A Real Funk. I have been working myself into a real funk and it is getting harder by the day to dig out of it.

I want to make it clear that you are the one consistent person in my life right now. While you have been caught up in this funk (less letters have been flooding your mailbox) it is strictly a collateral damage thing and not anything you are responsible for.

I think I mentioned in the last letter, I told everyone around me that while I had not heard from you in a while and I had asked you to hold off sending the books for a bit, you went and sent me ten anyhow, just to let me know you were still out there and thinking of me. You get the major credit for admitting same in your letter.

The funk is due to several things. The bitch is I can (and will in this letter) put my finger on most of what is contributing to this funk but am having difficulty digging out of it

Since it appears that I will not be getting a new typewriter (that is one of the efforts that has not come to a successful conclusion adding to the funk) I have gone ahead and rearranged the keys again. This time I made sure to keep the keycaps on the same row. It is amazing that even with the scramble, I still find myself looking down at the keyboard and even figuring out that the 'O' key is really the 'T '. Why do that?

I am at a loss to explain how my brain works, but it is past simple laziness. I do know which keys are which and can not only type faster but more accurately if I refrain from looking at the keys or the LCD window. For now it looks like I will need to change the keys around on a weekly basis.

I am going to write one last letter to Smith Corona to see if there is any chance left on getting this machine switched. I did receive yet another letter from them but it reads as if they just got one letter from me.

Regarding my pen pals, I am beginning to think the 'Yeah I will write to Pete' is just a ploy to get my name to find out my true identity. At this point I have written to the one address you sent for a female in Georgia, and I assuming the rest you gave them my name and address. To date, I have gotten two letters from Annabel and three from Calulu. I owe Annabel a letter back from one I received on July 18. I have written a letter to Calulu and am awaiting a reply from her. That is the sum total of the pen pals.

The one constant thing has been the walking. I am now working pretty much at a four mile an hour pace, with a five minute break on Monday, Wednesday and Friday before taking on the second hour. Even though the humidity was way up today, I still managed ninety-five laps.

Since I was able to add the second hour and have kept to that pattern for this whole month, my next hope is that I will begin to notice more energy during the day. At this point, between the funk and the walking, I am likely to jump in my bunk and spend most of the day reading. As a result, I have made a dent in the book backlog, but that has not led to much letter writing. Please hold off sending books for another week or so.  ¶ 10:02 AM