My last post talked about how I might have a need to patronize certain businesses where some of my girlfriends work.  I've been trying to save money lately, so I've cut back on that kind of thing quite a bit, but I might feel like I need to resume that circuit for the time being.

I've also been getting the boys together again.  That would be Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, Toshiro Mifune, and all that lot.  I don't know if I actually want to sit through Seven Samurai again, I've seen it a million times, but I've already watched the necessary clips from Once Upon a Time In The West and Sanjuro.  I also busted out the beginning of Yojimbo, but I pretty much stopped it where Mifune offers his services to the warring gangs.  Sergio Leone based Fistful of Dollars on Yojimbo, so that'll give the people out there an idea.

As far as my unusual thoughts about how the shit might hit the fan sooner rather than later for me, those kinds of thoughts go in and out like the tide.  A couple of days ago I noticed that these unusual thoughts ebbed a bit from their typical intensity, but they came back last night.  The most helpful thing that happens is that the upcoming date will pass and I'll return to a bit of an equilibrium afterwards, or more accurately, some days before the actual date comes to pass- if my past experiences with this sort of thing bear out this time as well.

I find myself having to patronize businesses and spend money that I'd rather not spend to help me get back on an even keel for the next several weeks.  I might also need some new girlfriends at some of these businesses I patronize.  I think at least a couple of my girlfriends at these businesses I patronize might have quit their jobs and moved on.  One was real nice to me the last time I saw her. I wrote about her a lot over the Summer, and I'm glad that she doesn't seem to have any issues with me.  I don't think I have any issues with her either.  If she's moved on to another job, that'd be a shame, because she's really pretty.

Found my Flatlanders CD.  It lay between the passenger side front seat and the door.  I found the Neil Young CD too.  As long as we are on the subject of music I like, I'm listening to the Jam right  now.  I bet a lot of people can just access this stuff on Spotify, so they should search for a Jam song called, "Man in The Corner Shop."  I just finished listening to "Town Called Malice," another good Jam song.

I looked on my web host's site, and it said they count unique visitors and page views differently now.  That would account for the drastic drop in how many unique visitors and page views per week register for my site.  Oh well, I guess I can't blame Invis for that either.

A few weeks ago I bought a Flatlanders CD on Amazon.  It's titled More a Legend Than a Band.  It's a '90's era reissue of their early '70's material.  Those songs really meant a lot to me when I recorded them off the radio when I attended SVA in 1990.  Sooo, anyhoo, I rip the newly acquired CD to my computer, but I decide I would also like to listen to it on the CD player in the car I drive.  I left the Flatlanders CD on the bar in my kitchen for just such a purpose, but it never made its way to the car for some reason.  I looked for it in the car and in my house, but no CD.  I forget what other CD I wanted to listen to in my car, but I paired that CD with the Flatlanders CD in the kitchen, and that one came up missing too.

Did the Invisible Woman steal my Flatlanders CD?  Back in late December of 2016, a best of Badfinger CD came up missing under suspiciously similar circumstances, and that marked the period when I first sensed the chimera-like presence of the Invisible Woman, also known as Fuckface, in my life.  Other things that came up missing that I never found over the years between then and now include a credit card and TWO sheets of paper that had all my passwords written on them.  I don't do my passwords that way anymore, so I can talk about it now, but there you are.

I'm talking about the Invisible Woman, also known as Fuckface, now because talking about the attractive young women in my everyday world doesn't seem to help bring me closer to any of them.  I'm at a loss as to how to actually get any of these attractive young women to want to come closer to me emotionally or socially or whatever, and I seem to bruise their feelings when I talk smack about them.  My Ariana Grande posts seemed to be okay with that bunch, so I'm trying to write more stuff like that.  So I guess I'm limited to writing about the Invisible Woman, also known as Fuckface, and Ariana Grande if I want to write about attractive young women.  I've also cited Jennifer Lawrence in past posts, but only as a passing example.  Besides, Jennifer Lawrence just married some rich asshole, so I won't write about her stealing my CD's or credit cards, and she doesn't seem to have the kinds of struggles that Ariana Grande has, so that doesn't leave me with much to say about her.

