Updating this blog when I get to Hawaii.

UNBEFUCKINGLIEVABLE

I wake up this morning hung over.

I drive to the nice chinese restaurant down the street and have a nice meal, lots of oolong tea and the waitress forgets the chili sauce I love.

I go to leave to volunteer work at the thrift store but my car won't start. No power to anything at all, there were no warnings of this ever with the way the vehicle has run before.

A nice Chinese guy gives me a jump and it works, it MUST be the battery.

I get home and then walk a half mile in 110 degree heat to the battery shop and slap down $70 for a new battery. I carry it, all 60 pounds, all the way back.

I spend 2 hours installing it in the same muggy 110 degree heat. Two bolts snap and all the parts are incorrect.

Car again, does not start...

I get a jump, thinking, it just isn't charged, get to the thrift store and it won't start again (not the battery, $70 wasted).

I get home and put the old battery back in in 110 degree weather (one hour). Try to take the new battery (4 hours old) back, towing it in a wheeled suitcase, wheel falls off the suitcase. I get back to the battery store and they say, "Can't return it, it looks used."

Shamefully lugging the suitcase and battery back, I stop at Trader Joe's to buy some water, ther are 30 people in each line. I get home without any additional failure.

After cleaning the terminals (and with the old battery), the car starts.

I go to work at Raytheon to make up my missing hours after I took a vacation last week. I stop at a gas station and insert my debit card.

"AUTHORIZING" "AUTHORIZING" "AUTHORIZING" - Nothing happens with the gasoline Ubercomputer other than that. Five minutes later, I try my card again and it works.

I drive home from work thinking that my car power is going to die at any minute. It is a hellish adventure. Almost all of Tucson has no streetlights or places to pull over due to the observation towers on the mountains which need nothing nearby with good lighting to do their work. (Hey, no lights, good car looting for the criminals!) Stopping at the local Megamart (TM), to get a bottle of wine. The shelves are STRIPPED of goods. The quickcheck stands are closed and the lines are over 30 people each.

I get home with no additional problems.

I go to the nearest convience store later, cops are everywhere and a sign on the door says, "Filling out police reports, closed."

Drive to the next store and the crackhead neighbor who ruined my life last year is standing in front, I hadn't (thankfully, by the gods), seen him in over a year. He has a new mustache and short hair, his new "after incarceration" look, after he got out of jail. I drive off.

At the next intersection, I stop and try to go but some scenester asshole spots two fat chicks walking up the street and does a U-turn in the middle of the road R E A L L Y S L O W L Y blocking my way for a good two minutes.

I get to the NEXT convienence store, three miles away, and all their shelves are stacked on the OUTSIDE of the building. As I get out of the car, some black dude with a prostitute yells at me the typical "hey, hey, HEY!" to grab my attention. I yell back, "HEY, I've had a bad day, leave me alone!" Black man with prostitute: "I'VE HAD A BAD DAY TOO!!!!" He starts having an enraged conniption fit towards me. I buy stuff and escape back to my house.

Nothing happens after that. I watch Star Trek.

testing entry from this goddamn PDA...

Brain/emotion emptying commences:

I am miserable. I live in a town with people I don't relate to. I work a job with people I don't relate to and also suck. Selfish, republican Christians who do not tolerate non-selfish, non-republican non-Christians.

I drink too much, everyone including myself know this. When I drink now, I get ornery and 86'd most of the time. I drink to drown the lonliness. I drink so that I don't have to face reality, because reality, in my observance, is really sad.

I just made myself not go get more beer, that may last for a few minutes. Is it bad to have a poor attendance record at work if you hate your job? Uncle Sam wants his fucking payment.

I HAVE to move back to the west coast to keep my sanity, but I am afraid. Can I find a job? Can I keep from drinking myself to oblivion? I wait for the answer from my liver.

Just because I don't contact my friends doesn't mean I don't love them. Just don't want to drag them into the pit.

