Shutdown

Ok, folks... this is the "official" shutdown notice for The Diary of an Asshole. I will still be maintaining a blog... just not here. Since I, along with 99.99% of the world is on myspace, I will being keeping my blog exclusively there from here on out. The address is http://blog.myspace.com/mace_nephilim...

See you around, fuckers.

Long overdue update...

Whoa... Busy month. I won't bore you with all the details, just gonna hit the highlights.

I spent most of my medical furlough generally having as good a time as I could. I had drinks with a few people. Drank more coffee than a small third-world country. During the course of this time, I also fell deeply, madly in love with The Dancer, and we have been spending the vast majority of our free time together. I wish all the people I know who read this regularly could meet her. You'd see why I fell in love. She is absolutely awesome. Drop dead gorgeous. Wonderful sense of humor. One of the smartest women I've ever met. She really is the whole package. What she sees in me I have no idea, but there it is.

But I digress.

All of this brings me to the Tuesday, March 7, 2006.

Dancer came by here at about 10:30am or so to spend some time with me before I had to turn myself in and spend the next 3 months behind bars. (Though I never saw a single bar in jail... Lots of metal. No bars) After spending some seriously emotional quality time together, it was time to go. Dancer dropped me off and we said our goodbyes. I watched her drive away. I lit up my last cigarette, smoked it, and went in to get booked and processed.

Or so I thought.

Upon my entrance into the jail, the cock-biting fucktard that runs the show there met me at the door. Upon finding out that my foot wasn't completely healed yet, he decided that they were going to give me another month to get all healed up before they made me do the rest of my time. Needless to say, I was pretty excited about this prospect. As soon as they got my paperwork ready, I borrowed a phone, called The Imp, and had her run me out to Dancer's place so I could surprise her. Scared the hell out of her, actually. Pretty funny stuff.

Anyway, that was 2 days ago or so. In the intervening time, righteous indignation has begun to settle in. I talked to my lawyer today and he gave me the go-ahead to start looking for work with the plan of getting me on a work-release program when I go back.

Good.

Thank God!

I am so fucking sick of being out of work and broke as a joke that I could fucking scream!!!! Don't get me wrong. I'm not a greedy man by nature. I'm really not. In fact, as far as personal possessions go, I'm a bit of a minimalist. But, my God, I feel lower than whale-shit not being able to pay my own way. Not being able to buy my daughter the things she wants. Not being able to even so much as take The Dancer and her boys out to dinner, much less offer to help her out financially. I fucking hate it. So. That's gonna change.

Now.

In addition to finding a job, any job, my old pal Ford and I are now brainstorming to find a way to make TerriblyWrongOnline.com pay a bit. So far, we've come up with the idea of putting some banner ads up and we are expanding our merchandise line. This means the return of the "Mace Thong", among other things. Yes, ladies. Now you too can sit on my face. *Big stupid grin* Seriously though... We did have these things before. Oddly enough, that thong was the only item that we ever sold more than one of at our online store.

Now, I know what you are thinking. "Mace is finally selling out." Well guess what. You're damn right I am. I'm ever bit the idealist I was in my youth... But I have had to grow up. My material needs are minor. But if I can't take care of the people I love, I am nothing. Period.

And as the Stiff Little Fingers said in their song "Straw Dogs"...

Fight for Freedom
But not for free!

The break-neck pace of freedom

Hard to believe I've only been out for 5 days. Between spending Friday at the DMV and Social Security, and the weekend I am just now wrapping up, it seems like a lot longer.

Saturday was just plain awesome! Most fun I've had with my cloths on in ages. The day itself was pretty boring, and more than a little depressing considering I had just found out that Nikkita will be unable to come up here to see me on her vacation. I was sitting around doing basically nothing and suddenly I had plans! A friend of mine from Myspace.com, who, for the purposes of this blog, I will refer to henceforth as The Dancer, got ahold of me and we went to this little bar down in St. Charles called "The Corner Bar" to see her friend's band play. This band had the most brilliant name I've ever heard. Honky Tonk G-Spot. They were a country/blues/rockabilly band. The crowd at the bar way the crowd you would expect for a band of this type.

I wore my kilt.

Needless to say, it was an interesting night. I drank. I danced. I got groped by a couple of random women, which was cool... first time in months I've had a hand on my ass that wasn't mine. The Dancer is an absolute hoot to hang out with, as are her friends. We went out for food after the show, though I didn't actually eat.

I rolled into the house at about 3:30am or so. Talked to Ford for a bit and went to sleep.

At about 1:45pm, I was woken from a DEEP sleep by a phone call. After saying hello to my hangover, I talked to Nikkita for a little while, which is always a good thing.
After that, I spent some time online chatting with various folks, Including The Dancer, Bible-girl and the Earth-mother. Then, of course, I watched to Superbowl with my mom and Dad. Sharky stopped by to bring my dad some "Half-time snacks", consisting of Bean dip and some of the smallest steamed shrimp I've ever seen. Damn land-locked state.