Ah yes, "Bhagavan Decreed," maybe the first country song ever that referenced Hindu mysticism.  It plays now on my computer, but I can't listen to it in the car, and maybe I have ol' Invis, also known as Fuckface, to thank for that.  There's other places to look for the CD, and I'll keep my audience of around twenty unique visitors a week posted.  That's another new thing.  In the space of a week my counter on my host's site said I went from about four hundred unique visitors a week to about twenty.  Is it a Weebly algorithm kicking in as punishment for talking smack about a young woman in my world, or is it the Invisible Woman, also known as Fuckface, again?  

In the Summer of 1992 I had an "encounter with my mind," as Gil put it when he talked to me on June 19 of that Summer and seemed to trigger the whole episode.  When I got sick in the Winter of early 1995, all of that stuff came to the forefront once more.  On March 1st of that year I encountered some people in a 7/11.  I thought one of these people was Monica, the girl at the top middle of the banner on this site.

A byproduct of that encounter became the idea I would get that I would have answers on some upcoming date.  This kind of thing happened so many times, and each time I came up empty.  Nowadays that kind of thing has returned.  The idea that I will have answers on an upcoming date preoccupies me quite a bit these days.  The date just has to pass before I can get back to an equilibrium.

I think Ariana Grande should cancel the remainder of her tour and rest, and hopefully get a proper diagnosis as to what is going on with her.  She's one of my favorite celebrities to follow, along with the Invisible Woman, Artie Lange, and Johnny Depp.  She's been through a lot.  I guess for insurance purposes, her doctors have to advise her to cancel the rest of her tour, which shouldn't be a problem, from what I can tell.  Hell, I was looking forward to seeing Mott the Hoople at the end of October, but Ian Hunter contracted tinnitus and his doctors advised them to cancel, so things are tough all over, but she could stand some rest. 

My hopes and prayers go out for a full and speedy recovery for Ariana Grande.

One of the reasons I've kept this blog going on a regular basis for so long has to do with my belief that people in my world read it but don't tell me they read it.  I like posting stuff and then going around in my day to day routines and guessing as to whether this or that person has read what I write.  I  think I want to take a break from that for a while.  I also don't want to hurt anyone's feelings with what I write anymore.  Wish me luck.

At this one business I patronize, there worked a young woman I will call Cindy.  She was really cute and really young.  I liked her a lot.  I would get the impression that she would read this blog when I interacted with her during our transactions.  For example: after I posted, "See What Fuckface Is Up To Today,"  an irreverent song that made light of looking up the Invisible Woman on my phone almost everyday,  she laughed as she finished her transaction with me.  Little stuff like that really endeared her to me.

One time I wrote a post that talked about my show at the Fish Fry in June, 2018.  In that post I frantically put my foot down at the prospect of whether or not to invite someone like her to see my show.  She went about her business at her job with her lips tucked between her teeth after she saw me that one time, and I took that to indicate that she may have read that post and thought it funny.

I never asked Cindy out, or gave her a comic book, or gave her a CD, or invited her to see me perform anywhere.  Truth to tell, I really didn't go out of my way to talk to her for those several years she worked at this business.  The first time I talked to her for any length, I asked her a question related to her job.   That occurred earlier this year.  Soon after that, I walked into this business where Cindy worked, and when she saw me she curled her lips into snarl, as if to let me know I disgusted her or something.  I wrote a sarcastic post titled, "A Fine Romance," that talked about how I'd have to wait ten or twelve more years before I could feel comfortable approaching Cindy for a date, if that snarl on her lips after I talked to her just a little indicated anything.  Soon after  that post she didn't work there anymore.

I've talked about this one restaurant in posts where this one waitress seemed to have a raging hard-on to take me down, and the years-long battle that ensued.  One feature of that battle featured the attentions of Marta.  At one point Marta, another waitress at this restaurant, started being really friendly to me.  She started saying "Hi" really big and attending to me in a very friendly manner.  

After several weeks of this, I stopped patronizing this restaurant for about three months.  When I started going there again, Marta started right up again.   I let her do this for a couple of more months, and then I asked her out at her job.  She said she was seeing someone, but she was nice enough about it.  

