenue. Which got her angry. I gave her grief about not looking at the email. he started screaming about how many emails she gets daily from her job, and how she hates email. She wanted to know why I didn't tell her it was across from the cemetery. Well, the front of the cemetery is close to a quarter mile. Then wanted to know why I didn't tell her about the restaurant, she called it catty-cornered to my place of employment. It is not. She slammed on her brakes in the middle of Kilgore while heading west, screaming about how this always happens when she comes to Muncie. She called me arrogant, then she drove me to Carmel. I did not speak to her the whole of the trip, per her request. I was tired, anyway. When she slammed on the brakes, she could get angry, but it wouldn't change a thing.
How did she miss my employer? She relied upon her phone and GPS.
We got there early – which turned even earlier than I had planned. I fed her at Chipotle. I am not impressed with this chain. I saw more of Carmel than my last trip. I do think I have spent that much time in Carmel in over 20 years. Massive changes. Turned out my appointment was for 3:30, not 2:30. I missed an hour of work.
I passed the polygraph, of course. No one believes I am living a quiet life, no criminals for me. No one believes that I do not have a psychological predilection. It would be funny if I had more time to waste.
I came back Thursday night and worked on “Road Tripping”. I did the same thing after work on Friday. Today, it was more of the same. Today, I also worked on submitting “Theresa Pressley Attends Michael Devlin’s Viewing” to Marathon Literary Review.
I worked on “Between Death and Dying” then found its target already has something of mine. Not sure why it was on the calendar.
I went to Walmart for groceries early this morning. Cooked up a pork loin for dinner.
I did not do laundry. It was planned, then since I heard nothing about a ride for church tomorrow, I thought I had been abandoned. I am slipping into that mode of thinking too easily.
The PO came banding on the door today. I still think he must think he is the DTF or this is a very large room. He says there will be a new therapist in my future. This tells me he has never looked at the court's file to find Dr. Parker's letter. Oh, well, some people get wound up and keep going. He asked his usual questions – relations with anyone (no), been around any kids (no). I finally got of him that he has his questions, and he has to ask them regardless of reality. See, I made mention that had never been my interest. Tiresome, really. He asked if I was having money problems, which I am not. I just do not want any more expenses. Which is why there are no women in my life. Also, who has the time? It is the first time I have heard of any real help from him. That I find him useless to my goals I keep to myself. I fear he has a fragile ego, most people in authority do. When I asked if he were an essential employee, he got surly, suspicious. Turned out it does not matter now. He would have been working without pay. He may be useless, but he would have deserved his pay. Not a great conversationalist.
Thing is I decided long ago what I would be doing with my life after prison. I am doing that. If the PO and the supervised release order and the whole of the federal government were to disappear tomorrow, it would not change how I will live. CC has learned this lesson. She has not called. That she thinks she should have the old days again is why I do not call her. It makes her sort of a ghost in my life. All this I suppose is not how most felons would live. In turn, his confuses my PO. I suppose he will not learn what CC has learned. Oh, well, that is not my concern.
I went back to working on my story.
There was also some reading done:
- Hollywoods Lost Screen Goddess Clara Bow 01/04
- Anita Loos – sharp, shameless humour of the 'world's most brilliant woman
- Olive Thomas
- Scandals of Classic Hollywood: Clara Bow, “It” Girl
- Sex Tips From Queen Elizabeth I (this is a hoot, if you know your history)
- Tim (Let It Bleed Edition) (Yes, I am a Replacements fan.)
- ‘I’m 90. I worry if I’m gonna make it to lunch’: Michael Caine and John Standing on wives, war and feeling like the Queen
- Spenser at 50: The Evolution of Robert B. Parker's Iconic Character (Yes, I am a Spenser fan.)
- On the Rise, and Fall, and Uncontainable Rebellion of Cyberpunk (Yes, I am a Replacements fan.)
- The Eiffel Tower, Wine and Fly Fishing in France.
- Mass Extinction Predicted: Extreme Heat Likely To Wipe Out Humans and Mammals in “Triple Whammy” (something for the science fiction fans)
- David McCallum: a life in pictures (I watched Man from U.NC.L.E. when I was a kid, but what really gets me about McCallum is he lost his wife to Charles Bronson.)
