February 2, 2025

Some convicts receive money from the outside and can buy junk food and toiletries. I’m ostracized because I have no support people out there. I wish I could remember a single phone number. I’m starving and it’s hard for me to climb to the top bunk because of my arthritis.

I start writing a novel on toilet paper because I can’t afford a lined notebook. I decide to write my biography, but it reads so whiny and boring that I chuck it in the garbage. I come up with the idea for a series of detective novels based on a drag queen protagonist who, in essence, is me. The writing starts to flow easily, and it suddenly dawns on me that this approach to the novels is really going to work. Now, I can write from my perspective without specifically writing a book just about me; I can tell my story through the lives of others.

While I paid a bankruptcy attorney $1,600 to dissolve my debts while in prison, I’m officially notified that I can’t file for bankruptcy while incarcerated. These people don’t care that most inmates were once real human beings with financial commitments just like everyone else. In Idaho, you relinquish your right to handle your financial affairs once you’re imprisoned. When I am paroled, I will face a mountain of debt and back taxes.