27 June 2021

 

     I slept until 3:39 am, the latest in a while.  I stayed in bed until 4:30 am trying to get back to sleep, to no avail.  But looking out my window, it is still raining.

     We went through a stretch where it was so dry.  Then we picked up some light rain for a few days here in there.  Thursday we had a good thunderstorm.  We needed the rain.  Now we have had rain come down hard all day yesterday, and it is still going.  There is going to have to be some flooding.  Just lots of rain.

     This mornings earworm is New Gold Dream by Simple Minds.  There is that early new wave again.

     I ran 5K this evening, because I wanted to get in and listen to the Bucks and Hawks playoff basketball game. 

The swallows were out and I also saw one dragonfly.  If I stayed out later more may have come out.  Those are beautiful nights with them swirling around you while you run.  I figured it would be a good night with all the recent rain bumping up the insect population for swallow and dragonfly food, but there did not seem to be a lot of bugs.

     I pushed pretty good on the run for just short of the last mile.  That felt nice.  I developed the visual hallucinations again, but the dissipated prior to the end of the run. 

     The Bucks won, putting them up two games to one in the NBA Eastern Conference finals.  They have a chance to goto the NBA finals for the first time since 1974.

     For me that is exciting because 1974 predates me following sports.  My dad took me to my first baseball game in 1975, while the 1975-76 NBA season likely would have been my first basketball game.  I do recall it was the Bucks versus the Knicks, with Bob McAdoo. 

     I remember at the baseball game every time a run scored I would get excited and start yelling "home run.". My dad would try to explain the difference between a home run and a run, but I was such a headstrong kid I insisted I was right.

     I remember the same thing when he was teaching me to dribble a basketball.  I would dribble with my right, but use my left hand to control the ball at the same time.  He would tell me, "You cannot dribble with two hands Dominic."

     "Oh no dad, this is okay."

     What a hard headed kid.

     Those are special memories.

     I recall telling my mom about recollections I was having of  Christmases past, and she thought that must be depressing in prison.  I explained they made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

     They are wonderful memories.  Even if I was out of prison I could not go back there because they are the past.  What is sad is thinking about the things I missed out on doing.  Graduating college (I was right there), getting married, having kids, and growing old, which with the MCL, I now know would not have happened prison or not, with someone. 

     Those are the things that are sad.

     I was a senior, on the Dean's list, less than a year away from graduating, and already looking into jobs.  My friend Amy, who was a graduate student at Wisconsin, and I would sit there and discuss what direction we wanted to head into. 

     I had envisioned going into corporate sales, and was exploring that option.  But I was working in a sit down restaurant and I really enjoyed it.  I was talking to them about going into their management training program.  I remember Amy telling me if I really liked it, then do it.  Because for the life of me I could not understand who in their right mind would graduate college to work in a restaurant. 

     I gave that all away to make license plates, figuratively.

     With all that said I learned to be happy in prison.  The last twelve to fifteen years have been the happiest of my life.  This is not an easy life.  I wish this on no one.

     Even with death approaching fast I am still happier than most of the people I know, staff included.  And I am sure not looking for dying.  I feel like I am on chapter nine of a twelve chapter book, and those last three chapters have yet to be written.

     I was looking forward to reading them.