I gave Marta a couple of my CDs anyway, but she quit soon after.  I saw her at a coffee shop with a waitress that still worked at this restaurant not long after Marta quit.  Her over the top friendly demeanor at the restaurant was replaced by a surly manner when I tried to interact with her at this coffee shop.  I said, "See ya'," and left.  I put a Facebook friend request in for Marta a couple of months or so later, but she didn't accept it.

The reason I went ahead and asked Marta out has to do with how she would be so friendly to me.  I had some hope that she would go out with me, sure, but I also figured that if her friendliness was some phony put-on, that she would look like a real asshole if she'd been rude and shitty to me when I asked her out, so I felt protected.

With Cindy, I just figured that she had boyfriends or whatever, and she pretty much stayed fairly quiet around me, and overall I'm totally pleased that I didn't ask her out or anything.  With Marta, I felt like she couldn't lower the boom if I did ask her out, because she had been so demonstrably friendly with me.  With neither woman did I really make any effort to put myself out there for any reason.

So, I give women in my world a choice:  I'm wiling to leave women alone, even women I'm really attracted to and like a lot, if they act more like Cindy, or I might take my chances on a woman if she puts herself out there over an extended period of time like Marta.  If I really put myself out there towards some young employee at a business I patronize for no other reason than because I am attracted to them, that can bring up issues of harassment.  No thanks. 

I just finished outlining four pages today on the inks phase of the latest issue of my comic book.  I have the goal of inking a few pages for three days in a row, and then resting my arm on the fourth day.  I had a cortisone shot in my wrist last Friday.  It helped with the nerve problem I've been having, but I might still need surgery.  I'm trying to take it easy on the workload of drawing and guitar playing, but I would like to step it up a bit on both.

No woman in my world can say I've formed an inappropriate emotional attachment to them.  I make it my stated goal in my life in general to have no woman in my world say that I'm trying to make them over into a love interest.  That seems to start all the messes I've managed to get myself into over the years; the idea that I need to have a love interest from amongst the women in my world.  Nope, as of right now I'm love interest free.

These past couple of weeks I've talked about how I've, once again, decided to stop patronizing this one particular business during hours when I thought one particular female employee might work there.  I made this same decision about this same person last Summer and stayed away from her for six weeks.  

Today I thought about going in there when this particular employee might work a shift there.  This second time, I decided to stop going to this place at these times and days for the foreseeable future, but I wondered today about relenting.   I figured that I would just refrain from trying to reach out to this person, because I figured that such a gesture would come across like an attempt to punch my way through some social brick wall.  In other words, it wouldn't come off well at all.  So today I thought maybe I could just go in there when she worked there but refrain from trying to punch my way through some social brick wall.

But then this line of thinking came to me: My biggest criticism of the experiment in my youth that I tried with Sara, the experiment to see what happened if I tried to turn my back on love, my biggest criticism of that experiment resides in the notion that I did not take the experiment far enough.  I really only tried the experiment in full effect that one time, and right after Sara, the woman I now call "Linda" in these posts took a big shit all over me, and then after Linda, Myrna took a big shit all over me as well.

How would taking this experiment far enough in regards to this young woman at this one business manifest itself?  I think that I do not want to go to this business if I think this person might work a shift at that time on that day for a long, as yet undefined period of weeks, and maybe months.  I'm so tired of having to deal with women who remind of the bad old days of my youth.

I saw a young woman this past weekend at an event.  I'd written her a note on her contact page on her website, but she never wrote back.  I'd written her that note because when I saw her about a month ago at another event, she seemed really glad to see me and greeted me warmly.  The note just pointed out my website and the Monica story on the home page.  She seemed a little more guarded and reserved this last time I talked to her.  I only talked to her a little and went on my way.

I'm fine with her coming off a little guarded and reserved.  I had some hope that she would have written me back after I wrote to her and that we could have gone out, but seeing as how that didn't happen, I'm okay with setting some boundaries.  If some attractive young woman comes off as friendly as she did, I think it's okay to run something like my note on her contact page up the flagpole and see if she salutes.  If she doesn't, that's fine, and I know where I really stand with her.  My intent in reaching out in such a way has nothing to do with setting boundaries.  I'm always at least somewhat hopeful that something more to my liking will happen than setting boundaries yet again.  As long as I'm not shitty in any way to such a person in my efforts or in the aftermath, I'm okay with doing such things.