Poetry:

• Letters - April 10th, 2001
• The Logic of Depression - April 12th, 2001
• Flames - May 2nd, 2001
• Double-edged Void - May 14th, 2001

Journal:
Coming Soon

Overview:
What? Incarceration writings? Yes, you read it right, folks. From August 12th, 2000, through July 11th, 2001, I was incarcerated. Locked up. In the pokey.

Why? What happened? Well, to summarize things briefly . . . when I was 19, I was involved with a girl who was (and probably still is) very bad news. Her name was Misty, though I prefer to refer to her, affectionately, as The Psycho Mega-Bitch From Hell. I was, at least so I thought at the time, very much in love with TPMBFH. During our two and a half year relationship, we were engaged to be married, we lived together, and we had a son together, which we (I try to believe this was the correct and responsible decision) gave up for adoption.

Anyway, during the time I was involved with TPMBFH, I was introduced to some bad ideas, hit some rough times financially, and met some unsavory people. Encouraged by TPMBFH, I did something extremely out of character for me, and I broke into a business and stole some stuff. The half hour I was in there was probably the longest and most nerve-wracking of my life. I'm not a criminal, I don't have the temperament or the stomach or the (poor) character for it. Hell, in High School, I'd planned on going to law school and being an attorney. I was even a Teen Court Attorney in the Midland County Teen Court, and won a scholarship from that. Things happened as they will, and largely due to actions of TPMBFH a detective came sniffing around me, and I confessed to the entire thing. Probably not legally wise (I was VERY naíve about such things at the time, and my full taped confession probably caused me some grief in the end), but it felt morally right at the time.

Eventually, through the slow workings of the court system, I took all the "heat" on this crime, shielding TPMBFH from any consequences, and pled out to deferred adjudication probation. Thankfully, before the court proceedings were actually done, I wizened up some and broke up with TPMBFH. I still count ever getting involved with her as one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Over the course of time from February 1995, when I agreed to the deferred adjudication, I've had good times, and bad times. I ended up going back to court in 1998 for a technical probation violation - I was behind on my payments and had missed a couple of reports, though I had done nothing else wrong. No new crimes committed, no drug or alcohol use - just some rough times, largely due to depression (I've been diagnosed a couple of times by different psychiatrists as a clinical depressive - the second time "with paranoiac tendencies"). I was given two options - sit in the county jail for 6 months, then be allowed to "continue" on my deferred probation (of course I'd be another 6 months behind on payments and so forth); or take a conviction and go on standard probation right then and there. This was not an easy decision, but I decided (taking my 3 day stay in jail that month into consideration) that I couldn't hack 6 months in jail. I value my freedom very highly, though I may not make very good use of it. I took the conviction and entered on regular probation.

Things were going pretty good for a while. In the Spring of 1999, I moved to Austin, and though things were a little rocky there as well at first (again, depression reaching its pervasive tendrils into my life), things started to shape up and go well. I got a good job that I usually enjoyed, moved into a decent duplex, had broadband internet access, disposable income, an Anime club I enjoyed, a roommate that I got along with decently. Then Henry, my roommate, up and deserted on me, quitting his job and abruptly moving to Dallas to live with his girlfriend. That hurt, as my cost of living suddenly more than doubled, but it was manageable - barely.

Enter December 1999, and Christmas season. Not the most cheerful time of the year for me, especially living alone like that. Some frightening things happened with some of my family members who were over 350 miles away, and depression really crawled back "home" and took up residence in style. I did OK through the new year, then really started to fall apart in January 2000. It affected my work. It affected my health. And, oh, I just basically blew off reporting to probation. They didn't much like that, and for, again, a small technical violation (not reporting) - with no new crimes, no drug or alcohol use, etc. - they revoked my probation. About the time that I finally lost my job, my Dad called and informed me that Midland County was looking for me, and had a warrant for my arrest.

My depression sort of fed on this, and my paranoia rocketed up to astonishing levels. I have memories of lying down on the floor in the living room, peeking out through a small rip in the curtain to see who was driving up or knocking on the door. I ordered pizza, then ended up being scared into near-immobility when the delivery guy arrived. My mind entered a most unstable state, and I can say that I wasn't really myself for most of February 2000. Someone I used to MUD with suggested that I move to Raleigh, North Carolina. Cost of living there was lower than in Austin, the job market was strong, and I'd known a few people who lived there, or had moved there from other places (including Phoenix, which I loved) and they all seemed to like it. This idea possessed me, and by the end of the month, I had spun a web of self-deception for myself that I had gotten hopelessly entangled in. I convinced myself that I could simply move halfway across the country and start over. I'd be too far away for Midland County to bother coming to get me, if they even managed to track me down. In fact, I soon believed that the entire probation situation was a thing of the past - it was done with, and not a concern anymore.

I moved to Raleigh at the very beginning of March 2000. I got a new job, shared a nice apartment with 2 roommates who were OK guys, I got a new car (that I loved - I still miss my Grand Am, the Bebop), I made new friends from the Carolina Otaku Uprising, the UNC Anime Club. Things were going good. Life was good, and I was, for the first time in a long while, somewhat happy. I was so caught up in the self-deception that my mind had chosen to believe that I lived in a little, legal-worry-free alternate reality. I really believed that I was free and clear, and things were fine, I wasn't a fugitive from justice, and my life was really starting to shape up. Then, heading to a 24 hour restaurant after the Rocky Horror Picture Show on the morning of August 12th, 2000, I was stopped for speeding. My information was processed, and came back with a fugitive warrant for me. I was arrested, and went to jail in Wake County, North Carolina. My (alternate) reality came crashing down around me, slowly, and I fought it, and my good buddy denial joined the cause as well. I spent fully 11 months incarcerated - in jail in Raleigh, in jail in Midland, Texas, and then over 3 months in the Texas Prison system. For a lot of that time, I wrote a daily journal, as well as some other random writings (mostly poetry). I will publish my journal entries, in entirety, here on my web site, along with most of my other writings. I'm not sure why I want to - I just do.