The Tin Man. It is already 8:00 PM here at the Garden of Eden.

I was hoping to spend most of the afternoon and this evening typing out a letter to you and more stuff for the blog. The posts that are enclosed were all typed yesterday and I held them knowing I would be sending you a letter today. I was not able to type before dinner because there was no room at the tables. It was raining all day today so the card players were inside.

I finally finished the legal work that I was working on for the one inmate who lost one year of his good time. If he wins his case I will have to send you a copy of the forms that I wrote for the archives.

I was reading last Wednesday's newspaper today and came across an article in the business section about some guy in Texas, I think, that just won his federal appeal to be resentenced. His original sentence was 25 years. The article mentions that part of the reason for the resentencing was based on the Supreme Court ruling in January. I will have to get a copy of this new case and see if I can use any of the arguments in my case.

I wanted to write you how my emotional state has been thrown for a loop over the last two weeks or so. A good way to describe my usual day to day existence here is live like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz, no heart, little emotion. Just the facts. Easy to write about political and social issues from the paper.

It is certainly not that I am denying any of my past actions or lost my soul and become a cold drone. You know that I do experience warm feelings from time to time, for instance when I get one of your warmer and fuzzier letters. The 'er' is purposeful.

Each and every letter you send me lets me know there is someone out there that still cares for me as a person. You certainly are allowed to express your fears and questions about my behavior, but even those times, it still appears that it comes from the heart.

What I have the most trouble with, due to scarce resources, is lifting myself up. Once I hit the bottom, the effort to lift myself up, is like using a bumper jack, as opposed to one of those nice gas station hydraulic jacks, to lift a Hummer. Yeah it can be done, but which jack would you rather have to do the job with? Perhaps you would call AAA and have them send someone to fix the damn flat.

I am not asking you to censor your feelings toward me, because I might be having a tough time. I am hoping that you will give some flexibility to what I might write to you, and question something that you might not understand, or worse, find insulting or offensive.  ¶ 7:44 AM