AMA Answers and More in Book Six: Trying to Hold On 2019

This is going to answer the Ask Me Anything Questions (something I encourage people to do at any time; but it is always good to remind people.) Obviously, after that… I’ll likely keep writing an actual entry. lol

(1) Have you read Missoula by John Krakauer? I’d love to get a prosecutor’s take on it.

Honestly, I’d never heard of the book until you mentioned it. Over the weekend, I brought up Sparks Notes and read the chapter by chapter summary. From those summaries… I can say with confidence that there isn’t a whole huge hell of a lot of difference between how that Prosecutor’s Office was depicted and how things are just about everywhere. There are universal truths in the law that absolutely SUCK and any time I try to discuss them with people, everybody gets upset… which, tragically (and very broken) is one way we consider Justice and Fairness. If everyone is upset; that is just because it didn’t favor one side over the other.
For example, during the Judge Kavanaugh issues.... I got into a heated debate with a Trumpist over why especially in the 1980s and before… a teen girl on a college campus would never go to the police! The individual tried to shout me down saying that police would investigate the crime being reported whether they believed it happened or not because that is what police do! I simply shook my head and responded, “Son, do you know what I do for a living?” Truth is… at least 4 times a day, I get an e-mail from an Officer or a Deputy saying, “Here’s what was reported. I’m not sure there’s anything to it. How would you advise?” And that’s TODAY in the MODERN ERA after three decades of “Take Sexual Assault Complaints Seriously” training. Can you imagine how different things were in the 1980s? I mean… remember… even the Anita Hill hearings happened in the 1990s!
On the other side of things, let’s say you have a police investigation that turns up proof of sexual contact. Not to directly quote from one of my current cases, but let’s say that you have a police investigation that proves sexual contact, DNA results confirm sexual contact, and the initial interview of the suspect results in that suspect explicitly stating, “We never had sex. I never touched her.” Sounds like an absolute slam dunk case that any prosecutor would love to take, right? Except… the initial statement doesn’t get in. And at trial, the defense relies on “It was consensual” defense stating that it was consensual but when she thought she’d get in trouble for having sex with him; then she said it was rape! Then, despite Rape Shield law saying that her sexual history can’t be discussed… they can hint strongly… and on cross-examination it is revealed that it is a widely known fact that she leaves her window open at night so that her boyfriends can sneak into the house. So this wasn’t a “break in and rape” this was a “sneak in and consensual sex”. Now… let’s make things even worse. Character of the Witness is always up for debate. While Defendant is allowed to refuse to testify… the victim in these cases not only must (typically) ALWAYS testify but often… she’s the only witness that the Jury hears from about what actually happened. So… you’ve got a teenage girl, on a college campus, “known for” keeping a pathway into her bedroom open… and now the Defense Lawyer goes after her background. Has she ever lied before? Does she know for certain that she effectively rescinded consent? Did you fight back? Did you shout out? (All the stuff that the book you read suggests people expect because they don’t know better… and even if you put on a witness to educate them; they almost always stick with their pre-conceived notions).

That’s why we get terrible rulings. While the Defendant can be seen as Football Captain Local Hero… he is never required to testify so his character can never be directly attacked on the stand. At best, we can try to say, “This is what his victim is stating. This is what the evidence shows!” And try to fight the defense lawyer tooth and nail for every Character Assassination Move they attempt on the victim. This is also why Sexual Assault is so under reported. Because people KNOW the system absolutely fails them in these cases. Sexual Assault victims are required to keep talking about their trauma multiple times. First, reporting it to the Police. Next, often, reporting it to Medical Team. Then reporting it to Prosecutor. Then going over it for Deposition. Then reciting it in Trial. Psychologists would say… every time she has to re-state what happened… it is re-traumatizing her. So our system rips out her soul at least 5 times. While also giving her attacker all the benefit of the doubt (legally) AND giving her attacker complete control over the case. Defense gets to choose IF there are depositions or not. Defense gets to choose IF the case has to be heard within 90 days of the charge being filed or not. Defense gets to choose IF the Defendant testifies or not. It is also why Prosecutors tend to try for plea deals that might otherwise seem REALLY shitty. Because essentially… the trial process works almost exclusively to beat the ever living fuck out of the Victim. And every prosecutor who takes these kinds of cases has seen a victim who says confidently, “I’m happy to testify!” and then after she goes through it… is destroyed and regrets it. So… unless it is a case that CAN’T POSSIBLY BE LOST… most prosecutors look for plea deals in sexual assault out of a desire to protect the victim (or their own careers).

