Smonster, I'm sorry if I was insensitive to you or anyone else with what I posted earlier. I have never known anyone who committed suicide before.

No, you absolutely weren't. I just needed to share or something, it's what I do.

Steph is there a possibility that without his cell phone he doesn't have your phone number available? It has hit me a few times that without my phone I have very few numbers committed to memory any more.

When he was sentenced, he asked an officer (or guard?), who was VERY nice to do so, to go out to his car and get this cell phone so he could copy down Tim's number to call him and let him know he had to serve 5 days. So he had it, because he called Tim Thursday after he was sentenced. It's possible he threw it away afterward, in which case my sympathy is again evaporating quickly.

No, you absolutely weren't. I just needed to share or something, it's what I do.

Well, it's what we do.

Teppy, this kid definitely sounds not bright.

Again, you absolutely are not morally required to let him sleep on your couch if it will be awful for you. Not telling you what to decide, but you are still a good person if you say "no".

He could have had everything--even a slip of paper--confiscated when he was put in jail. You walk in in your birthday suit with your prison uniform folded in your arms, in some places. He'll get it back with the rest of his "personal effects" when he's released. I'd first expect and believe that while you're being told he has phone privilege and access, he may, in actual fact, not have. Or he may not know how to access the phone in his current situation.

I know the limbo of uncertainty is awful, and I know he's earned whatever he's going through by his actions or inactions. All I'm saying is I doubt he's refraining from contact because he doesn't want to get in touch.

Also, this?

I was doing what I needed to do for MYSELF. The fact that my father benefited was essentially beside the point.

Is where 95% of any benefit of the doubt or mercy or forgiveness comes from with me. I am not a good or a nice person. But I need to jettison every bit of anger, fear, or hatred--justified or not--in order to survive, so that's what I try to do. If someone else benefits, fine. But I don't do it for them.

Or he may not know how to access the phone in his current situation.

Yeah, my first thought was maybe he thinks he IS doing you a favor by not calling--not costing you/Tim more money? If nothing has changed and he's still getting out the same day/time, he may figure "it's five days, nothing's changed, I just need to get through these days and then we'll figure it all out".

Teppy, this kid definitely sounds not bright.

According to Tim, he has ADHD (diagnosed but untreated). And a history of impulsive actions leading to unpleasant consequences. So while he might have had the slip of paper with Tim's number confiscated, he also might have just thrown it away.

Not knowing what happened, or why we haven't heard from him, is worse than knowing he's just blowing us off.

I was doing what I needed to do for MYSELF. The fact that my father benefited was essentially beside the point.

Is where 95% of any benefit of the doubt or mercy or forgiveness comes from with me. I am not a good or a nice person. But I need to jettison every bit of anger, fear, or hatred--justified or not--in order to survive, so that's what I try to do. If someone else benefits, fine. But I don't do it for them.

See, I think this does make you a good person where all values of good equal reducing the sum total of human suffering. It's people who think they ARE doing if for someone else without really forgiving or letting go of stuff that get into trouble in the long run.

the inmate who sidled up to me and stated with some pride, "I've never been arrested for something I did not do." Turns out he had a lifelong habit of robbing banks to support the violent overthrow of the government.

That's...I don't want to say "awesome," but at least he owned his shit, you know?

Honestly, it really WAS awesome. Every single con, except for this particular con and the 'wrong place/time' con, tried to con me.

At first I sort of understood. You know, I couldn't blame them for taking whatever shot they had. After a while though, it just became oppressive. Especially the ones who thought I was so stupid (because of being female = defective) that they could woo me into falling in love with them and giving them all my money and working to my dying breath to get them out.

It ground on me. I will not lie.

When the small group I worked with got clear that I could not be buffaloed in this way, things turned ugly. The biggest, meanest of the murder/rapists decided to go off on me about being a uppity white bitch who was somehow getting off on telling them what to do.

I didn't mind that until he made a crack about how I never suffered a day in my life. It was the wrongest possible to say that to me.

Something came over me and I became a teeny bit dissociative. (This is the only explanation I have for coming out of my mouth with what I said, within ham-fisted reach of a man who was serving 3 sequential life sentences for the handful of women he had been convicted of raping and murdering. Consensus was that he had gotten off easy for lack of evidence, if you know what I mean.)

I, quite calmly, looked him square in the eye and said something about how I respected his suffering but he didn't know me and couldn't comment on my experience. He spit at me and said something I can't actually remember that had something to do with shopping and privilege...or something.

I remember exactly what I said because, as soon as it was out of my mouth, a voice in my head said something like, for the love of god, run!

It was truly ugly. When I was done, I thought I was going to throw up, so I went to the bathroom. After I'd puked and washed my face, I prepared to get a guard to escort me out.

When I exited the bathroom, the inmate facilitator was outside the bathroom door...on his knees. With tears in his eyes, he blurted, "I know you want to leave. And I don't blame you but please, please have the courage to walk back in that room. No woman has ever spoken to those men like that. Please don't let it be for nothing. You don't owe them shit, but for me, please, please don't go. I'll protect you."

At first I said no, but eventually relented. It was all so surreal. The wrong place con wept and gave me a standing ovation. Everyone (excepted for the shamed offender) gave me a standing ovation.

Later that day, one of the young offenders 'accidentally' felt me up and the older cons covered for him.

I quit.

Prison is not for sissies.

Sheesh Hil, you've already eliminated all the major sources of cholesterol (i.e. animal products), what other kind of "diet change" is supposed to help? (Aside from copious quanities of oatmeal and cheerios)

A few years ago, a doctor sent me a letter telling me to reduce my intake of red meat and dairy products. It's like, at least make an effort to pretend you're not just sending a form letter. This one kind of puzzles me with its advice to "change diet" and absolutely no suggestions of what changes to make.

I posted this in Natter about a week ago, and it may or may not be useful (or frustrating): large, population-based studies pretty much have proven that reducing dietary intake of cholesterol-containing foods does not have an appreciable impact on lowering a patient's serum cholesterol. The bigger problem is your body making way too much cholesterol.

(Allow me to post the usual caveat: obviously there are individual people for whom reducing dietary cholesterol has an impact. I am not saying that does not happen to select people. All studies have outliers. AND, personally, I would rather try to change my diet first than go right to Lipitor, and I say that as someone who probably has Lipitor in her future [though my cholesterol kicks ass right now]. However, the "conventional wisdom" that reducing dietary intake of high-cholesterol foods will lower serum cholesterol to a level that has an appreciable health benefit is not supported by scientific evidence.)

large, population-based studies pretty much have proven that reducing dietary intake of cholesterol-containing foods does not have an appreciable impact on lowering a patient's serum cholesterol. The bigger problem is your body making way too much cholesterol.

This is actually very helpful to me. My cholestrol is not dangerous, but is on the high side despite the fact that I don't eat any red meat or much dairy at all. Only olive oil, lots of fiber, etc. Dietary stuff just doesn't seem to impact that number for me.