This morning I woke at 2:30. By initiating projects to keep me busy, I have simultaneously trained myself to wake at an early hour without an alarm. The key to the discipline, I think, is living with a clear purpose. The prison housing units bustled with noise in the early evenings, though that noise did not interfere with me climbing onto my rack at an early hour. I read until six or just after. Then I pulled the beanie I wear when I sleep over my eyes, thanked God in prayer for the blessings I’ve received, and set a plan for what I would accomplish the following day. That exercise seemed sufficient to motivate me through these final years of any prison term.

I resumed my reading in the early morning, and sat at the table to write by 3:15. I finished three blog posts by 7:00. Then, I called Carole to wake her. She had planned on spending a few hours modifying the Prison News Blog site this morning and we had planned that I would give her a wake-up call. We spoke for two minutes, and then I went outside for my run.

I ran 10 miles in sunny, but cool temperatures. My total after the run was 519 miles in 57 straight days of running. After finishing, I walked to the library and I read Friday’s newspaper.

I nearly missed an appointment I had at health services. Since it was Saturday, I didn’t look at the call-out schedule; the document administrates post each day with instructions for inmate appointments. Had I not heard a page over the loudspeaker, I would have missed the appointment and exposed myself to a minor disciplinary sanction. I was a little late, but the nurse gave me a Tetanus shot in my left arm and dismissed me with an admonishment that I ought to watch the call-out sheet more closely. She was right.

In the afternoon I wrote a fourth blog post. Then I sat for an interview with Dan, a new inmate. We spoke about a commercial cleaning company he built and the challenges he faced. That conversation transitioned into the work I do with Carole. I spoke with Carole several times during the day, burning through too many of our phone minutes. At the end of the day I had only 210 minutes remaining for the month of February, which put us behind schedule.

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