I talked about the time I had a beautiful, transcendent moment with "Gwen" at SVA after Thanksgiving of 1990.  On the one hand I showed her that I meant her no harm, and she responded with a kindness from a woman that I didn't always experience back then- hell, I don't often experience that level of kindness from women now, really- on the other hand, after I let her know that I would let her go, I knew to expect another psychotic episode.

In this episode I wanted to let other students know that I was not happy with the general ostracizing vibe that I'd caught from many of them throughout this matter with Gwen.  I let them know in forceful, unambiguous terms.  During that episode I elevated Ann Marie to love interest status.

Ann Marie didn't take, and the next semester I spent trying to exert a great deal of self-discipline so that I could just stay out of trouble and stay focused on my studio art works and graduate at the end of the year.  I brandished a knife to a fellow male student after he said, "Doing it the hard way. Eh?" to someone who helped him with a large canvas down the staircase.  I've talked about dissociative interpretations before, and there's an example.  This student used to go to UT- Austin art school with me, and I still had issues with him and lots of other people from my last days at UT.

Well, I didn't get kicked out of School of Visual Arts for that, and I managed to graduate. Of course, I would have liked things to have turned out better in my love life back then.  And, when I had my major break in 1992 and subsequent hospitalization, treatment, and diagnosis, I felt really bad about brandishing my knife to that guy back then when the major depression hit.

What can I say?  I felt as if I really occupied a bad position over all when those students, particularly the women, seemed to feel as if I represented some major threat to Gwen or others, and that the solution to neutralizing my threat was to treat me badly.  When the transcendent moment came, I felt as if my position moved from bad to worse, because I had to let those students who seemed to actively want to cast me out that, no, I was not a saint or and angel, and that their hateful attitudes towards me and how they displayed them couldn't just be swept under the rug in this beautiful moment of transcendence and redemption. 

The moment I knew how things were going to shake out with the coming psychotic episode- and remember, I didn't know it as a "psychotic episode" in those words, it was my heart and my mind that knew of the actual experience- I nonverbally said to myself, "These people are in my world now, i.e., this is an experience that I'm familiar with that they are not familiar with, and it is up to me to walk everyone through it, no matter how rough I come across."

Of course, over the years, I wished I had said and did different things than what I wound up saying and doing, but still, I managed to graduate from an expensive Masters Degree program and not get expelled at the point of almost completing it.  All that student loan money didn't go down the toilet, and I didn't have to face the prospect of trying to get into another program down the road after I'd sorted my issues out.

Since the beginning of 2017, I've talked about a La La Land type scenario that has involved a notion of a famous woman that took up space in my head in a disconcerting way for a while.  If I had a hundred chances to do it all over again, I don't think I could have done any better than I did.  In a post in the Spring of 2016, I related an incident with an intellectually disabled woman who had to assume the role of the adult in our interactions, because I had to be stupid and try to make fun of her, and so it went for me in this situation with the Invisible Woman.  I stand by every post that I've written concerning this person, or  this notion of this person that is still in my head to a great extent, and that includes the last post that featured the brand new, rip-snortin' sing-along, "Mr. Missus Fuckface."

If anyone feels I'm being harsh in my effort to call out those I feel need calling out, I'm sorry.  I've often talked about "Wanda" and sometimes "Katy," and cited my very bad experiences with them as examples how an effort to forgive those two went very wrong.  I concluded that forgiving Wanda and Katy amounted to an effort on my part to get something material in exchange: love, sex, companionship, acceptance etc.  When those things didn't magically spring forth from these women in private moments with them, the shit hit the fan.  I concluded that my effort to forgive these women didn't constitute actual forgiveness at all, but that the effort I put forth just engendered in me a sense of entitlement, laid over a bed of smoldering coals, comprised of anger and resentment.

How then, would an effort to avoid those mistakes manifest itself?  I think "Mr. Missus Fuckface" represents about as good an example of another, possibly more constructive direction other than trying to be some great guy about anyone who makes it their business to dick me over in a major way.  I do not want to find myself in another compromising situation with the Invisible Woman, or any woman, who may try to represent themselves as available and interested in me when in fact they are not.  If this means calling out the Invisible Woman, or calling out any woman in a harsh way, in the light of day, so be it.