- Nathan Alan Davis Goes Into the Woods: The fourth of this prolific playwright’s 2023 premieres, ‘The Refuge Plays,’ is also his most ambitious and searching.
- How Far Can ‘Run Bambi Run’ Run? With a book by Eric Simonson and songs by the Violent Femmes’ Gordon Gano, Milwaukee Rep brings a legendary true crime saga to the city where it began.
Do you know the story of Laurie “Bambi” Bembenek? Chances are, especially if you’re from the Milwaukee area, you may remember hearing about Bembenek, the former Milwaukee Police Department officer and Playboy Club bunny who was convicted for the 1981 murder of Christine Schultz, the ex-wife of Bembenek’s husband Elfred. Bembenek’s story went national after she escaped from a Wisconsin prison after serving 10 years. As publicity around her escape swirled, a slogan began to crop up: “Run, Bambi, Run!” Recaptured in Ontario, Bembenek pleaded no contest to second-degree murder in a retrial and was released with 10 years of probation.
- US prison labor is cruel and pointless legalized slavery. I know first-hand by Dyjuan Tatro, which includes:
About halfway through my sentence, I had the chance to apply to the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), one of the most renowned and rigorous college-in-prison programs in the US. The opportunity changed the trajectory of my life. Graduating from Bard College with my bachelor’s degree gave me something that no one could take away: an education. It was a hard-won prize, especially given the system’s intent to let me languish.
Sitting in those classrooms better prepared me for work outside. Engaging with other students prepared me to later engage with co-workers; interacting with professors prepared me to deal with supervisors. Alongside classes in philosophy, political economy and differential equations, I was learning valuable social and professional skills that were radically at odds with the reality of prison.
It costs New York around $70,000 a year in taxpayer money to imprison someone. It costs the BPI about $10,000 a year to educate an incarcerated student. New York’s recidivism rate is 40%, while graduates of the BPI and similar programs recidivate at only 4%, a tenfold decrease. Yet, despite its clear positive record, only 300 of New York’s 30,000 incarcerated people are enrolled at the BPI in any given semester. I was one of a lucky few.
I am thinking “True Love Ways Gone Astray” is too messy for the magazines I am sending it to. (Different times (being set in 1977), it approaches its LGBTQ issue obliquely and is probably being misinterpreted as one of the loves gone astray, the nihilism of life in a small Indiana city may not hold that much interest.)
Thank you for sending us "True Love Ways Gone Astray." We’re sorry this submission wasn’t right for us, but we are grateful to have had the opportunity to consider it and wish you the best of luck in placing it elsewhere.
Sincerely,
Madeline DeLuca
Fiction Editor
Mud Season Review
Mud Season Review is an international literary journal run by members of the Burlington Writers Workshop, a free writing workshop based in Vermont. We seek to celebrate the full process of artistic creation, from inspiration to publication—welcoming into our open and collaborative community wide-ranging voices that tramp and track in the mud of human experience.
Our staff is dedicated to creating a journal that mirrors the openness of these workshops. We aim to publish strong, skillful writing from far and wide. In doing so, we seek to discover voices new to us and new to publication.
MudRoom Mag turned down “Blue Eyes Flashing Doom”, which I do think well of, but may have been too mundane for the editor:
Thank you for submitting your work to MudRoom for review. We are grateful for your interest in the magazine and the chance to engage with your writing and thinking. Unfortunately, we do not have a place for this piece in our upcoming issue. We hope it finds a loving home.
Best,
Kiera Wolfe
MudRoom Mag
MudRoom is a place for you to kick your shoes off. It’s somewhere between where you’ve come from and where you’re going. Here at MudRoom, we believe in the liminal, the dirty, the messy, and the mundane. Everyone is welcome, because MudRoom is a magazine devoted to the transition. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been writing for ten years, or if you just started last month. While like many journals, we publish issues of prose and poetry, we also work to put out content that engages with writing communities—interviews with authors, and reviews of new collections.
It was a beautiful, I spent it inside.
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