Friendship. Today was my walking partner, Mike's, birthday, and we managed to be at the same place at the same time as I left the unit. I gave him his birthday present, consisting of one pint of butter almond ice cream, two freeze pop-style packages filled with a caramel-like substance, and a Hershey's candy bar with almonds. This way he could make his own sundae!

It was sort of drizzling off and on all day, and I asked him what he wanted to do about our post-4:00 PM walk. He had planned to make some wraps that he wanted to share on the occasion of his birthday, so he said let's go anyway and see what happens. Worst case, we would end up finding a corner inside the Rec area. But as luck would have it, by 3:30 PM the blue skies arrived and things were looking good.

Well, like they say around here, if you do not like the weather, wait twenty minutes and it will change. By 5:00 PM, dark storm clouds started moving in and a chilly wind was blowing pretty hard. We got to the Rec yard and managed to get the walk in without getting rained on.

Then Mike gave me two wraps to put in my coat pocket. One of them he asked me to give to someone in my unit on his behalf. I managed to not eat either of the wraps until we got back to the unit at 6:30 PM! I gave the one to the proper party and nuked mine up. It was a delicious combination of crackhead soup noodles, spicy sausage, pepperoni, and cheese! I also coked my usual mackerel and rice and ate about three-quarters of it.

Mike is due to leave in early 2005, and had been talking for the last month or so about giving up the walking. He wants to do some pushups and hit the bicycles. I always said that I understood, and that it was OK. But while we were walking today, Mike said that he would hold off changing his exercise pattern till after I left. So for him to actually say he would walk till I left, that was really nice of him.

The main difference on my part is being more patient and laidback with Mike. Originally we just started meeting at Rec to walk, and then later we began deciding ahead of time on which days to walk. While we do talk while we walk, I am afraid I still do most of the talking. But Mike has been very patient and is a good listener.

The point is that we are friends, we support each other, and our relationship has grown over time. As we walk, we are able to share our stories of life with each other. I have not tried to tell him everything at once, and I even sort of check if a particular experience is of interest to him. In other words, I might say, "Here is what I would like to tell you, do you want to hear it?" That has been new for me. As I said, I still do most of the talking, but I do make sure that I listen to Mike, and I encourage him with specific questions for him to share with me. And you know what, it works!

Also, as I think I have mentioned, a few inmates have asked my opinions of the election, etc., and another inmate asked me to spend some time with him talking about the stock market.

So without forcing myself on everyone indiscriminately, I have managed to have persons seek me out. True, not everyone in the unit thinks I am the greatest, and even those asking me questions are certainly not all in awe of my wisdom, but I now understand much better how life works. True, I still put my foot in my mouth on occasion, I still take a simple question and end up gabbing for a half-hour, but it is not a constant thing and I have even been known to apologize for talking so much.

Ah patience! OK, I think I will stop for now. It is 11:41 PM and I know this will not go out till Sunday night anyway, so let me see if I can slow down the pace while improving the readability. It's not too bad so far! Plus, if I stay up much longer I will drink another soda, and I really need to stretch them out. So TTFN.
  ¶ 1:14 AM