Well,

I made a new rule to myself that I will post on this EVERY DAY. My sober thinking says this may be theraputic, since I hide my feelings most of the time. Maybe I will follow this rule. I get embarrassed about my life a lot. I, however, need to vent my daily aggression.

Probation just ended... I guess I am happy. My DUI jail time seems far, far in the past. Bad longterm memory retention has it's upside. It is almost 100 degrees here now, which it will remain for the next 5 months. Weird things have happened latety. Three of my hometown Napa folks contacted me out of the blue a few weeks ago, will see the one I haven't yet on my way to Seattle.

YES, SEATTLE!

Going to take the train to San Fran, catch a ride up to Portland and Seattle for the July 4th weekend. Haven't seen my homies up there since I fled Seattle 5 years ago. Highly anticipating. Weird, I didn't buy a return ticket. Heh, heh, heh.

And the news here in Tucson? Another work day, another work night with too much alcohol. Made a laminated sign with my "Alcohol Rules" and didn't follow them. Gods be spared! I planned on camping 12 miles into the wilderness for this upcoming Memorial Day weekend, but I'm not sure I'm gonna do it. Remember, almost 100 degrees outside midday. Maybe I can convince myself to do it when I'm at work tomorrow. Bleh.

Ain't got no honey, ain't got no money.

Freak out, folks.

Gringo off comm.

I'm at work right now, left the jail at 6am. My ear became infected three days ago...very very badly infected. EXTREMELY painful and leaking constantly. It took me two days to see a jail doctor and get antibiotics, still hasn't started getting better. I missed Friday at work waiting for the damn doctor, I was finally called in to see her at 4pm. I could have been working after all. Bleh. Tomorrow is going to be my first full day in since the last weekend. Full days are the worst, very difficult to keep from becoming bored to death. But, I am out of here in 3 days! Most of the people in the jail are pretty nice, not the guards, but the inmates. Mostly mexicans, mostly DUI's and probation violations. I don't feel like writing at the moment.

We are woken up by a garbled voice yelling "Healty nutritional breakfast NOW!" at 5:30 in the morning. My neck and back are sore from my fitfull sleep and I am still very ill after catching the plague that is rampant in my dorm.

The Jail Diaries

12/10/2005

I check in at the Pima County Minimum Security Facility at 6am, drop off my work clothes and give up the keys to my vehicle that is to stay in their parking lot, space #45. The rude desk clerk logs in the possessions I will be bringing in . One tube of clear toothpaste. Check. One clear toothbrush. Check. One small battery powered alarm clock still in it's packaging. Check. Etc. Then, per their instructions, I walk over to the main jail facility a 1/4 mile away in the freezing cold to be "processed" as an inmate. Waiting outside with an older gentleman at a small unmarked side door we chat about our DUI convictions and sentences until an officer shows up to let us in.

The stench of disease, old alcohol and bodily fluids wafts into my nose as we are led through the catacombs of the Pima County Main Facility. We are put though a series of procedures by common looking people working behind bulletproof glass and bricks. They take all of our belongings except for our clothes and have us remove our shoelaces (string suicide, anyone?). We are then escorted into a large room with a swimming pool sized depression filled with metal benches and about 75 people, surrounded by correction officers. These people have obviously been here for many, many hours, half are curled up on the cold metal seats trying to sleep, putting their heads and arms inside their jackets and sweaters to block out the flourescent lighting. It looks how DMV might be envisioned if in hell. Along the outer walls, behind the guards are 6' by 6' rooms with bulletproof windows, a few filled with pacing shadows and angry faces. A black man continually yells things like "That little puerto rican is a snitch bitch! He led the po-lice to our house!" out from the little crack under one of the secured metal doors until two armed guards forcefully remove him by dragging him out of the room to parts unknown. His profanity fades into the background noise.

Two hours later my name is called and I report to someone in a doctor's smock. She questions me about suicidal thoughts, sexual diseases and tuberculosis. I pass her tests and sit back down.