That last post that featured the brand spankin' new, rip-snortin' sing-along, "Mr. Missus Fuckface." had an introduction where I spoke of a willingness to "do it in a heartbeat." It was addressed "To Whom It May Concern," and I'll leave it at that.  I don't know how things could possibly shake out in the way those concerned would want them things to shake out, but I'll promise all concerned this: I will assume the role of the adult, just as I did last year when The Invisible Woman did or did not come a-knockin'.  I may not have a lot of experience with love, girlfriends, or relationships, but chances are that what you all want is more in my realm of expertise than it is in yours.  That is, if there is anything at all to this Richy Vegas stuff.  And, I might add, I would like it very much if I wasn't the only party that assumes the role of the adult in these proceedings.  Boy, that'd be a nice change of pace.

Now, what does being the adult entail?  Well, being the adult involves making intelligent decisions.  In the context of a potential romantic love deal, intelligent decisions are those decisions made that are in the best, mutual self-interests of the two parties.  Yes, I have been that person, absolutely.  Just look at the posts from January 1st 2017 to see an example of that sort of decision making process in action.  

If the example of the Invisible Woman is too much in the realm of the trippy, otherworldly La La Land of the diseased mind of Richard Alexander, then look at the posts on this blog from May 2015 to about August of that year, and again in the first three to five months of 2016.  That young woman was very much of my world for real, and I did as good a job with her as I did with the Invisible Woman of my mind.

In both instances, the Invisible Woman and the one before her, intelligent decisions that I made had nothing to do with love, girlfriends, or relationships.  That is because both of the women had agendas that had nothing to do with love, girlfriends or relationships.  Never the less, no one got hurt, no one went to jail, and it fell on me to be the one to act in our mutual interests; to be the adult in the situation.

I would like to think if I encountered a genuine opportunity to get to know someone who really had something of an interest in me and that I liked, I could recognize that opportunity as well as I could pick apart those scenarios that approach me under the guise of  that kind of an opportunity.

If we are talking about something else, and as of right now the only talking consists of me thinking out loud, something such as that crazy Richy Vegas stuff, well, like I said, that's more of my world than the other party's.     

  

To Whom It May Concern,

Yeah, I'd do it.  If it were strictly up to me, I'd totally do it in a heartbeat.  Absolutely.  Without hesitation.   The problem is, that's not how my deal works.  If quitting booze and drugs screws up your plans or your deal, I'm sorry.  I decided some years ago that I wanted to do better on that, so I did.  

If you and yours can work it so any other parties chime in and get involved, well, more power to you, because I've broken new ground with this sobriety kick, and I don't know how the old ways would apply now.  I'm just not going to try to sweat that part of it myself, because there's not much I can do about it from my end.

Oh well, until that day does or does not come, here's a little number I wrote before I went to bed last night.  It's my first song of the New Year.  Enjoy!

Mr. Missus Fuckface
B∇∆ B∇
D, G, A, D and G, C, A , D
“D,” The People’s Key!

D
Mr. Missus Fuckface
           G
On a plane to New York City
               A
She’ll ring in the New Year with you
                    D 
Not with me I’m over fitty.

D
Mr. Missus Fuckface
             G
Got a Rolex and a hat
        A
Me I’m just an old stooge
                        D 
On whom Fuckface tried to shat.


G
Mr. Missus Fuckface
                 C 
Oh you wear her last name
                  A
Do they have contempt where you’re from
                  D 
For the crippled and the lame?

G
‘cuz me I’m just a madman
               C
I don’t bear the Fuckface name
                     A
No I don’t share a bed with her
            D
But I beat her at her game.


D
Mr. Missus Fuckface
              G
Oh her righteous boyfriend
              A
She’ll never shit on you, ha!
                       D
You’re her righteous boyfriend.

D
Mr. Missus Fuckface
                   G
Hope you have a bag of tricks
                       A
She might throw you at the wall
                  D
To see if any of you sticks.



G
Mr. Missus Fuckface
                   C
Yeah you got it I’m a clown
                   A
It took a funnyman like me
                 D 
To beat her at her down.

