Prison report: Inside the Hole
By Just A Guy
Editors Note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His blogs typically run Monday and Thursday, but prison authorities have just sent him into the Hole, a punitive isolation facility. So this blog is a little late, and he may have trouble responding to comments.
I’m sitting here in the Hole, also known as Administrative Segregation, contemplating how difficult it’s going
to be to write a politically relevant blog from the confines of the cell in which I have no access to current media/news, one stamped envelope, a pen filler rolled in paper to make it thick enough to
write with, two ancient fantasy books, no clock or watch, no cellmate and racing thoughts. …
I was going to write about SB 678, which is a bill proposed by Sen. Mark Leno allocating funds toward increasing the efficacy of probation, but can’t do it now because I didn’t finish reading it.
I suppose I could stare at the dirty walls and metal toilets, try and ignore slight hunger pangs, and attempt to decipher the various graffiti on the walls, which is endemic to any facility’s holding tank, holding cage, and cell within the system. At the same time I’m trying to ignore the scent of metal on flesh that the sweat from my left palm causes when it touches the paint- worn- down-to metal desk that’s bolted to the wall, or even worse the pain in my ass from sitting on a metal stool trying to write. But how we’re treated isn’t politically relevant any more either, right?
I won’t go into the dynamics, yet, as to why I’m in the Hole, but let’s just say that it was bound to happen because there are forces greater than I that do not like me.