After the game, I talked to Nikkita for a bit online, then went to Denny's for coffee with Sugar and Bible-girl. We had a pretty good time, but it ended up being much more interesting than I expected...

The Imp was our waitress.

The bad news on this is it dredged up a lot of bad feelings and such. The good news is that the coffee ended up being free and the service was good... though she ended up sitting down and talking to us for quite a while.

Geez that was uncomfortable.

Exercises in the Unexpected

Ok. Check this out. Near the end of January, I was getting pretty dispondant. I'd recieved very little mail from friends and family. The food in jail was driving me nuts, and no matter how much I was reading, it never seemed to sufficiantly take my mind off of my situation.

On January 30th, at about 1:00pm or so, I was listening to Shortshit, a career criminal who's been in lock-up in various states on and off for 12 years, give a little lecture to the Scarecrow, 187, and The Living Ham about the differences between jail and prison. He was going on and on about how prison is so much better than jail. We were all humoring him right up until he said the most assinine thing I could think of for him to say...

"Warren County, of all the places I've been, is the hardest time I've ever done."

At that point I stood up, told him he was full of shit and stalked off. I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing up reading State of Fear by Micheal Crichton and starting on Life Expectancy by Dean Kotntz. (Two VERY good bbooks, by the way). At 5:00pm, dinner was served and was actually not TOO bad, for jail food. It came and went without incident. At 6:00pm, mail-call happened...

And my name was called.

Foreskin, a C.O. with a shaved head and a taste for turtle-neck shirts, was holding aloft a very large envelope. I took it... and saw it was from Nikkita.

I ran over two drug dealers and a murderer in the process of running back to my cell to read it. They we a bit cranky about that when it happened.

Anyway, I plop down on my bunk and emptied the envelope. Fifteen type-written pages, plus a bunch of photographs... I was absolutely ecstatic! Almost an hour later, I immerged from my cell with a big, stupiud grin on my face, and showed off the pictures to 187 and a couple of other guys. They all agreed with me that Nikkita was really hot and several of them commented on my improved mood. Quirk (my celly) said that this was much bebtter than having the biggest guy in the C-pod stalking around looking like he was gonna eat somebody. After that, I went back to my cell and immediately started writing my responce...

Which took the better part of the night.

The next day was uneventful appart from me kicking the crap out of Bitch-tits and Pops (an 82 year old inmate) at Scrabble, and another visit from the doctor about my foot.

This brings me to Febuary 1.

The day started normally. I got up, ate my and Quirk's breakfast (Quirk can't stand the stuff... gotta love that in a celly), watched Charmed on TNT with Digger and Otis, read the rest of 1 Corinthians, and got my commisary order in. After that, I was laying in my bunk writing a letter to Nikkita when I heard a call for Bunk-and-junk (Which means that you are getting released) in the common room. I didn't catch the name, but figured that they were letting Pops go, finally.

That was when Spider, Quirk, 187 and the Living Ham suddenly appeard in my cell.

"Hey, Holyman! They called for you to bunk-n-junk!"

Needless to say, I didn't believe them. So I hopped on the intercom and asked the Co.O if they had called for me. Nicole (the C.O. who was in the bubble at the time), said, "Yeah. Gabel. Bunk-and-junk."

"Riiiiiiiight!!!!" I said, rather loudly, figuring that they were fucking with me. I laid back down on my bunk and continued writing. My first out-date wasn't until March 10, 2006.

A few miunutes later, Nicole called for me again. At that point, I was more than a bit confused, but packed up my shit anyway and headed for the door. I got as far as booking and asked what the fuck was going on. It turns out that when the doctor saw me on January 31st, he was so pissed about the poor medical care I was getting there, he wrote a recommendation to the judge that I be given a 5 week medical furlough.

The judge signed it.

And I was rather unceremoniously, and without warned, kicked out of jail.

So. There I am. Standing on the street with all of my earthly possession in a clear plastic bag and no idea how I'm getting home. I stopped in at Phillygirl's office (Who was abbsolutely stunned to see me) and made a few calls bbut had no luck finding a ride. After visiting for a bit, I began the 5 mile walk home...

About half way there, a converstion van stopped and the drive leaned out the window and said "You just get out?" (The bag is a BIG clue to a fellow ex-con). I said yeah and he asked were I was going. I told him I lived out on Highway W, and he told me to hop in and gave me a lift home.

I walked thru the door to my parents house, gave mom the details on what was going on, and immediately called Nikkita, who was almost as happy to hear my voice as I was to hear her's.

