I often encounter situations where people around me want to inflict some kind of emotional or even physical pain on me to get me to see the error of my ways and exact some sort of retribution for whatever it is I've done.  I think this dynamic informs the situation I've found myself in regarding that former cashier from that grocery store I still patronize.  I've also brought up the notion that a famous woman became part of this mix in 2016.  Right now I wonder if such parties are having second thoughts about whether there existed a need to inflict pain and suffering on me in the first place.  I need to have a look around some more in my world.  

One interesting thing I encounter in these situations at such a stage- a stage where my adversaries have second thoughts about their chosen courses of action against me- has to do with how they just want to totally disengage from me socially and seem to wish we never knew each other in the first place.  They made their bed, and now they have to lie in it, or so it seems.  This stage where I see people who no longer relish the idea of being my tormenters or adversaries, and just want to go on their own way, can make me feel surprisingly lonely and isolated.  After all, if I could just be good friends with everyone who came after me in this manner, I'd be the least lonely man on earth.

I thought about this today as I wondered if whether people who coveted the role of my enemy came to have some knowledge, somehow, of the contents of issue number 9 of my Richy Vegas comic book.  In that issue I lay out in a dry, flat, dispassionate manner the events of 1986 and 1987 they seemed so intent on having me never be able to live down. I tell my side of the story.  This train of thought just remains a speculative notion until I have some proof otherwise, I guess.  

One thing I'm looking for is for random women I don't really know to try to fuck with me like it has been happening for some years now.  You know, remarks or behaviors towards me that seem to reference my past behaviors, such as crude sexual propositions or obsessive pursuits of women that I'm never, ever supposed to forget, and how those things I'm never, ever supposed to forget will forever mark me as a total piece of shit in life.  Or, another thing that's been going on since like, 1988: entrapment oriented flirtations with me from young, attractive women.  I look for these kinds of things because they occur so regularly, and they seem to offer conclusive proof that nothing has changed at all for me.  

On the other hand, I don't think I want to look for that former cashier from that grocery store to come my way looking to get to know me better.  Like I said, she knows full well that she just displayed a desire to bring home some point that, no matter how I treated her, no matter what I did to prove my feelings for her, she just wanted to bring home the point that she could never care for someone such as me.  If she has a change of heart about my actual guilt now, she probably just wants to forget the whole thing ever happened and not ever see me at all.  Lots of people who engage in this kind of shit with me seem to have little or no desire or even ability to hold themselves to account for the behaviors and attitudes they've clung to for so long.

So, as of right now, I have zero reasons to look for more positive developments from amongst the women in my world, but rather, to look for the same old shit interactions that random women just want to visit upon me to show what they really think of me, and how there's nothing I can do to change my standing with them or my situation. These types of interactions offer easy proof that nothing has changed, and such behaviors show up in places regularly enough.  Mind you, my behavior has been exemplary these past seven, fifteen or so years in the face of this ostracism, and I have no desire to change MY course of action in that regard.

I want people to keep this one point I will now make in mind.  I can forgive a lot of the shit people such as the wives and girlfriends of my male friends, and that former cashier as well, have desired to put off on me.  I can forgive these woman and lots of other people, male and female, in the sense that I will not try to retaliate or otherwise hurt them in any way.  If anyone such as these women I've just cited actually WANT to be friends with me, I would just have to take such a desire on their part on a case by case basis, each one individually.

I had events where I sold comics these past two weekends.  I sold over a hundred comics combined at the two events.  At the one this past weekend I went to the after party, which took place at about 7 p.m.  There were some women to talk to, but I just didn't want to do that.  I just didn't feel like submitting myself for the acceptance or rejection of women at that event.  I'm trying to get away from having that be a thing for me to have to weigh heavily anywhere I go.  That could include work, going to see bands at clubs, or events such as that after party.  I think attractive young women can tell when a guy feels as if his sense of worth depends on whether someone such as them accepts or rejects them, and I think that can creep them out.  I guess if they have to do that enough times, they can get pretty mean about it.  Some of them, at least.

I sold fifty-nine comic books at an event this weekend.  I got a little work done on the current book this evening.  I'm looking at the first week in January as the deadline to finish illustrating this eighty page book.  I finished pages 7 and 8 tonight.  

I've interacted a little with some of the women at my new job, and all I have to say is, man, I don't want to end up as a featured story on Reddit Nice Guys or whatever that group is called.  I subscribe to YouTube videos by Walter Fate, or Fatal Walter, and Vincey who just read horror stories written by girls and women who've encountered "nice guys" and posted their version of events on this Reddit page.  The problem is, I recognize some version of myself in these obsessive, mostly younger boys and men who assign way too much significance to everyday interactions with women they happen to have a strong attraction to....and the race is on.

