Trains in the night. I actually looked at the clock as I walked back to my room after tonight’s "mystery meat with potatoes" dinner. It was only 4:00 PM, so this means that all of our meals are eaten between 7:30 AM and 4:00 PM.

I still have not opened up a can of tuna yet, but I have stated to skip the white bread and butter. Next, I will leave the desserts like tonight’s blob of vanilla pudding.

I have got to discipline myself better. I have already had a pack of M&M peanuts, so if I get hungry I better open a tuna. It's not the same, but I will be treat-less in New York if I do not slow the sugar down.

Well, this Monday and Tuesday when my parents visit I will see how the food package thing works and, if all goes well, I will take to munching carrots. One of the other inmates said as a maximum inmate you only get two packages a year. That would suck. But I am writing to the senior counselor to ask him to review my file.

The thought of being around guys "with bodies" as the saying goes, does not make me feel very comfortable. I know. It is prison. Yeah, that saying is never far from my mind. It is akin to having it tattooed (in reverse) on my forehead, so each time I look in the mirror it is as plain as day.

One of the tidbits of gossip that I heard while taking those tests were the thoughts of one CO that one of the other institutions around here seemed to have a high incidence of staff getting cancer! Yeah, that is what I want to hear, sitting five to ten years in a toxic waste dump! Please, someone give me something hopeful to live for.

There is a railroad line close enough to where I am that I can hear the train horn every now and then. There is something about a train horn in prison that is a "Kodak moment".

It was also heard down in Atlanta, and also in the County Jail in NC. That one would mournfully wail every night off in the distance as I lay in my single cell, without any direct view of the outside world.
  ¶ 1:52 PM