G
She came with both guns blazin’
           C
And I fucked her out of town
           A
No I mean it as a metaphor
                    D
Yeah I fucked her out of town.



D
Mr. Missus Fuckface
                    G
Yeah she kept me on my toes
                            A
You know the ancients judged a man 
                D
By the power of his foes.

D
Mr. Missus Fuckface
                      G
What does that say about me?
                            A
Did mean old Lady Fuckface
                 D
Make a martyr out of me?


Richy Vegas   1/21/2018

I've got four more pages to finish inking on Richy Vegas Comics.   This is the first installment of "The Legend of Richy Vegas."  I should finish by Friday with this stage.  I will then paint the cover with acrylic paints on masonite.  Then I will layup and paginate the photocopies to get it ready for the printer.  I hope to have all of this done well before the end of the month-next week, I hope.

I mentioned in my last post that in my younger days I was a restless seeker of a better way.  This restlessness caused me to move on from my discovery that to "turn my back on love" proved to be the best way to deal with the often nettlesome aspects of my dealings with women.

I don't want to make this mistake again.  Today I thought about the women in my world, that is, the women I see in my day to day life as I go about my business, and I reiterated a point I made some weeks or months ago on this blog.  The point is, that there is NOT ONE of these attractive women in my world who can say that I'm trying to make them over into a love interest.  Yes Rich, just stay there for a while.  I am still extremely self-conscious in my interactions with women such as waitresses and baristas and whatnot.  I can tell myself that this is still true: that the thing I would do that seemed to not sit well with so many women in my past I don't do anymore.  I will also reiterate that I am pretty sure that there is no woman in my world that has some torch burning for me that just awaits my discovery.  I feel that I am more in line with the way my reality actually is, rather than softening this blow with some delusional cushion that gives me some bogus purpose to my life.

I've pretty much been free as a bird since I broke up with Jeannette in the '80s.  Years ago this was a harsh thing for me to realize, but I've gotten so good at dealing with the most problematic elements of my relationship with women these past several years, that the fact that I have remained unclaimed by any woman I've had an attraction to since Jeannette does not bother me as much as it could.

There's just certain realities about what my illness and obsessive nature represent to so many women; things that have nothing to do with me and the person I've always been and the changes I've made; that this perpetually single status has become something I've learned to enjoy.  I don't think I would appear attractive to anyone if I saw this single status as some curse or spell to be broken or escaped from through the acquisition of a companion.  I've even blown off a few deals with women I didn't like, and, this is so important, I've learned to recognize the terrible deals that so many women seem so ready to offer someone like me.  

The experiment to "turn my back on love" has been the one thing that has been most helpful in this ability to recognize a bad deal when one comes along.  Cruel example can only work as an agent for change if one acquires the ability to really make those changes.  To make those changes, one has to  come up with an effective means of doing so.  Otherwise, one is left with yet more experiences of cruel example that are supposed to lead to yet more spiritual growth, but from where I sit, don't lead to much more growth after the umpteenth time they happen.

   

I watched the Roky Erikson documentary You're Gonna Miss Me the other night.   One part, where Roky first emerges from years of isolation and untreated schizophrenia, and a therapist asks him if he remembers what he said when she previously asked him what he would have done differently, Roky recalls that he said, "Not a thing!"  Later in the documentary, some more time into Roky's recovery, one of Roky's brothers, Sumner, twists Roky's arm a bit into admitting to regrets about all the drug use.  

If I could change one thing about my adult life, it would regard that decision to "turn my back on love;" I simply didn't take if far enough after I tried it on Sara in 1988.  I was a restless seeker back then, and I suppose I decided, "Well, I learned what I had to learn from that approach with that one girl, now let's try an improved me with this newer approach."   Looking back, I would say to my younger self, "Dude!  No!  Right there!  Turn your back on love.  Over, and over, and over again.  That's it!"  