I hope I can never really go back to those versions of myself from earlier days.  I hope it's like a testimonial a guy gave at my old stop smoking group, where he said he was addicted to cigarettes, and that he could easily relapse and go back to smoking, but he knew that is just wouldn't be the same as it was before if he did go back to smoking heavily.

Anyway, I spent my entire time at this event selling my Richy Vegas titles, and after this event ended, I noted that I really didn't think much at all about any women in my world I have an attraction to while I sat at my table trying to get people to buy my books.  I like not having a love interest.

I just finished glancing over the seventy-four pages I've outlined in blue ball point pen of my latest book.  I've got six more pages to outline.  I think the pen work on these illustrations looks pretty good, given how sloppy a lot of the pencil work is.  If this job works out, it will give me some structure which I can build my creative hours around.  Such a setup, with a part-time job at least, can actually increase productivity on the creative side.  I stayed pretty busy for all of that time I had no job, so in my case it may mean a slight decrease in productivity over all.

I see these twenty-two year old waitress and barista types in my world frequently.  I think about that former cashier at that grocery store I patronize and what it took for me to finally approach her for social reasons.  My deal with her went on for almost three years before I invited her to my comic book sale, at her job, in front of God and everyone.  I tried every which way to just let her go and move on, several times, before I wound up just-balls out walking up to her as she worked her busy shift and invited her to my sale.  I could not have done better at that if I had a hundred more chances to do so.  And still, she didn't come to my sale and she didn't seem to want to talk to me at all after I approached her.

I think about her as I interact with these hottie types in my world, and my take on that whole episode just demonstrated a real raising of  the bar on my part as to what it would take for me to stop everything and approach someone so much younger  than I am.  In the days of the early 2010's, at one of those coffee shops, I'd approach those baristas right and left for social reasons.  They really didn't like it, and the cruel games they played with me demonstrated their displeasure at my overtures toward them.

I think I came off so much better towards that cashier and those around us than I did toward those baristas of the prior decade.  And yet, nothing.  That really makes me think twice, and three and four times, about approaching anyone else that much younger than me under those circumstances these days.  Maybe I should thank that cashier for rejecting me, because I really have no desire to approach anyone her age in my world at all at this time.  The thought of putting myself out there to that extent, even doing as well as I did at it in the case of  that cashier, only to come up empty handed, really doesn't appeal to me at all.

The job is hard work.  A friend said I'll build up stamina.  I might also become more relaxed as I get it down more, which should help to keep me from getting too wiped out by the end of the shift.  I have enough energy and wherewithal to continue working on issue 29 of my comic book. I hope to finish sometime in January.  I want to cut WAY down on trips to the coffee shops in the months of November, December,  January, and February.  I hope to use the saved money to help pay for printing comic books and traveling to conventions, among other things.  The job plus saving money on coffee shops and restaurants can give me a tangible means to pay for that stuff over the long haul.

I completed my first week at my new job.  The work was hard, and that's all I want to say about it at this time.  In other news, my latest issue of "Tales from the Richy Vegas Psychoverse" came back from the printer.  I've been sending copies all over the place, including Domino Books, an online distributor.  I have some drama going on that's proving too distracting for me to work on my next book right now.  I might give it a try right after I get off of here.

I'm starting a new job tomorrow.  It's part-time, and the scheduling allows me to go to conventions to sell comics.  It's customer service, but I think that will be okay, because my mood remains consistently good these days. My psych med allows for that.  I get down sometimes, but the cognitive behavior techniques I've learned over the years can get me to talk myself out of feeling bad for any appreciable length of time.  The fact that I don't drink, smoke dope, smoke cigarettes, or do anything else like that helps a great deal with my day to day mood too.  

I think I have an audience out there for this blog.  I got to thinking tonight that they might expect a weekly post, and that if I didn't do one, they might become concerned a little. I've talked about some pretty painful stuff from my past on this blog, and I wonder if that makes people care about me more than I realize sometimes.  One thing I realized today has to do with the quality of my friendships these days.  Now that my social activities don't revolve around heavy drinking and drug use, the quality of interactions with my current friends and the overall quality of my friendships show remarkable improvement over those more painful experiences from my past.

I think I treat those around me better than I used to, and that gets reflected in how they treat me.  Also, my social activities have a more constructive orientation such as music or comics.  Not all of my friends are angels about the pot smoking or what have you, but I see them and interact with them with a focus on more constructive, sustainable activities.  I've also learned to be by myself in much more constructive, sustainable ways.

