VINCE

Dear Blog:

I decided to take a “mental health” day away from work. Although I have weekends off, everybody else was off too, so I can’t accomplish much. Today is my chance to catch up on laundry, sleep, reading, and yes, writing.

I do not recall where I left off as I have sent everything I have written since my arrival in Moose Lake to my Mother for print.

Not much has changed. I haven’t been running because it’s been too cold for the outside track to be open, and there are only two working treadmills for over 1,000 prisoners. I have been doing the tape more often. And as impossible as I thought it was going to be, I am actually getting better at it.

I’m also active in wolleyball and pickle ball. A friend and I were in the pickle ball tournament this past weekend. We lost all four games and were eliminated on the first day. But we tried.

I also try to lift weights when I can. I don’t even bother most days, as the workout room is full, and I am not the type of person that fits in with that crowd. I will just leave it at that.

I submitted a list of ten puns into a contest for the prison newspaper to see if one of them could win me a little money. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.

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Hot dogs. To quote myself, “All of our meals are hot dogs. It’s just a matter of what shape they’re in today.” Prison food is far worse than any institutional food. I see so much waste. I see huge wastes of your money, our time, and our “food.” Simple things like giving us single-serve packets like ketchup and dressings vs. making a large batch of dressing then paying somebody 25 cents per hour to put individual portions on a tray. Over 1,000 trays, three times a day. That saves a lot of money over time. And that’s just one idea.