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mid-week
posted 8 February 06 & filed under cherry scarf, cranky
a great weekend but since then the week has really bit. i had my first spinning conversion at the dinner party on friday, but like a dork, forgot to take a pic of my star pupil. ;) no fear, she left my place with her own spindle, some fiber, and a good spinning mag – see? i’m a responsible spinner. ..the party was such a hit – i had a great great time catching up with friends and was relieved to see that seven people in my apartment was not too crowded at all. i’ve also been cooking like a madwoman: homemade applesauce, herbed croutons, herbed butter – can you tell i’m trying to use up my fresh (store-bought) herbs? – spinach lasagna and goat cheese gratin, watercress & endive salad, and even some chocolate fondue. delish.
my body hurts a lot recently – aches from actually using muscles that normally are allowed to just be and not actually do anything. one of my sisters drew up an exercise plan for toning and stuff and then with horseback riding classes 
(still loving it, just frustrated with the group lesson setting – just a few slowpokes and uninterested can bring the whole class to a halt, arggh), some part of my body is always a bit touchy. it feels good though – is cathartic the right word here?
on monday, i went with a handful of other library students up north to tour the library at the san luis obispo prison, “california mens’ colony” – isn’t that bizarre it’s called a colony? anyhow, it was an all-day thing and really intense and i feel like i’m still kinda processing it. i think everyone in the u.s. should at some point bee inside a prison, just to get a glimse of what life is like for the many (with the numbers always growing) that spend years and years of their lives there. it was depressing to see all these kids there, just little ones, barely 20. the whole prison system is so friggin corrupt and inherently wrong, it’s just depressing and scary. ... the focus should be on rehabilitation, and it’s not! people should not be in prison for non-violent crimes! 
they shouldn’t be put in jail for being addicted to drugs! the three strike law is bogus! etc etc. sigh. the library was a great thing to see – and there need to be many more! – but the setting was just too overwhelming to be able to focus on it much at all.
... so! i leave you with some happy photos (tequila is my mom’s dog, a typical trouble pose, and then my first spindle-spun and spindle-plyed yarn), in hopes of not scaring you off. i have the beatles’ song in my head “it’s get-ting bettah all the tiiiime..” and a headache as well – what a lovely combo. off to write a paper, take a good long shower, and then maybe a nap. as my cousins say, chausito ~ ~
Comments
I couldn’t agree with you more on the prison system. we definately need reform in that area!
sigh. I love your hand spinning. I need to learn how to do it!
~ moni
I completely agree on the prison industrial complex and its god-awfulness.
Lovely, lovely yarn.
~ rose
I never understood how locking people up in jail for non-violent crimes was a solution to anything. I have a former neighbor who made the unfornate choice of letting her boyfriend grow pot in her basement. Got caught, had her house seized, and is now in jail. I just shake my head… what problems are we solving this way?
Your handspindled is beautiful!
~ Liz
We definitely have a really screwed up idea of what to do when people go wrong, don’t we? There is no rehabilitation or even faith that people can, in fact, change. Sad.
~ Kathy
Oops, sorry I’m a crack-head and leaned on the keyboard, hitting send with no comment. Nice.
Prisons are freaky places. Because of an old job (adult literacy/GED software), I’ve been in about 30 prisons and jails. Max, minimum security, women’s, youth and jails. To see those faces, those familiar faces, people who could be your sisters or neighbors or the kid you used to babysit is disconcerting to say the least. You think, why are you here? And you, why are you here? Is this helping? Is this making it worse? Is this little bit of education going to help you at all? I hope that it will. How can you survive here? Who did you used to be? Who are you now?
Obviously, it raised many more questions for me than answers. But I do know that to put non-violent offenders in a system with violent offenders isn’t the answer. We just end up with people who are more broken and scarred than when they went in.
~ Collette
I always wanted to tour a prison library… we had lots of cool stuff like that to do when I was in library school, but not exactly that, of course going to school in NC made it really easy to visit the Library of Congress and other big special places instead. There was a panel that included a prison librarian once though, and she talked about how she was pretty sure with all those private “supermax” type things popping up that she was going to get made obsolete in a few years. Anyway—interesting.
I have done reference work by mail for prisoners before. You can only imagine how much the mind wanders when being locked up for 24 hours a day with minimal stimulation. Very sad.
That yarn is such a cheery color!
~ Heidi
sounds like a fruitful and powerful visit. our prison system really is fundamentally problematic and short-sighted, which reflects some deeply embedded cultural views of fear and punishment. it’s one of those issues that makes me depair and feel powerlesss.
~ meowgirl