I really try not to be a "great guy" when someone rejects me these days.  I think I'm right when I say that trying to come of as a great guy to a woman who has rejected me can be so very manipulative.  If anyone wants to know the gory details of what I depict as having happened in this book, they will have to write me for a copy to purchase the book.  I have an email address on my contact page as well as a P.O. Box they can write to for info on that.

The second page I added many years later as the second moral to this story.  The episode depicted in this issue number 4 was like a psychotic episode without the psychosis.  The environmental elements of one of my typical psychotic episodes all fell into place on this one, but my medication prevented actual psychosis from occurring.  The episode in this issue marks the last time something like this ever happened to me (knock on wood!).

The next sixteen pages of my latest book illustration effort will see me doing pencil work exclusively on all sixteen pages before I begin the inks on page 31.  Upcoming posts will feature excerpts from previously published issues of "Richy Vegas Comics."

Yeah, love interests are not really the kind of women one "breaks up" with, rather, one lets go of them.  So I will see how things shake out with this former cashier if I try to refrain from going from point "A," the place where I see myself now in relation to her, to point "B," a place where I sometimes still imagine I want to be in relation to her.  

My experience with love interests when I make a decision such as the one I lay out in the previous paragraph is that this course of action will end whatever it is that is going on with me and a love interest such as this former cashier.  When I make a decision to let go of one of these kinds of love interests, I never get anything back from them expressing a desire to move things to another place.  

I might conclude from my experiences of letting such love interests go; an experience where my decision to shut down my role in the dance effectively ends the whole situation; I might conclude that these love interests only wanted one-sided attention from me.  Once it became obvious that the attention from my end was not forthcoming, that ended the whole deal.  For them to answer such a shutting down of attention from my end of it with a, "Hey wait, come back," type gesture would involve risking rejection from me, which is something they never really wanted to risk, apparently.

Trying to get from point "A" to point "B" has always been a problem when it comes to trying to get with this former cashier.  Do I really need to go over what all I'm talking about here? Okay, I invited her to my comic book sale in October of 2021.  She didn't come to it.  She wouldn't even say hi to me at her work when I saw her at her grocery store job after I invited her to my comic book sale, so I decided to patronize another grocery store.  I also joined a love addiction support group for good measure.  Since that day, nothing has ever, ever improved.  My challenge to myself now consists of, "What if I no longer try to get from point 'A' to point 'B' with her?  Will I forsake the love of my life with such a move?  Will I live an unfulfilled life as a consequence of such a course of action?  Will deciding to implement such a course of action make me a cold, unloving man?  Will it make me a bad person?"  I shall see if any of that comes to pass.

I'm working on Page 29 of "...Songbook."  I should have it done by tomorrow (Friday).

Yeah, I consider having a love interest a privilege, not a right.  I mean, back in my early twenties, I couldn't handle having Katy, Veronica, and Wanda as love interests.  I mean, they weren't perfect as love interests, but girlfriends aren't perfect either, so that's no excuse for how badly I handled the privilege of having them as love interests.  Having the ability to contact someone I like through, say, a phone number, email address, social media account, or some such is a privilege and not a right.  

I want to start posting stuff from "Richy Vegas Comics" as well as my latest stuff.  I just read an article on ghosting in the New York Times. When I started to read the article, I expected the "ghosters" to talk about obsessive people texting twelve times a day and like that.  Some of the people being ghosted seemed quite reasonable and not at fault at all.  So where does that leave someone such as me with a history of, um, less than wonderful behavior towards some of my early love interests?  Where am I going with this?  I'm watching the Conan O'Brien channel and that's distracting.  I will watch the third episode of the "Tinker, tailor, Soldier, Spy," miniseries and imagine the former cashier sitting next to me as I watch it.  A privilege, not a right.

The headline says it all.  I don't want to put my foot in my mouth in any of about a thousand ways I could do that.  Yeah, I love the idea that she wants to be my love interest.  I hope it's true.  I hope it's true that she wants to be my love interest. That is all.

I think, that whatever else I have to say about that former cashier, I think she wants to be my love interest.  When I write now that I just finished rewatching episode 1 of the Alec Guinness version of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," and that I imagined turning her on to it as I watched, I don't think me saying that here would frighten her were she to read this.