Yesterday I went to the annual Austin Corn Lover's Fiesta (ACL).  As I sat there listening to the musical acts, the notion I had of the famous woman I've been going on and on about evaporated.  I wondered if this deal was over.  The notion of this goddess descending from her "A"-list Mount Olympus and bestowing her bounty on me at the Corn Lover's Fiesta evaporated as the day progressed.  Didnt happen.  Does that mean it's over?   

The thing I tried to look for was the persistence of the emotional and mental sine wave that I went through whenever my thoughts turned to her these past seven or so months.  No sine wave would mean it was all over for this unavailable woman fixation on her.  A sine wave is what I call the "She loves me, she loves me not" nature of my thought process as I think of her.  "She loves me," The sine wave goes up.  "She loves me not," the sine wave dips down.  And so it goes.  If that ends, the fixation ends.  I don't think of that former cashier in terms of  the sine wave these days.  I did during the summer of 2021.  I did for quite some time after.  But I don't think of that former cashier in terms of a sine wave anymore.

The notion that persists about this famous person has to do with what I saw on the liner notes of her last album.  She confessed to staying up late into the night, drinking wine alone.  The album has to do with the things she thinks about at these times. Weeks ago I posited that her thoughts may turn to me during these times, but I admitted that I could be wrong about that.  I said in one post that I might have been like Neil Gaiman's Sandman to her.  That I was totally in her head.  I'm not the Sandman, though, I'm human too.

I just learned to make peace, somehow, with these notions of these unavailable women that come forth in my consciousness more often than I like.  I will accept when someone rules that realm, with the understanding that they would probably not rule forever.  No one ever has before.  She's going to ramp up on her busy schedule in the coming weeks.  If she doesn't show in that time, that'll tell me all I need to know.  She's free to do whatever she wants about her dilemma, if she even has a dilemma concerning me.

As much as part of me wants the positive aspects that I fantasize about in this famous woman to come true, I still find myself left to my own devices when it comes to figuring out the actual reality of the situation.  A prevailing characteristic of these deals I get into involves how unsolvable they can seem to me at the time.  Here's the thing though; a particularly unsolvable feature from an unavailable girl situation I dealt with at the age of fifteen would not come up later at the age of twenty-one or twenty-four.  

For example, I remember the prevailing characteristic of my unsolvable fixation on the girl at fifteen had to do with the difference in how we felt about each other.  I remember going into a tailspin just KNOWING that there was NO WAY the girl felt the same utter intensity of  feeling for me that I felt for her.  That was all it took to introduce an almost total paralysis in how I could possibly solve that dilemma.  But later on, in college, I just made myself approach such a person, usually a classmate, if I so desired.  I wouldn't get the girl, but I would at least solve that aspect of my problem.

But again, here's the thing.  The older I got, the more experience I acquired, the more complex the problems seemed to me in trying to work this stuff out with whatever woman I fixated on.  The unavailability of the women in question morphed into other forms the older I got.  At twenty-one, I couldn't figure out that Veronica Ortega just wanted boatloads of attention from a less experienced classmate (me) following a painful breakup with her live-in boyfriend, and so that vexed me to no end.  My inability to figure out her point of view, due to my relative lack of experience in dating, made the dilemma she presented to me seem as utterly unsolvable to me at twenty-one as the dilemma I faced at fifteen.

And so it went.  In later years I could figure out the "free" attention angle a lot of unavailable women wanted to play with me, so that no longer presented problems.  But oh, here comes my psychosis, and hallucination narratives about "Monica" and Robin and "Sonia Cumbia," and lo, we have a whole new class of unavailable women.  The nearest I figure, those dilemmas, which featured women not actually present in any way in my real life, became solvable with just a little validation that I could attract women in the "real world."  I remember forgetting all about Monica and Robin around 1999, when I worked a dishwashing job that featured a lot of female employees that liked me socially.

One thing that really solved a LOT of these unavailable women dilemmas involved reviving the "turn my back on love" experiment in 2012.  If nothing else, I learned to exert a LOT of patience and self-control over ANY situation I found myself in that involved ANY unavailable woman under ANY circumstance.