Ultimately… the plea deal of 30 years all but 10 suspended? That’s a hell of a good deal for the victim… more than she would have been able to secure from us on my best day, and I hate to say that. Here? It would have been FAR more likely that the Defendant would have received a 5 years all but 2 suspended. That’s just… the frustrating, aggravating, painful failure in the system when it comes to sexual crimes. Which is why I get SO upset when my MRA friends and colleagues treat EVERY accusation like it is “almost certainly made up”. No, guys. The statistics suggest that if you hear 100 accusation, maybe 3 of them are fake. And to be fair… that is way too many… but 3 people being terrible doesn’t mean you should contribute to making it more difficult for the other 97 victims to get justice.

(2) As a non-comic book reader who is trying to broaden my horizons, any recommendations?

This is an excellent question that, of course, I would say is very hard to answer. lol :p :) There are a lot of different things that would go into a recommendation, not least of which is the kind of stuff you WANT to read and which kind of stuff you WANT to branch out into.

I tried to collect Spider-Man and X-Men Comics in the 1990s but timelines and crossovers and spinoffs… it absolutely DID get out of hand. I’d read an X-Men book and every other panel would have an asterisk (which meant basically “see also”). And it would get crazy. It would be like See Also: This month’s X-Factor to follow this story! then As Discussed in Last Month’s Excalibur #48 then Continue this Story in Wolverine #80. It got… yeah. You’d follow ONE comic book to try to read a story but they would require you to buy FIFTY comic books per month to actually TELL the story!!

Which led me to ditching Marvel Month by Month and sticking to Trade Paperbacks and Graphic Novel Collected Works. Ultimately, that is what I would recommend to anyone interested in Comic Books these days.

X-Men: Age of Apocalypse Series is a good one to grab (four volumes total)
X-Men: Onslaught

Pretty much any Marvel Franchise, I would recommend this format. Marvel: Civil War collected in a Volume… as opposed to trying to buy ALL of the Marvel Comic books for 2006 and 2007.

Now if you’re curious about DC, there are a number of ways to jump in there as well. But I’d still recommend Graphic Novels or TPB (Trade Paperbacks). There are the “Must Read Graphic Novels” like The Killing Joke or Death In The Family or The Dark Knight Returnsor The Long Halloween. But Batman isn’t the only one with books like that worth reading. All Star Superman is a fantastic one. Plus you can collect most of the New 52 runs in Trade Paper Backs if you’d like to catch up with that short-run attempt at reboots.

A great thing about doing it this way, too, is that if you DON’T want to go into a Comic Book Store but do want to go to a Brick and Mortar (to support business)… TPBs and Graphic Novels are found in just about every book store in the country. Barnes and Noble, Half Price Books, even a lot of Indee Stores have a few. Plus, you can always buy on Amazon just about anything and if you like it, Amazon can recommend things like the book you enjoyed.

I haven’t personally read them (though I REALLY should) but if you’re looking for something that ISN’T Marvel and DC, may I recommend Saga by Image Comics. Image REALLY deserves to be treated in a similar fashion as DC and Marvel but it makes sense how things developed. If DC is Samsung and Marvel is Sony then Image is L.G. Saga has been highly recommended to me by people both within the regular Comic Readers Circles and from outside of those circles.

(3) Why do you think you are so twisted about relationships? Is it all wife? If she was open and healthy and you guys had married once a week sex, do you still think you would rehash all the old relationship dynamics?

I’d like to pretend that the answer to this question is “Yeah, it’s all because of my current relationship” but that wouldn’t be the truth. The truth is: whether relationships, stage performances, grades, friendships… anything… my mind spends far too much time in the past.

It’s something I’ve long dealt with and tried to prevent. There was once a time in my life where I could just be sitting, doing nothing, just staring out the window… when all of a sudden my mind would just instantly jump to (and replay in agonizing detail) that time I messed up in Act 2 Scene 1 of Such and Such play. I would have a legitimate physical reaction to the memory. It would be like I was fucking it up all over again. THAT part has gotten better. It still happens occasionally, though. Like just the other day I was outside, waiting for the dog to finish pooping, enjoying a rare bit of sunshine… and my mind jumped to 2001, rehearsing for Arsenic and Old Lace, the director just fuming that things weren’t going how he wanted them to, when thunk… a prop he blamed me for losing fell on to the stage from where the PropMaster had misplaced it… and yet I was still the one he screamed at.