I might very well have her undivided attention these days.  She might really like the idea of someone such as me taking such an interest in her.  I've come full circle since the days of "Donna," when my attempt to make someone such as Donna over into my love interest seemed an occasion for alarm in my community of peers back then.

I still, at times, feel as if I'm being subjected to something unnecessary and cruel.  But, right now I feel pretty chill.  Life is good.  I'm glad I acquired the ability, somewhere along the way, to sit down on my fears and anxieties about such situations.  I don't think that airing my insecurities these last several posts has been totally without merit, because I do feel as if I'm being subjected to a situation that would give rise to such insecurities becoming wholly manifest.  

I feel like the Nastassja Kinski character in the movie "Paris, Texas."  When we first meet her in that movie, we see her at her job as a girl working a peep show booth.  She sits in a small, enclosed room in front of a two way mirror.  Harry Dean Stanton, as the male customer, can sit on the other side of  the mirror in the adjacent room and see her, but she can't see him.  When she starts to talk about herself and her job, she comes across as totally sympathetic and sensitive.  I still don't know this person on the other side of  that mirror, yet here I sit.

I can't help but feel the hand of Vernon Hoe in this affair.  If my mythology around him rings true, this would be just the situation where he'd want to take me for a spin and see what I can do, for old time's sake if nothing else.  His hand in this whole matter would explain the extra kick I feel to the proceedings.

In 1992, when "Jenna" was my love interest, I got a job in a factory in February of that year. Almost to the day when I first started working in my department, my coworkers seemed to want to fuck with me.  As the third shift, my shift, ended and the first shift personnel came in and started to work, there was this one hispanic guy on first shift who would sing Bill Wither's "Ain't No Sunshine."  He would do this on several occasions before he got fired for fucking up on the production of our product.

Another hispanic guy, on my shift, would sing a song in Spanish that went, "Sin amor, ni apasion nada."  I remember him working across from me and explaining that the song was about how a love is no longer there for the singer of that song.  Anyhoo, as the situation with Jenna progressed, or degenerated if one prefers, these formerly antagonistic coworkers started to turn.  Looking back, I often wonder if Vernon Hoe and the League reached out to them at some point to help me along in completing my stated mission regarding Jenna.

This one goes out to Dee Dee Ramone, principal songwriter for the Ramones.  Dee would often just write a verse, and in the performance the band would just perform the verse, repeat that verse once, and there was your Ramones song.  The one that comes to mind is "I Know Your Name," off of "Leave Home."  The second half of this song bears repeating.


                                                    "Any Man You'd Want to Know (Would Have Left You Long Ago)."
                                                                               by Richy Vegas 2/1/2025

Verse:
D
You never said you wanted me
                 A  
you never said you cared
               G 
you just played your stupid stupid games
       A
and tried to make me scared.

         D
You preyed upon my greatest fears
     A
as if that makes you strong
       G
but you're just scared I'll leave you
    D
if you left this road your on.

Chorus:
A
Any man you'd want to date
                G
would be mad at you right now
        D
Any man you could ever love
                A
would be runnin' hot right now.

        G
You push me at my weakest spots
         A
but it won't bring me closer
        G
any man you'd want to know
A
would have left you long ago.

Bridge:
A
Preying on my insecurities
          D
won't make me say I love you
  A
preying on my insecurities
       D
will just drive me further from you.

      E
To love someone and be loved
        D
you have to risk rejection
           A
your attempt to never play like that
           D
points me in the wrong direction.

Verse:
You never said you wanted me  
you never said you cared 
you just played your stupid stupid games
and tried to make me scared.

You preyed upon my greatest fears
as if that makes you strong
but you're just scared I'll leave you
if you left this road your on.

Chorus:
Any man you'd want to date
would be mad at you right now
Any man you could ever love
would be runnin' hot right now.

You push me at my weakest spots
but it won't bring me  closer
any man you'd want to know
would have left you long ago.

I seem to remember a game we played as children with flowers.  We'd pick an individual petal of, say, a daisy and say, "She loves me, she loves me not...."  We pick each petal until...well, yeah.  I still think that wanting someone to communicate a desire for me in a way I can understand and accept is very reasonable.  I still think that letting someone go who never expresses themselves in such a way towards me is very understandable.  Otherwise, I'm doing okay.