Halfway Home

I'm currently serving my 30 day sentence.  Fun shit.  It's in a halfway house with 33 other women.  Good fucking god it sucks.  I was going to chronicle my days as a blog post a week, but I'm not spending much time there.  Instead I'm working 18 hour + days because it's the only thing I'm allowed to do.  The people that are there fresh out of prison have more freedoms than I do right now.  At least they're allowed to go get a haircut with a week in advance notice.  Not so much the case with me.  Ugh.  The good news is that I have two bosses that will take the hit and let me work as many hours as I want just to be gone.  The bad news is that I'm so fucking exhausted I can barely manage to be nice to these drunk assholes anymore.  It's week 3 and I want to kill someone.

30 of the women I'm forced to share living quarters with have just within the last 5 months or so, been released from prison.  The other 4 of us are municipal court detainees.  One of my roommates just got done serving 3 years for obstruction of justice.  Apparently she knew about a robbery (but didn't participate in it) and lied about it.  She actually gave birth to her youngest child while in prison... Wow....  The other three, I'm not sure about.  They don't even acknowledge my existence, which is just fine by me.  I'm not there to make friends...

The roommate told me about her cellmate in prison when I told her why I was there.  Apparently this girl had been out drinking, and while only at a .09 (.01 over the legal limit) she hit and killed a man who ran out in front of her.  He was trying to commit suicide and succeeded.  They found the note he had written detailing what he planned to do.  She was originally sentenced to 8 years in prison.  She appealed after they found the suicide note and got a reduced sentence of 4 years.  Wow.  It just goes to show you, it could happen to any of us.  Say she wasn't drinking and was distracted some other way?  Kids, cell phone, etc.  Really scary shit when you stop to think about it.

Other things worth mentioning.....

•   The first day I got there it was breakfast time.  One of the girls pulled like a foot long hair out of her cereal....  The cook is a guy with a crew cut... Wtf?  That sealed my no eating on premises rule.  Josh just brings me food when I'm at work.
• I have to take a breathalyzer test and have all my shit gone through every time I walk in the door.  Fun stuff.  I have a breathalyzer in my car which let me drive two Sundays ago, but I managed to blow a .006 when I got back to the house.  Not really sure how that happened.  I haven't had a drink in almost 3 weeks.  And a .006?  Wtf is that, half a sip of beer?  Whatever, because of the breathalyzer in my car I got out of it.  I'm gonna trust something that's calibrated once a month over something that nobody can tell me when it was last calibrated.
• The second day I was there I learned about the chores list.  It only took me 20 minutes to find someone who, for $20 a week, would do my chores.  This girl isn't cleaning a bathroom that 33 other people use....  Everything was good till yesterday when she got sent back to prison for pissing dirty again.  Damn it, there's $20 down the drain...  Funny thing is, they made her quit her job because she was using at work.  She's been stuck in the house for like 3 weeks and is still pissing dirty, which would indicate there are drugs being brought into the house.
• The house I live in is for non-violent offenders.  Two doors down are the violent offenders.  Girls from both houses are in and out all day long for their "group" meetings.  No doubt the drugs are being brought in that way because that's the only time nobody gets searched.  Kind of scary.  I'm not usually around when all this is going on.   I don't have to attend any groups because my assessment showed that I'm not likely to offend again and that (as I knew all along) I don't have an alcohol problem.  I have a following the rules when I drink problem....
• Speaking of rules...  These girls have a hard time following them.  I came in the other night around 11 and had to sit for 45 minutes while they searched one of the rooms.  They came down with 3 bags of contraband.  And by contraband, I mean food, cigarettes, phones and misc other items they're not allowed to have.
• No smoking on the property.  I've never seen the trash get taken out so many times a day so these chicks can get their smoke fix.  Where they're stashing their smokes and lighters, I have no idea.  I've had three lighters confiscated because I thought I got them out of my purse before I got in the car....
• Visitation days....  They're gut wrenching.  A bunch of women who only get to see their kids once a week.  Luckily I work both jobs on Saturday and Sunday so I'm just in and out during these times.  It's sad.  
• Speaking of not getting to see their kids.  Jordan took Evan for the entire 30 days I'm gone.  It's a long story, but whatever.  I've only gotten to see him once while I've been gone, last Sunday, Mother's Day, because my mom picked him up and brought him to my work.  I miss him :/  The other two have been in and out of my work, so I'm seeing them regularly.
• I have to pay them 25% of my gross earnings.  Ugh.  Nothing like working 80 hours a week and having to pay them for a cot that's an inch thick to sleep on. It's averaging out to be almost $400 every two weeks.... Ridiculous, but a small price to pay for not having to be in the place 24/7 listening to miserable, hopeless people....

So that's about it. I've got two weeks left in the place.  Two Wednesdays from now, at 8am, I'll run out that door and never look back.  I'll go pickup Evan and we'll spend days snuggling, because he's the best at it.  Josh will be jealous he can't stay and snuggle and has to go to work.  I can't wait.  Counting down the days until life can resume as normal.  We have two vacations coming up, one to Florida for 10 days and one to Put In Bay for Fourth of July weekend camping that I'm really looking forward to.  Time to get  back to me being me.  These 80 hours a week I'm spending working will finally feel like they're worth it when I'm laying on the beach sipping a drink with an umbrella....  I've got big plans world, watch out!!!