2002-06-08-6:24 p.m.

Daniel's baseball team had a pool party at the prison today and we swam a lot, played frisbee, keepaway football. It was strange to look around at all the barbed wire and razor wire around the buildings. And I was a little scared to go in the restroom because I figured that would be a perfect place for an inmate to hide until sundown, but the prison used to be the Navy base where I spent my childhood and it was nice to remember what everything used to be.

We drove by the enlisted pool where I swam with my friends and brother and sister every summer. The library is torn down. I spent a lot of time in there, especially when we lived on the base for a few weeks. I could walk over there and get a whole stack of Nancy Drew or Janet Lambert books and drag them back to the trailer and read all afternoon while I listened to the air conditioner hum.

The theater where I saw The Sting and Soylent Green and... lots of other stuff is still there, and the mess hall where we'd eat breakfast sometimes and drink ourselves silly on chocolate milk.

Now it's all turned into a prison and there sure is a heck of a lot of barbed wire.

We're all tired and sunburned. I tried to take a nap, but I ate too much chocolate cake to be able to go to sleep. Megan and I spent a few minutes organizing the clean laundry all over my bed, but gave up. Now Becky's taking a nap in a little cleared space and Andrew's sitting on the floor beside me making Betty Spaghetti people and showing them to me. His face is bright pink and he's got his pajamas on. I can hear Stan emptying the ice chest and there's a song on the radio: "There's a difference in livin' and livin' well..."

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