And… that’s how it goes. If it has high emotional content… my brain holds onto it and brings it out at random.

Obviously, it is worse with relationships. As a child, life was friendships and I wasn’t very good at them. Worse still, my Mom really wanted me to be “The Boy That Befriends The Outcasts” which… actually, NOT a healthy thing. Making sure I hung out with “The Strange Kid” was bad… as he would prove on a number of occasions. Wanting to make sure I was making contact with “The Quiet Girl” wasn’t always great… sometimes she was quiet because she was harboring some REALLY DARK SHIT that maybe I shouldn’t have been the sole person responsible for knowing? Mom’s heart was in a good place, of course. But… yeah.

Then of course… as soon as I hit 11 years old… it was all about dating. I had grown up hearing the romantic story of how Mom and Dad met in Jr. High School and blah blah blah. Every TV show, Song, Movie… all of them were about how a romantic relationship was awesome. Hell, even my Bible Study items! “God wants us to be in a relationship with other people. God wants us to get married. God wants us to wait for marriage to have sex.” The notion of “Find the woman for you” was… just… huge… huge and persistent. And.... really kind of screwed me up.

I remember that when Thompson (pseudonym) broke up with me in College… there was a solid month where I cannot tell you what was going on in ANY of my classes. I remember going to my classes… I have a really detailed memory of sitting in a Rock Lab for Geology and doing all of the Rock Experiments and Documenting the observable reactions.... but I can also tell you that I remember those visuals so well because all I was hearing in my head was my own emotional turmoil trying to figure out where I had failed and what I had done wrong and why I was never going to be happy. At no point in any of that did I think, “Okay. That didn’t work. Now you know something about Long Distance Relationships. Move on.”

So… I guess… hopefully, that is an answer to the question? I’ve kind of always been a mess and “off” when it comes to relationships… and as far as rehashing the past… it seems whether by desire or by reflex, my mind tends to play in the waves of time too much.

Unwanted politics break:

My head. Is about. To explode. I can’t… I just can’t stand the partisan bullshit anymore.
The Supreme Court (which is supposed to be apolitical) has ruled that it is acceptable for a business to refuse service to homosexuals on religious grounds. This came about because a Wedding Cake Store said that they would not sell a wedding cake for a gay wedding because their religion prohibits them from participating in a gay wedding.
MY AUNT’S STATEMENT: If selling a cake to gays is participating in a gay wedding; would selling a gun to school shooters be participating in a school shooting?
Conversely, Racist Cousin, who is constantly re-tweeting Pro NRA propaganda* has decided to come out and lecture America and The Media for not covering the Colorado School Shooting enough, citing the fact that the school shooter was anti-Trump, leftist, transgender.

This partisan bullshit. IF YOU RAIL AGAINST ANTI-GUN PEOPLE, YOU CAN’T THEN START SHOUTING FOR ANTI-GUN PEOPLE WHEN THE SHOOTER IS SOMEONE YOU DISAGREE WITH POLITICALLY. The tragic, barbaric, pathetic, painful reason why the Colorado School Shooting didn’t receive “the same kind of 24 hour news coverage you’d expect if it was a Trump Supporter!” (to use my cousin’s words)… is that school shootings have become commonplace. That fact alone should make us all weep. The fact that a school shooting with less than 20 dead isn’t considered “breaking news requiring coverage” is the REAL story. But… no. People are so blinded and poisoned by this Gang Warfare Mentality to Party. “Don’t you dare say a bad thing about guns!” becomes “Why aren’t you saying a bad thing about guns?!” and “Question the President at every turn!” under Bush gave way to “Stop questioning the President!” under Obama. Truly, I believe this is the sickness that will ultimately destroy our nation.

Something over the weekend reminded me that I should share this. So bare with me.

