Hey.
So I'm in federal prison now. Long story. Actually it's not that long, it's just ██████████. Shit happens.
Anyway.
I've been reading a lot. The library here has exactly one book I care about: HTML for the World Wide Web from 1999. There's a chapter on "publishing your web page to GeoCities." I've read it four times. Not because it's useful. Because it's the closest thing to a religious experience I can have in here.
My cellie is a guy named Big Ron. He's in for ██████████ ███ ████████. I asked what he did before prison. He said "logistics." I said "oh like supply chain?" He just stared at me. We don't talk about his work anymore.
Big Ron asked what I did. I tried to explain. He said "so like hacking?" I said "not exactly." He said "can you hack my baby mama's Instagram." I said no. He asked every day for three weeks. I finally told him my buddy on the outside tried but fucked it up and now it's "too encrypted." He respects me now.
The food here follows a strict schedule. Tuesday is chicken. Wednesday is burger. Thursday is chicken. Friday is fish. Saturday and Sunday vary, which means chicken. Monday is ██████████ but it looks like chicken. I'm autistic. I like routine. But holy shit, not like this. This is too much routine. I now understand why people fight over commissary ramen.
Speaking of the economy. Stamps are 50 cents each but a book of them costs $10. A $2.10 bag of chips sells for $8 if you want it now. Everything else is double. Someone tried to explain the logic to me using a napkin diagram and I swear to god it was more sophisticated than most DeFi whitepapers I've ever fucking read. The invisible hand works different in here.
I started teaching a business class. Unofficial. Just me and whoever shows up. We talk about pricing, margins, customer acquisition, market positioning. The drug dealers are my best students by far. They already understand all of it intuitively. I'm basically just giving them vocabulary. One guy named Terrance took notes and said "this is just what I was doing but with words." He's in for ██████████. Dude had a 40% margin before he got caught. That's better than most SaaS companies.
The K2 problem here is fucking wild. Guys smoke that synthetic shit and just ████████ ███ ██████████. Last week someone thought he was a ██████ and tried to ████████ ███ █████████. Another guy just stood in the corner for six hours making a noise. Not words. Just a noise. The COs didn't even react. That's how often this shit happens.
I've joined the book club. It's me, a guy who exclusively reads Tom Clancy, a guy who exclusively reads the Bible, and a guy named Professor who claims he wrote the original draft of ████████████ before ██████ ██████ stole it. We're currently reading The Count of Monte Cristo. Every week Professor explains that Dantes' revenge was "amateur hour" compared to what he would have done. Nobody asks follow up questions.
I've been playing a lot of basketball. Not real basketball. I can't do that. But pig, horse, around the world—that I can do. Turns out I'm actually good at it. And whenever I beat a black dude, which happens more than you'd think, all the other black dudes give him absolute hell for the rest of the day. "You lost to the white boy?" "The hacker got you?" It's relentless. I have basketball street cred now. This is the strangest timeline.
Also whenever the TVs fuck up everyone looks at me. "Yo, hacker, fix the TV." I'm not that kind of hacker. That's not how any of this works. But I go up there and unplug it and plug it back in and it works and now I'm the TV guy too. The bar is so low it's underground.
Things I've learned:
- I am bad at spades. Catastrophically bad. People have lost commissary betting on me. Not with me. On me. Against their own goddamn interests. That's how bad.
- The optimal shower time is ████ because ██████████.
- If someone asks if you're "good," the correct answer is always yes. Even if you're not. Especially if you're not.
- Honey buns do not expire. Or if they do, nobody here cares.
Things I miss:
- ████████
- ██████████ ███ ██████
- Mechanical keyboards
- Choosing what to eat
- Making ██████████ amounts of █████
Things I don't miss:
- People asking me to look at their startup idea
- People asking me what ████████████ is worth
- Standing desk discourse
Someone started a rumor that I ██████████ ███████ ████████ ██████ from ██████. I didn't correct them. The social capital has been useful as hell. A guy gave me his chicken quarter last week just because he "respects the hustle." I don't know what hustle he thinks I did. I took the chicken.
My lawyer says ████████ ██████ ███ ████████████ ██████ which is ██████████ but also ████████. So that's where we are.
I've had a lot of time to think. About life. About choices. About whether I'd do anything differently. The answer is ██████████ ███ ██████████ ███ ████ ██████████ ████████ ██████ ███ ████████ ██████████. But that's between me and my journal.
The sunsets here are actually beautiful. That feels weird to say. But they are. There's a window in the common area and every evening the sky does this thing where it goes all orange and purple and for like ten minutes everyone just shuts up and watches. Even the guys who ██████████ ███ ████████. It's the only time this place is quiet. Well, except when someone's on K2. Then it's never quiet.
Anyway. I'm fine. Really. The food is ██████, the company is ██████████, and my lawyer says I'll be out in ██████████. So basically living the dream.
Write back if you want. Or don't. Mail call is the highlight of my day either way, and I mean that in the most depressing way possible.
Later.
P.S. If anyone asks, I ██████████ ███ ████████████ ██████ ███ ██████████. That's my official position now.
18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2)
The HTTP 451 status code is a reference to Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451, in which books are outlawed.