Not sure I can do this

My doctor wants me to write about my past.  More specifically, my rape.  Considering I'm having trouble just looking at the word, I don't know how far I'm going to get.  I was 18.  I used to go out clubbing with a male friend of mine who was going to the local university.  There was always a group of us.  Because we used to stay out so late and I lived 30 minutes away, he'd sneak me into his dorm and let me stay in his room.  His roommate was never there, so I would sleep in his bed.  Mom wasn't thrilled but she knew the guy and trusted him.

One weekend in February of 1984 we went out and his roommate was with us.  I remember feeling uncomfortable around him but that might have been because I didn't know if I was going to have a place to sleep that night.  I remember us going somewhere, to someone's house/apartment, but I don't remember who it was or where it was.  It may have been someone who was going out with us, but I don't remember.

Actually, I remember very little about that night, but what I do remember has affected me ever since.  I don't remember where we went, what happened while we were out, or what time we came back to the dorm.  I do remember my state of mind at the time was more along the lines of "why not do _______," instead of "why do  _______."  I remember making out with both my friend and his roommate.  We had put some blankets and pillows on the floor between the beds.  We were all still dressed.  My friend was chewing on my ear, which I didn't care for, so I asked him to stop.  This hurt his feelings, so he got up and left.

That was it for me, too.  I told the roommate I was going to go to sleep, then I took my little overnight bag into the bathroom and changed into my nightgown.  A bright green, knee-length, 70's daisy print nightgown that had been my sister's.  Not exactly sexy lingerie.

I went back to the room and dropped my bag on the floor.  The roommate was in his bed, his back towards me.  My friend's bed was the one next to the door.  I had left the door cracked because I didn't know if he had taken his keys with him.  I crawled into his bed and pulled up the covers.

I never heard him.  My back was towards him and I thought his back was towards me.  All I know is that I was grabbed, turned onto my back, the covers were pulled down, my underwear taken off, and the roommate forcing himself on me.  I was petrified.  He was so much bigger than I was.  I couldn't scream, no sound would come out.  I kept looking out the crack in the door hoping my friend would come back.  At some point I closed my eyes and willed myself to be somewhere else.  My mind went, my body stayed.

I don't remember falling asleep.  I remember waking up.  My friend was asleep in a chair at the foot of his  roommate's bed.  I don't know how I looked or what I said, but he came over to me and hugged me.  I pleaded with him to never, ever leave me alone with "him" again, but I could not verbalize why.  That would eventually cost me my friendship with him.

I couldn't figure out what had happened.  I remember going home and telling my mom, and she wanted to take me to the hospital.  I wouldn't let her.  I kinda wish she'd have been more assertive.  I tried to block everything out.  I know I told a classmate (at business school), and whatever I told him, he immediately figured out I had been raped.  He wanted me to tell him the guy's name, but I wouldn't.  I just figured it was my fault it happened so what was the point in going after the guy.  I remained in denial for many, many years.  In some ways I still am.

Been too long

I know, I know...I haven't been writing.  My defense is I've been under a tremendous amount of stress and lately have been under the weather.  Not sure where I left off, but...

I had planned on going to Portland, OR, for Con Con 2 (Leverage convention) in early June.  Last weekend they posted the ticket prices.  GEEZ!!  If I wanted to go all three days (which I did) the cheapest ticket package was $200.  On top of that, they were charging $45 for autographs and $15 for pictures for each actor!  And Christian Kane isn't going to be there.  Add that to plane tickets that cost over $900 and, well, I'm not going.  All that wasn't even taking into consideration hotel and food.  So now I'm thinking of taking in the fall Charlotte race instead.

Long time no see

Yeah, I know.  It's been a while.  I've been in a deep funk and can't seem to climb out of it.  The stress of always having to be there for my mom is getting to me, along with everything else.  I guess this is what they call a "major depressive episode" or something like that.  I need help but can't find it.  I called the local behavioral health facility and they said none of their psychiatrists are reviewing new cases.  WTF?  NO ONE?  So what am I supposed to do?  I don't want to drive to Biloxi or Slidell, I want someone close to home.  There's one other doc I could call, but she is in a bad part of town.  Considering it may be dark when I leave, I'm not interested in that.  Then I'd be adding "fear for own safety" to my list of issues.  And I'm NOT going back to the public mental health facility.  They are useless.  Besides, one of my neighbors works there and she's the last person I want knowing what's going on in my life.  So am I making excuses?  I sure as hell hope not.

The Christmas holiday is upon us.  A time when people spend more than they have to celebrate the birth of someone who didn't do what they think he did.  On top of that, he wasn't born in winter.  I guess I shouldn't get tangled in that again.  I've already written a blog for that.

I can't believe Congress passed a tax law that increases taxes on people making $30,000 or less but decreases taxes for people making $50,000 or more.  Idiots.  And the president was behind it, too.  What a guy.  AND they froze my pay for the next two years.  I really don't like our government.

The Problem with Quoting the Bible

Lots of people quote the Bible.  Whenever someone needs justification for something they think or do, they just pull out "the book" and find a verse.  I have a problem with this.  Aside from the fact that you can find justification for anything and everything in the Bible, the biggest issue is the Bible is not a true account of the life of Jesus. 

The majority of people in this country, both Christian and non-Christian alike, believe the Bible was written as it is published today - whole and complete.  This is not so.  The Bible is not really a "book" in the traditional sense, with chapters that are intended to be read from beginning to end, in sequence.  The Bible is a compilation of individual books, each telling a different story from a different point of view.  These books were never written to be combined with other books.  Each was intended to stand alone, apart from anything else written at the time (or after).  The earliest of these books was written at least 35 years after Jesus died by someone who didn't know Jesus.  The rest were written later by the same type of people.  In a couple cases, the later books used the first as a source, but changed key points.  This explains why there are four separate stories of Jesus' life with different details and different conclusions.

