I have the right to be wrong about nineteen year old girls who fire a shot across my bow.  By "wrong" I mean mistaken.  If such a young woman was coming from a good place with that, of course it would be okay if I misinterpreted her intentions, she's thirty-five years younger than me.   Why wouldn't I misinterpret good intentions from such a gesture?

I also have the right to set certain boundaries.  I've been watching YouTube videos where these therapists and "life coaches" always talk about setting boundaries.  I guess we all kind of know what they are talking about when they say that one should set boundaries in interpersonal relations.  In my case, I have the right to set a boundary in regards to very young, attractive female employees at businesses I patronize.  Namely, I have to right to refrain from asking such young women out on dates.  I have the right to have a policy where I just don't do that anymore, because I base this policy on experience and common sense.

If anyone wants to let me know that this. or that, or any young woman at one of these businesses likes me enough to want to go out with me on just one date, they can overtly tell me so instead of trying to drop hints or be rude or otherwise try to interact with me as if I'm doing something wrong by not romantically pursuing this, or that, or any young woman at any of these businesses.  Any young woman who works at one of these businesses who wants to go out with me may ask me out themselves if they like.  Just because they or anyone else tries to put some kind of subtle pressure on me, don't think that I will interpret such pressure as any kind of cue that I must act.  I am not going to do that.  I speak from experience on this matter.

I've been watching episodes of Season Two of Mike Judge's Tales From the Tour Bus.  Season Two covers Funk legends such as George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, and James Brown.  I've noticed that whether these men or anyone else in the series behaves in good ways or bad ways, they are all pretty unique individuals.  Maybe all of this harassment I perceive myself experiencing from young woman in my world is just the natural by-product of myself being a somewhat unique individual.  

I've got everything I need to lay up issue number 17 for the printer.  I'm too fried to work on it any more tonight.  I managed to finish painting the cover.  I went to Kinko's and got the cover copied about two hours ago.  I hope to contact the printing company, Capital Printing, on Friday.

In other news, my bookmarks came back from another printer.  They look good.  I contracted them through Elgin Screen Printing, who farmed the job out to a vendor in Louisiana. I got two hundred bookmarks, delivered to my door, for less than fifty dollars, and the turnaround was pretty quick.

In the last couple of posts I talked about a very young, very attractive young woman who threw me a flirty look a couple of weeks ago.  Oh boy.  I guess I shouldn't be too quick to judge when a nineteen/ twenty year old girl fires a shot across my bow like that.  I mean, I know what I'll be doing with my mind for the next little while now, I guess.  I'll try to keep my mouth shut until I figure this one out.  Fat chance I'll totally keep my mouth shut, but here goes...

In my last post I talked about a young woman in my world who threw me a flirtatious look while I patronized her place of employment last week.  I talked about how I had no "plans" for her, i.e. I would just leave her alone and not even try to ask her out or anything like that.  I talked about how I would see such young women under more favorable circumstances - someplace outside of their work, for example- but it didn't make any difference, and I would still strike out.

So, if I didn't allow myself the chance to try to take things further, what should I do?  Should I go the other way with this deal?  How would that manifest itself?  Would it make me a bad person if I denied her my love?  Would I seal my doom to a life of unfulfilled desires?

So I took the plunge and went the other way.  I avoided interacting with her when I saw her in these past few days.  Now, this next part is critical; I have learned to just take a course of action such as blowing someone such as her off, and then come up with very good reasons for doing so only AFTER I take such a course of action.

So here goes: Often times in my past, when I would try to take full advantage of such a perceived opportunity, I would draw the ire of those around myself and the object of my desire, as well as the ire of the object of my desire her own bad self.  All of these parties seemed to strongly object to what they saw as me going way too far in response to what seemed to all concerned, excluding myself, as pretty minor, inconsequential flirtations by the young woman in question.

I guess a lot of men have an unconscious filter that allows them to go about their business and not get too caught up in that kind of flirtation bullshit.  And, one could measure the extent of my desperation by how seriously I would take such flirtations.  I guess I am someone who had to construct a filter out of whole cloth using cruel example, my wits, and the guidance of books such as Feeling Good  by Dr. David Burns.  I think the extent and progression of my recovery from love addiction shows up in how each successive episode I talk about on this blog often seems to find resolution more quickly and more easily that the episodes that preceded it.  

I'm fifty-four years old, so a lot of people out there might consider all of this progress irrelevant in some way- like I'd be better off just planting a vegetable garden in my backyard and concentrating on something like that.  I think about that sometimes.  But, I'm not talking about stuff that happened in 1986 and never anytime afterwards.  On this one I'm only going as far back as last week.  A lot of men around my age with a mental illness diagnosis similar or identical to mine make the news because they think they have something going on with some young, prominent, very attractive actress, singer, or model, so no, I don't think my age makes my progress on these issues irrelevant.  

The other day I patronized one of these businesses I talk about.  A very young, very pretty female employee gave me a really flirty look.  The movie poster for a French film called Amelie featured the lead, played by Audrey Tatou, smiling mischievously for the viewer while she looks at the camera from her bowed head.  The only difference between how Audrey tattoo looked and how this young woman at this business looked lies in the fact that the movie poster featured a shot of Audrey from a three quarters angle, while the young woman looked directly at me, from a full frontal angle, in this manner.  I've been wondering all weekend what that was all about.  I will often project really nice, Rich-affirming motives to looks such as the one this young woman gave me, only to find out later that they are coming from a really shitty place with that.