I don't know if I could have averted the coming grand mal meltdown in 1992.  A couple of years ago a psychiatrist died who posited that those suffering from schizophrenia could "solve" such an illness with the proper application of their intellects.  He came up with this notion in the nineteen-sixties, maybe.  Effective antipsychotics were still in their infancy back then, and such a notion must have appealed to many in light of the bad side effects of many of those early drugs.  I  think it would have been a pretty tall order for me to singlehandedly self-diagnose Love Addiction as my cause for my depressive episodes and subsequent breakdown episodes, and then come up with an completely effective counter-measure that I gleaned all by myself from reading Dr, David Burns, Feeling Good,  so I don't get too bent out of shape about that.

It took years of relative stability on psych meds, and an additional commitment to sobriety many, many years after my initial psych diagnosis, to come up with the Buddha I now follow.  The medication and sobriety provided enough stability to finally get at this problem effectively. 

That said, what now?  I don't know if I'm much able to impress the twenty-two year old waitresses and baristas with this approach, but I am, nonetheless, able to better make intelligent decisions about such creatures in my world.  I asked a  younger female friend in late 2011 if I bothered her with too many phone calls,  She was very attractive, and I adored her, but our deal was mainly platonic.  She didn't even associate me as a guy who called nonstop.  It never seemed to even occur her that I used to be that guy.  That's how much I've changed from the old days.

So, what now?  In the last post I talked about how the "turn my back on love" approach would often lead to pretty decisive courses of actions, rather than ineffectual, arbitrary "limits" such as calling someone only three times a week instead of seven or eight times a week.  A phone call, maybe one more, three's the total limit of an entire deal with someone if no call back.  Often I'll stop at two, or one.  Facebook Friend request not accepted?  Done.  Whatever that entails: done.  I typically don't have these goddess types then come chasing after me after these moves, mind you, but I only have control over my end of it, and so I do.

I talk a lot about the time in my youth when I tried an experiment to "turn my back on love."  What I wound up doing involved a lot less pursuit than normal of the object of my affections, Sara.  At the time I decided that this was a one-time experiment, but my behavior towards women I had an attraction to showed a big change; I tended not to pursue women so ardently.

The exception to this change only arrived as my mental state deteriorated further along in my late twenties.  In 1990 I thought I'd made a big mistake when I blew off Sara in 1988.  By the time "Jenna" came along, I really wanted at least one deal with a young woman to work out, and I got pretty desperate.  So, the phone calls started happening, the repeated requests for dates met with rejections, and in the Summer of 1992, I finally had my meltdown.

In recent years I've decided to revive the "turn my back on love" experiment, and although I'm not exactly a hot item on the dating scene, I'm a lot happier on my insides.  I've really set limits as to how far I will go in my pursuit of any woman, no matter how much I may think of her as an ideal match for me.

In recent posts I've talked about the tendency I have to cast about for a love interest from amongst the women in my world.  I brought up the observation that I would project onto such women the idea that there was something "there" as far as their feelings for me.  Usually, I would base this conviction on what often must have seemed like, to them, pretty minor flirtations from these women towards me.

Here's how dissociative thinking would play into these scenarios: I would, say, eat at a restaurant.  The waitress brings a skillet of sizzling hot fajitas.  She would say, "It's hot."  I would think in some automatic, nonverbal way in my head, "It's hot?  What's hot?  Is she talking about my deal with Rachel at the coffee shop?  Is that what this waitress means when she says, 'It's hot?'"  

So, that means, when I am at the grocery store and the cashier hands me my change and says, "Have a good one."  I would, and sometimes still do, cast about for some attractive woman in my world that he or she may be "talking about."  This woman would usually occupy a top tier spot as far as how attractive she is in comparison to other women in my world, and if she happened to be someone who at any time seemed to flirt with me, even a little, then we're off to the races.

I think the "turn my back on love" method of setting limits to what I'm willing to "do about it" restores some sense of balance and sanity to me.  Remember, when I leave off on the pursuit of someone, what's going on my head is, "Okay, this woman could actually represent true love, and I'm fine with just dropping the ball on this one and going about my business."  So, it's an extreme antidote to the relentless phone calls with the relentless pursuit that marked some of my worst moments, and it's the relentless pursuit from me towards them that seems to be what these attractive young women are most apprehensive about.  Whereas, if I just try to set some arbitrary limit about how far I'm willing to go, such as telling myself, "Well, I'll call her three times this week instead of seven or eight times," it might not come out as so decisive or robust.