 A prime example of that practice in action featured the former cashier at that grocery store I patronize.  She started in on me in February of 2019, and I didn't approach her for social reasons until October of 2021.  In between those two times I threw everything I knew at that dilemma.  I let go of her so-o-o many times...oh my goodness, did I just try to let her go.  But in the long run, I solved the dilemmas she presented to me, which included a massive age difference (35 years!), the fact that I only knew her from the grocery store I patronized (the only place I could approach her for social reasons, Not easy!), the way she always seemed to have a boyfriend (hey, I'm just inviting her to my comic book sale.  It's not a DATE or anything!), and lastly, the fact that she totally seemed to have it in for me.  Namely, that she was on some crusade seeking justice for women everywhere by taking me down.  I no longer consider her much of a factor in my day to day decision making.  The only decisions I have  to make about her involve my reluctance to patronize that business where I thought I encountered a girl that could be her sister, from what I could tell. I just try to refrain from patronizing that particular business these days.

Now, I have this "A" list celebrity I'm currently fixated on.  She's unapproachable in any context I know about.  What the hell am I supposed to do about that?  I tried writing her a postcard, nothing.  I sent her a DM on a social media account of hers, nothing.  I figure she'll just run out the clock.  For the longest time, I could tell myself that she was too busy with current projects to attend to me for real.  As of last month, that excuse can't cut it.  She still has several more weeks of, I guess, free time.   If she doesn't show up sometime during this window of opportunity, then she's run out the clock on our deal, and that's just one possibility that will end it.  Bear in mind, people, that I did nothing myself to sabotage this situation.  If she doesn't show in the next month or so, she doesn't show, and that just might end this fixation I have on her. 

And furthermore, this fixation I have on her might represent some kind of nadir, some lowest point, of my tendency to fixate on unavailable women.  That would imply, that after this one, I might not find any more "unsolvable" dilemmas that involve unavailable women tying me up in knots.  I mean, where could my brain take me to from here to find another unsolvable dilemma?  Might I wind up fixating on deceased movie stars from Hollywood's golden era?  I mean, there's no possible way I could bring Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn back from the dead.  Would that sufficiently tie me up in knots?  I don't think fixating on deceased movie stars is really a possibility for me to get hung up again.  I think I may have finally graduated from "Unavailable Woman U!"  That would be grand!

I started to read a William S. Burroughs quote on Facebook that said something about how it is human beings obligation to risk getting hurt really bad in the quest for a romantic love connection, blah, blah, blah...The world's full of people with advice like that.  Maybe it's my abnormal psychological profile, but that never really worked for me.  I've talked often about my "quest for love" in my pursuit of "Donna" during the summer of 1986.  That's the one where I'd hoped I could connect with Donna at a friend's party and wound up having a psychotic episode instead.  I had the impression that a lot of the people at the party knew of my fixation on Donna, and that they definitely did not like the idea of me carrying a torch for this person.  Donna stood against the wall and scowled as I walked by her, "Wanda" came up and laughed in my face soon afterwards, Michael laughed cruelly at me, as did Allyson as I left.

The next weekend, my male friend I'd had known since two plus years before said, "Sorry to fuck your world, dude," as I ate at Hut's with him, his girlfriend Allyson, and Wanda, and one other person.  I saw The Fly with Jeff Goldblum later that night with Allyson and Wanda.  I came off as conciliatory, self-deprecating, and nice the whole night with those people, including Wanda.  I saw Donna and her boyfriend at a party later that night.  I walked up to her, introduced myself, and overall just tried to make peace with the whole situation.  I didn't directly refer to the events of the previous weekend or the previous summer. Instead I brought up a friend of mine she knew and acted as if I was worried about a fixation he once had on a girl.

This gesture appeared to open up possibilities for me, but that proved illusory.  A lot of what I saw as possibilities just hinged on the high expectations I had of cashing in on the goodwill generated by my gesture towards Donna.  I harbored a lot of anger and resentment at  the way people treated me up to the point I talked to Donna at that party, and this resentment showed itself in the way I treated Wanda when she appeared to not be all she was cracked up to be.

These past seven months I wrote a lot about a famous woman I've never met.  I don't think it's a good idea for me to carry a torch for  her (duh!).  She had a busy schedule all summer, and so I could sort of justify keeping the fire going with the anticipation that she would have more free time right about now.  She chooses to spend that free time in ways that don't involve me, and I decided several weeks ago to bail on this whole deal.

I don't want anything like a repeat of that party in September of 1986 where all of those people were so down on me because of my fixation on Donna.  I'm just going to tell myself, "Suppose I don't do THAT this time.  How might things shake out if I don't do THAT this time?" Ugh!  I'm not doing anything AGAINST this famous woman by bailing on this whole (maybe self-constructed) deal I had going with the torch I carried for her.  I don't really anticipate anything like a party where she'll snub me.  It's more like, I don't want to come off as unhinged or unstable to those in my world who may or may not read this blog.  I don't want to write blog posts telling of my undying devotion to this woman and have to eat those words later.  So much for risking it all.