The afternoon was spent calling friends and messaging people to let them know I was out. When my little girl got off school, she was so excited to see me that she squealed and tried to climb into the van thru the window. As soon as she hugged me I burst into tears and had to hang on to her for a minute until I had collected myself.

Last night I talked to Meesh on the phone.... his monitor blew up, but he's hoping to be back online tonight. I also commended Ford on the job he did on the site while I was gone and talked to Nikkita for a long time...

And slept in a comfortable bed.

So.

Yeah.

I'm back.

Miss me?

A Study In Tedium

Day 16

Jail really isn’t that bad, except for the being almost completely incommunicado is driving me fucking bananas. It kills me that snail-mail is really the only way I have to communicate with my friends and loved ones. So far, I’ve received exactly two pieces of mail… One from Phillygirl, which I believe may have been put in the mail within hours of my arrival here, and one from my Mom, which I requested (pictures of my daughter).

As far as my activities here go… well, there is seriously not much to tell other than that I finished reading the Old Testament of the Bible in two weeks. I decided when I did that, that I was going to take my time with the New Testament and only read one book of it per day.

Oh, I did have something interesting happen last week. Some of you (a few anyway) may remember Foxglove from the old site. Well, I was sitting in C-Pod’s common area last week and I saw her daughter walk by our window in an orange jumpsuit (sigh). Oh well, She was only here for a three day shock, but that’s really not the fucking point. It still bothered the piss out of me.

Aside from that, little man, and two visits from my Mom, I haven’t had any contact from anybody I knew out in the world.

I miss Nikita something awful.

As a point of interest, I made a friend and did a good deed yesterday. Just after dinner, The Cuban walked up to me and asked if I could help him with something. When I asked what it was he explained to me that while he spoke reasonably good english, he could not read or write it. He then asked me if I could help him write a letter to his wife, so I did. He’s a federal and will not be here a whole lot longer, but still… good to have friends.

Besides, it’s little shit like that that’s gonna keep me from completely losing my mind when I feel like I’ve just been forgotten.

Today was commissary day, which meant that all the crap we ordered this week has come in. Commissary day is always pretty entertaining, watching the inmates settle up their debts with one another. Warren Co. Jail is a non-smoking facility. This means that there are no cigarettes to use as currency like you see in the movies. The currency of choice in this place?

Ramen noodles.

Yes, fucking Ramen noodles.

Watching all this shit getting traded back & forth once a week is filppin’ hilarious.

My only real beef with the commissary is the expense… And they call us criminals! Imagine, if you will, having to do 100% of your grocery shopping at 7-11. Yes, it’s that expensive. Oh well. At least I’ve got my envelopes, Ramen noodles, and coffee.


John Gabel
Warren County Detention Facility
104 West Main St. Suite A
Warrenton, MO 63383

Life In An Orange Jumpsuit

At the time that I write this, I have been in jail for twelve days. To state the obvious, jail SUCKS.

My first night, the cell I was assigned to had two other people in it already. I would like to mention here the cells are only designed to hold two people. Needless to say, things were a bit cramped. Also, as it turned out, one of my cellmates is the father of a little girl whose mother I spent a month banging a few years ago. They have since gotten back together, and since I am the only other man she has ever been with, it has become kind of a running joke between us.

I had arrived late enough on my first day to have missed breakfast, which was a good thing. Lunch consisted of a bologna & cheese sandwich (and has every day since), and dinner was mystery meat. The food here is enough to turn a rodent sick, but I am slowly getting used to it. By the time I get out of here, Waffle House will be looking pretty good.

The worst thing about jail, other than the food, and missing your loved ones, is boredom. My God, I have been bored! But really other than that it’s not been too bad. I’ve been passing the time by reading the Bible (which I’ve read about 2/3 of in the last 12 days) and playing Scrabble with a couple of druggies, an accused murderer, and a guy who had a shoot-out with the cops.

The people in jail seem to fall into four classifications. There’s the guys awaiting trial (my scrabble buddies), they are, for the most part, nice fellows, but really stressed. There’s the federals… guys awaiting transport to other facilities. They can get a bit loud at times, but who can blame ‘em? There’s the misdemeanors… guys who, for the most part, wouldn’t be here if they had lawyers. And there’s shock-time… people like me who are in for short sentences, but have much longer ones hanging over their heads.

People make jail out to be horrifying, but it serriously ain’t THAT bad. My biggest complaint about this particular jail is the same complaint everybody else in this place has. They haven’t passed out razors in fourteen days. Everybody is furry, itchy, and cranky. Shit, I’ve got a full beard for the first time since I went bald, and I’m rapidly developing a Captain Picard rim.

Anybody who wants to drop me a line in here, please do so…

John Gabel
Warren County Detention Facility
104 West Main St. Suite A
Warrenton, MO 63383