In High School, I was fortunate enough to date The Perfect Woman. Obviously, she isn’t technically perfect. She herself would list a fault or two. But this woman was and is saintly while still being real. She was smart. Read a lot. Played the Cello beautifully. Got into all the advanced classes. She was hot. Red hair. Giant breasts. Powerful legs. Excellent fashion sense that showed her as cute and sexy, while also still being covered and not hoochie. She was caring. Lovely person that genuinely sacrificed her time and talents to help the less fortunate. She was experienced in Jeet Kun Do. She liked Buffy the Vampire Slayer and bad Kung Fu Movies. She… really was perfect. And we dated! I even took her to my Junior Prom!!!

But here’s the thing. This was 3 years before we even started looking in to medication for me. This was during that very interesting, very brief period where I was starting to believe it when people said I was attractive… but where I was also still dealing with just… this ineffable, indescribable feeling of sad, pain, and anger.

My own sense of brooding got in my way and it got in our way. I never kissed her or showed her in any meaningful physical way how much she meant to me. We broke up specifically because she said I was someone she felt “could not find joy” and “wasn’t looking for it.” She wanted to be with someone with whom she could laugh and smile more. In other words… my own depression and bullshit got in my way and made a woman I still find perfect think that I could never be the guy for her. Now, granted, we’re still friends and she absolutely found the right guy for her! The wonderful joy they bring each other and their children… I mean, hell. That little family of 4 carries with it the joy and love of a thousand people!

And do you know what happened to me after Perfect broke up with me? In a few months time, I was dating Aku… the psychotic abusive Senior Year destroying girl. So process that. Since I was unable to be joyful while dating The Perfect Woman; I allowed myself to be miserable with The Awful Woman.

But that story is important for three reasons.
(1) When it comes to my happiness? I’m shit about it. I mean… the medication has helped immensely. Realizing that not everyone else on earth goes through the body pain I do… that helped! Imagine going through life with a parasite in you; but you assume everyone has a parasite in them, and you just suck at dealing with it more than everyone else. THAT is who I was until my diagnosis. And getting a diagnosis and starting on medication has helped. But I’m still not a joyful, carefree, cartwheels in the meadow kind of guy. And I never will be. Even as a small child, my joyful moments were often me, alone, reading a book. In law school, my joyful moments were me, sitting with study friends, creating hilarious hypothetical situations to apply the law we were studying to. Studying for the bar, my joyful moments were me, alone in the apartment, playing Destiny online. And none of those were truly joy. When reading, I’d often feel bad that I wasn’t playing with others like everyone else. When in Law School, I would often take note that all the other Husbands had food lovingly prepared by their wives and I did not. Studying for the bar, I was at one of the absolute lowest points of my marriage. I’m just… not great at joy or Happy.
(2) When it comes to getting in your own way and causing yourself misery when you shouldn’t? I understand that to its deepest core. I understand in no small terms how a feeling of personal unease, dismay, anger, pain… how all the things that live inside someone can ruin anything and everything for all time. And I can understand how nothing external changes that. I was with what (in High School) I would have called my dream girl and still couldn’t find it in me to be “more happy.” So with Wife? I get it. We could be obscenely wealthy, with a staff to tend to the house and lawn, and the ability to send her to school over and over again as she looks for some purpose in her life… and she still won’t be happy, won’t get out of her own way. Because it isn’t about those external factors. It never will be.
(3) I have a greater understanding and an even greater respect for The Perfect Woman now. It is important to make sure you surround yourself with people who lift you up. Not “make sure the people around you are all about you” lift you up… but more passively, “Being around them makes you like you just because.” It probably wasn’t easy for her to say, “I deserve better than a guy who’s never happy.” It probably was pretty hard for her to watch me self-destruct so tremendously afterwards. But when all of that was over… we were still friends. We still hung out. I was still in her wedding. We don’t see each other almost at all anymore… but I still consider her a friend and hope she still considers me a friend as well. And I respect that she eventually decided, “I need to do this for me.”

And that’s where I am with all of that in my own life right now.
Acknowledging that… I’ve never been the “happy guy” and I’m always more “comfortable” than “Happy.” Acknowledging that… I do absolutely understand getting in your own way, how one’s own depression and baggage can make everything dark and grey and that no external factor, no matter how good, is going to affect change. Acknowledging that… at some point, it is important to just say, “I need to do this for me” and create separation so that someone else’s negativity doesn’t drown you.

Couple’s Counseling in 19 days
Dog Trainer in 21 days
Prosecutor’s Convention with Wife and Dog in 27 days.