Baltimore, Virginia

I dreamed I got sentenced to four years in a state penitentiary in Baltimore, which was in Virginia. The reason for my incarceration was unclear, but it had something to do with a fortune cookie theft for which Bette Davis was actually to blame. I wondered why I'd been sent all the way to Virginia, which contained Baltimore, and I decided that the cookie factory must have been there. First thing first and I got in trouble for bringing a dildo to the women's prison. Sigh. But it was a minimum security place, so minimum that I got day passes to hang out in Baltimore quite often. I saw my friend China on the Avenue, and it so happened that she'd just been released from the very same prison. She lent me her prison waitress uniform so I could get a job inside. This was excellent, as I'd been worrying about how I was going to pay for Maia's college if I was, in fact, in prison. The dildo incident didn't bode well for good-behavior early-release. But then I discovered that my new waitressing job was only going to earn me prison wages -- a dollar an hour. A dollar an hour doesn't add up very fast even if you don't have to pay rent. Maia came to visit me and asked the warden if I would now be considered a Virginia resident, thus entitling her to in-state tuition at Virginia schools. The warden thought yes. After Maia left and my day passes ran out, I sat in my cell, bored out of my mind. I thought, But this was my dream--to have cloistered alone-time away from all the responsibilities and daily tasks of the outside world. Why am I not writing my book? I have all the time in the world. But I wrote no book. I thought about fortune cookies a lot, and Bette Davis, and where I was going to get the money to pay for Maia's college, and how it was starting to get cold in Baltimore, Virginia.