So no, I won't ask this person out in front of God and everyone at her place of employment.  I remember this young woman who worked at a Vulcan Video a few years back at one of their old locations.  She was really good about talking to customers like me.  After a while I would see her  talking to other middle-aged men who were in there by themselves, including this one time where I saw her talk at length to some old geezer who clearly saw this as a highlight of his day.  But, who am I to judge?  To each his own, I guess.  

One time I was out on the town walking to a club and I saw her talking on her phone.  I thought, all at once, "Gee, I'm so glad I never asked her out at her job in front of God and everyone, because now I have this perfect opportunity to see her on a more social level.  Maybe I will get lucky," or some such.  I waved to her as she talked on the phone, and she just gave me the shittiest look.  I just pointed at her and walked off.

There was this other time, last year, when I found one of these girls on Facebook and sent her a friend request.  This girl didn't accept it, but in the weeks after I sent the request, she would give me these looks while I patronized her place of employment that, I guess, were meant to convey a sense of longing for me on her part.  Somehow writing about where I thought she might really be coming from with those looks-namely, that putting in a Facebook friend request for her in the first place meant that I had somehow started some kind of shit with her- somehow those looks magically stopped coming from her after I posted that guess on this blog.  

Both of these instances remind me of the time in 1988 during my last Summer of school at UT-Austin.  In the Spring of that year, I'd had a running flirtation with Sara in a class.  At the end of the semester, on the day of the final, I just watched her turn in her final and walk out.  I finished my final several minutes later, turned it in, and left the classroom.  I didn't even know her name at this point.

During the Summer session, in an art studio at night, I asked a friend of hers if she knew a girl named "Lee."  Cathy said she didn't know anyone by that name.  I left it at that and didn't press for any more.  Some days later I saw Sara in the hall as I rode the elevator and the door opened on her floor.  She stood with her back to me as I pointed at her.  As I pointed at her, she turned and waved, and the elevator door closed.   I laughed heartily.  Sara showed up in a class of mine a week or so later, but she fled after she said hi to me, all while she and her friends giggled, and she cut me short after I chased her into the elevator.  

A couple of months later, after I had not seen nor heard anything from Sara, I tried to work in the same big studio one night.  Eva, one of Sara's friends from that time Sara said "hi" earlier that Summer, stood at an easel working on a painting.  As I set up my stuff, I seethed a bit with the idea that I was over the whole Sara thing.   Eva talked to a girlfriend for a bit, the girlfriend left, and then Eva and myself occupied the whole studio by ourselves.  Eva started coughing.  She continued to cough for a while.  I took this as a "jump through my hoops" gesture, made a slapping sound with the heel of my palms, as if I were beating my meat, and angrily put my stuff up and left.

What do all three of these incidents have in common?  They all represent me doing, to the best I've ever known how, my very best to get to know someone better, and all of these women tried to pass it off as if my best weren't good enough.  Well, in all three instances, my best was good enough for me, if not for them.  In a post from several weeks back, I talked about how I would like to get to know one such young woman in one of these businesses better in "a perfect world."  I think all three instances I've cited demonstrate that I have the ability, at times, to take advantage of more favorable circumstances that represent the closest thing to a perfect world that I can muster on behalf of getting to know such young women better.  But, apparently, any of these women who try to put some kind of pressure on me in what seems to constitute an effort to get me to really put myself out there somehow don't really seem to care enough about getting to know me better under more favorable circumstances.   

So, no, I won't ask this young woman out at her place of employment, or invite her to one of my musical performances, or give her comic books.  The three instances above illustrate how, in times past, I had the patience and smarts to just let all of that go and see if I could find a better way, and if I couldn't, forget about it.  Because, all three instances above illustrate how none of the woman who, in my opinion, tried to put me in a position where I felt as if I had to stick my neck out in some way, really responded in an acceptable way to overtures that clearly solved whatever bullshit-existential-"flight or fight"- crisis they wanted to try to instill in me in the first place.

As readers of this blog will note, I sometimes don't portray myself in the best possible light.  I bring up unsavory incidents from my past sometimes to bring this or that point across.  I don't mind the fallout from such as tendency, except when I do.  I submitted a book to some powers that be last year, and I think that the reason I haven't heard back from these people is that, in the book, I portrayed an incident that I bring up often here.  The particular incident being the crude sexual proposition I made to a young woman in her car in the 1980's.

For the purpose of telling the full arc of the Legend of Richy Vegas, I cannot just edit out stuff such as that or even gloss over it in some polite way.  As a producer of artistic content, I got wise to the notion a long time ago that I probably have to go it alone, do it myself, what have you, if I'm going to get this stuff out there.  The biggest problem I wind up facing is that I may never find a viable audience for what I produce.

Last night I spent a good deal of time in a state of mind that I can best describe as a feverish daydream that featured these powers that be visiting my studio and offering me the keys to the kingdom.  I went back and forth between that state and a state where I took into consideration that I haven't heard from these people, and that it may be very likely that I will never hear from them anything that I would want to hear.

I woke up this morning, after only a few hours sleep, and I quickly formulated an approach that I believe will get me over this hump.  The approach involves the same strategy I employed with Sara in 1988.  Back then I just took a seat in the front of the art history class and vowed to stay there and refrain from chasing Sara to the ends of the Earth and back.  Soon after my decision, Sara took a nearby seat behind me and started working on me.  That time in my life marked the first time I thought that I handled such pressures well, and I think I can mentally take myself back to that place and just chill out about this gatekeeper stuff until it all blows over.