The Bible was compiled over two hundred years after Jesus died.  At the time there were many different Christian groups who claimed to be teaching what Jesus taught, even though most groups' teachings were diametrically opposed to each other.  Eventually one group's views won out over the rest, and theirs are the views that are presented in the Bible.  That doesn't mean their views were the "right" ones, just that their group was the one with the most power and influence.  This group found books that supported their views, gathered them together, and declared them "holy writ."  All the books supporting other views were outlawed and a great effort was made to destroy them.  This effort failed, evidenced by the fact that over the last 100 years or so many of the books have been recovered.

Regardless of all this, even if the stories in the Bible were true, the circumstances at the time of their composition do not exist today.  Any time someone quotes something from the Bible they are automatically quoting it out of context, simply because what exists today wasn't even dreamed of 2000 years ago.  Some have gone so far as to try to adapt the Bible to current situations, but once that is done it isn't really the Bible anymore.  It's a new book.

Most people today aren't interested in who Jesus really was.  Thankfully, there are a few who are.  These are the people who have dedicated their lives to reconstructing as best they can the historical evidence of Jesus' life.  The most shocking thing to be discovered, in my opinion, is that the original documents used for the construction of the Bible are lost forever.  We do not know, nor can we ever know, what the texts of that time period actually said.  All that's left are copies.  Copies made by scribes who often couldn't read or write, who were just copying what they saw on a page without comprehending what they were doing.  Mistakes were inevitably made.  Even when the scribes were literate, they would sometimes intentionally change words they thought better conveyed what the author actually meant.  Something else that happened, which people today for the most part refuse to acknowledge, is that texts were altered because what was said didn't quite go along with what the "church fathers" had decided was the "official" view.

In the end, quoting from the Bible is like quoting from Mark Twain.  It may sound good and support your point, but it is fiction nonetheless.  My hope is that there will be more people who will seek the historical Jesus, and with future technological advances will be able to come closer to the truth.

WARNING: BEING BORN WILL KILL YOU!! Could this be happening to the children in your neighborhood?

I re-watched the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear today.  Yeah, it had some slow spots, but on the whole it was impressive.  Yusuf's performance (even though it was broken up by Ozzy Osbourne's performance) was the highlight for me, not counting Jon Stewart's final monologue.  How they kept that line-up of artists a secret amazed me.  They had to rehearse, right?  Thank goodness no one leaked the list.  It made for a very enjoyable and surprising three hours.

Our news media is a farce these days.  Local news isn't bad, but national??  Are you kidding?  You can't even watch the 30-minute evening news without some scare tactic.  Lighting ants on fire, indeed.  It's embarrassing to know this is apparently what the majority of people in this country prefer.  Makes me want to move out of the country.  Do Americans living in Europe have to pay the same taxes as Europeans?  If not, maybe I can go there.

I've got to get this desk put together.  Right now the computer is on a card table.  According to the instructions I'm not too far from putting it all together, but I'm going to need a drill to drill through some holes in the top.  I just HAD to have the hutch.

The Day After

So the election’s over.  Don’t know about you, but my neighbors voted out a good Congressman in favor of some joe who’s only platform was “Fire Pelosi.”  That’s not a good enough reason to ditch someone who has, generally speaking anyway, done a pretty good job for the area.  What I mean is he’s done nothing wrong.  He was a Democrat in name only, so the motivation for voting him out had nothing to do with his record or what he’s done for us.  He just wasn’t a Republican.  I saw something this morning that said every election is just a choice between whether we want our Empire to fail slowly or quickly.  How true.

Now the Republicans are going on and on about “the will of the people” and throwing around words like “mandate” and “landslide.”  From what I can tell, very few of the races were won by a large margin.  I already try to avoid the national news, now I’ll have to do a better job of it.  I can only imagine what the Fox News Network is looking like right about now.  I wonder if any of their “journalists” will explode with glee…one can only hope.

Who am I?

As far as you know, my name is Spencer and this is my blog.  I needed a place to write what I think without worrying if my friends or family will be offended.  Most often it will not be profound, but occasionally some profundity may seep in.  I'm mostly interested in religion (I'm agnostic), music, NASCAR, and my dogs, but that doesn't mean my posts will be limited to those topics.  I suffer from depression, anxiety, PTSD, insomnia, and a few other minor things.

What else?  Well, I love Terry Pratchett.  If you've never heard of him, he's an author.  Look him up.  I enjoy most types of music, although I can do without Opera and anything where the lead "singer" is screaming at me.  I'm not big on Country music, either, but there are a couple artists I like.  Whomever invented satellite radio, THANK YOU!  I do watch a little TV, but I don't like to spend all my time there.  I'd much rather chat with my friends.  I like Bones, House, Leverage, and almost any races on four wheels.

Sports?  NASCAR, baseball, and I'm getting into hockey.  Basketball is quite boring to me and football is only something to do on Sundays between Homestead-Miami and the Daytona 500.  That said, I am a fan of the Flyers, Phillies, Eagles, Cubs, and anyone who plays the Atlanta Braves.  I do not live in Philly, but was born and raised a Jersey girl.  I relocated in the Deep South due to my father's desire for warmer weather (it is quite literally Hell here).  I moved to Nashville briefly (nice place), and returned here to be near family.  I will eventually go back North.

There's way more to me than this, but what fun would it be telling all of it first thing?  LOL!