Another hour later my name is again yelled over the P.A.. I am photographed and fingerprinted, both electronically and with ink, and a band with my picture and information is attached to my wrist. I am ordered to return to my seat. I sit for a couple more hours watching some extremely skinny longhaired guy coming down off of meth pace furiously in figure eights around the benches.

A small group of us is ushered out through a locked sidedoor to an awaiting minivan which takes us the 1/4 mile back to the Minimum Security Facility. We are led inside and into a tiny claustrophobic room with no windows. One of our party, a short drunk indian guy tries to fuck with each of us with a little homosexual banter. "You don't look like a pitcher, you look like a catcher. I'm a pitcher, dogg.", he taunts and laughs histerically. He is constantly spitting in the corners of the little room. We wait with this jackass for a half hour until a guard lets us out in pairs. We are told, "Remove your clothes, lift your balls, spread your cheeks, show me your hands, soles of the feet. Now your teeth." (This is the common mantra repeated whenever entering the facility from the Outside.) We are then issued a pair of bright red pants and shirt with "Pima County Jail" printed on them in large letters and a pair of chinese made plastic open-toed sandals.

I am led into a large dormitory with about 100 bunk beds, everything is made of basalt or steel. There aren't bars or locks on the doors, the guards provide all the "protection" and "security" we need. I am greeted by two mexican inmates and then take to my bunk and sleep for awhile. I wake up on my plastic sleeping pad (they had not given me any sheets or blankets) a short time later. A mexican guy named Hector comes up to me and says, "Hey man, have you had your mattress scanned yet? You know, for drugs and contraband? If they search your bunk, anything they find they will pin on you. You better go talk to the CO (Correctional Officer)." I drag my mattress out of the dorm and across the Dayroom to the CO's desk and ask him if I can get my mattress scanned. He looks at me blankly for a second and then points over to the other side of the room. "Run your mattress back and forth across that metal bar on the wall behind the TV set and get back to your bunk." I carry the mattress over and start moving it back and forth against the metal bar and start to realize that I had just been snookered. I hide my embarrassed laughter and start walking back to my bunk, the CO yelling from behind me, "Tell your bunkmates that the barbeque signup isn't until tomorrow!" Ha ha. I open the dormatory door and a group of inmates are laughing after watching me fall for their trick. A young black man with a mohawk and a big smile says, "Welcome home, man. Now you're one of us."

The bathroom is adjacent to the bunkhouse and can be viewed by the guards through small windows. A group of showers, a row of sinks and a stretch of slightly partitioned shitters are the only things allowed. Drinking water comes from the sinks, sulfery and hot. Everything smells like bleach and other chemicals. At least it's "clean" I think to myself.

5:45pm. The call for dinner is announced over the P.A. system. It consists of some really bad homemade chili, two peices of white bread, some yellow green beans, butterscotch pudding and a dixie cup of red cool-aid. Mmmmmmm. You also recieve a spork and a napkin.

It takes me four tries and about ten hours to procur some bedding from the guards, they do anything they can to try to fuck with me or ignore my requests.

I finally get to sleep after twisting and turning on the uncomfortable mattress while the other inmates loudly play card games or listen to their commissary purchased portable radios.

Well.

I decided I wanted to start publishing a blog to keep an archive of my thoughts. I have used LiveJournal in the past but I think I'd rather keep this more private.

So, what's been happening in Michael Peters' life?

I am going to jail for 10 days a month from now (Extreme DUI) and Pima County Court is going to be putting me on one year probation as of the 22nd of this month. This means no drinking. I think that the longest I have quit drinking was about two weeks at any stretch of time. I am also in the midst of quitting smoking (yes, at the same fucking time) so that I don't have to nicoteen fit too much in the pokey. I am depressed and watch a lot of Star Trek Voyager and Deep Space 9 which seems to keep my mind off of current events. When I don't drink my dreams are usually livid and of the past when I was a teenager in Napa.

I will update this blog with the horrible things that I have done to myself while drinking these last few months, but give me some time to do so.

Regards.