I let the endorphins kick in as I sipped my latte in the rain while riding down Agoura on my bike with no hands. I passed over the Malibu Creek flood channel as it whooshed brown muddy water down the concrete slopes. This is my morning, it was fantastic compared to yesterday. At the facility, the pilot light broke, rendering the whole place without warm water or heat, since each room was supplied with, effectively, a long radiator. Meals on Sundays are pretty bad, but I usually don't care because my parents or friends come by and I'm always well fed in their presence.

There is, in my mind, nothing better than that.

But I was forced to go to chow to get something to eat because I spent too much money on Saturday eating out of the vending machines, mostly sodium-laden Lunchables. I skipped past the steamed hot dog for dinner, and opted to eat iceberg lettuce and canned peaches instead. I believe in freedom of choice, and I choose to abstain. Sundays drag by when there's no visit, and all the exciting football games happened on Saturday. Boy, how I wish that a missed field goal were the height of my problems!

I started Band of Brothers after finishing Atonement, hoping to stay along with the WWII theme. But Sunday was spent in the TV room watching the season premier of 24 and playing rummy or watching people play Monopoly, which is always boring after there are no more properties to buy. Somewhere in that time frame (the whole day was one boring slow-version-of-a-blur. Smear, I guess) the fire alarms started acting up again. It was only a false alarm, but there was a moment when I stood up from my hand of rummy and actually felt that they were going to round us up in the tennis courts in the rain like they did last time.

In the morning, it was obvious that visitation was going to be cancelled. A flooded park will do that. Lightning and thunder and tornadoes might be a positive alternative to that grey morning. The coffee machine was broken, and while I normally don't go down to eat breakfast on Sundays, I had to be warmed up somehow and the chow hall percolator was the only machine in the building generating hot water. I skipped past the creamed beef on toast for breakfast, and opted to eat cereal instead. I believe in freedom of choice, and I choose to abstain.

As we stood in line waiting to be served what other inmates call "SOS" or "shit on a shingle" (and what I refer to as "cat food"), I stood in the chainlink-bound mezzanine that connects the chow hall to the main residence. If you look hard enough, you can focus your vision beyond the chainlink fence and trick your brain into thinking it's not there. But there's always a cold wind that causes you brace yourself, adjust, and realize that there exists a very tangible barrier between you and the horizon. I shake myself out of my reverie and talk to an inmate behind me, and he lets me gripe about my fucked up Sunday morning. As the resident Charger fan, my heartbreak is mildly condoned, though they agree that all-around, this isn't the best of conditions. "Man, the only thing that would make this weekend worse," I jokingly add, "is if we have a fire drill."