I just did a round of morning errands and I saw some really attractive young women in some of the businesses that I patronized.  I told a male friend the other day that the main thing I'm working on now in my relationship with women is to develop an appreciation for women who are generally more approachable than the very attractive young women who can take up so much space in my head.

A more approachable woman might have some of the qualities of youth and beauty that I like so much, but they generally are closer to my age- by a lot- and not the supremo uber babe/ goddess types that I can go on at length about.  They generally are women I meet when I go see bands and whatnot, and they also are generally women who are friends with people I know.  This makes it a lot easier for me to ask them out, put in a Facebook friend request, etc.

The last couple of women I approached who had these quaiities weren't single, it turns out, but here's another thing I like about approaching these women: they and those around them, and/ or the circumstances in which I meet them, somehow make for a more forgiving outcome even if it turns out that they are not single.

The sense that I travel on more forgiving terrain with these approachable women is what really sells the notion to me that this is where I really want to push that envelope.  I mean, this terrain, let's call it that, could stand further exploration over the idea of getting up all the courage I can possibly muster to go ahead and ask out the twenty-two year old baristas and waitresses in front of God and everyone- yet again, only to come up empty- yet again.

A huge block that used to impede me from approaching less than ideal looking women has to do with my tendency to make it about my fantasy life.  As an opportunity to get to know a more approachable women would present itself, I would invariably picture myself with these women at the moment when one initiates intimate relations, and the picture in my mind of that was not the pretty, pretty one that it would be with the really attractive women.  So, I found it necessary to challenge my fear that any step in the direction of more approachable women would inevitably lead down the path to that moment of truth.  Like I said, the last two women I approached for dates weren't even single, it turns out, so there you go.  I didn't know that, in either case, nor did I even suspect it.

A couple of years ago I wrote in this space that I liked three qualities in a woman in order to get at least one date with me: available, interested, act like they give a shit about taking care of themselves.  Several times I've had available women take an interest in me who couldn't manage that last one.  Unresolved substance abuse issues have been a deal killer with me, even when the women in question weren't bad looking at all.

When I went to therapist and tried to talk about changing things around in my relationship with women in general, they invariably tried to steer me in the direction being in a "relationship."  The problem was, this created a block when I tried to lower my standards, because I couldn't paint a pretty picture in my mind of being in a relationship with women who didn't meet my standards of youth and beauty.

I'm glad I ditched all those therapists and their advice.  I just put myself in the frame of mind that I wanted to try going on dates with women I didn't normally consider, and not vie for a romantic love relationship with the first woman who agreed to go out with me a couple of times.  I just got the message from the therapists I went to that I was supposed to be all hot for a relationship with the first person that came along.  If that were the case, I never would have given many of the women I went out with over the course of this last ten years or so the time of day.



 

I figure that I have one more pass on the pencils for my next book.  That will make five passes through the book with the pencils.  I've really been busting my ass on the pencils, which is why I'm so far into them at this early a stage.  I hope to do about twenty or twenty-one work days for March.  When I first started doing these long editions of Richy Vegas Comics, I would dawdle at this stage so much that it would take ten or eleven months to do a book, whereas it takes about six months to finish one these days.  

I hope to finish with "The Legend of Richy Vegas" by 2025 or 2026.  I don't know if I'll be able to maintain this production schedule; life is what happens when one is making plans and all that.  I think it will be a eleven or twelve volume series, and I'm on the second  volume now.

The gig was another unique experience in performing.  I had three twelve/ thirteen years old girls as my audience sitting right up at the front of the stage, along with their three parents.  One of the mothers insisted that I could do my full set of potty-mouth songs, but I just couldn't.  I excised "Blo-hole Acres," "Lot Lizard Lolita," "See What Fuckface Is Up to Today," and others, from the set.  The remaining songs that had the f-bomb and whatnot I did an edit on.

I sold some books and a CD at the show, though.  That was the main reason for me to do these shows in the first place.  I have such a huge inventory of unsold books, that I have to have some way of getting them out there.  Conventions are expensive, and often they are not much fun, either.

I was thinking the other day about something a young woman told me about ten years ago.  I told her about a teacher in an informal class that I had an interest in.  I didn't know whether this teacher was single or what.  The young woman said something about, "Those crushes can be pretty mean," or brutal, or something like that.  

That made me think, "Did I have a crush on this teacher?"  A "crush." Wow!  No I did not.  I was about forty-three at the time, and I think I was pretty much past all of that.  I did have a bit of a crush on a barista a couple of years later.  I remember thinking she was ideal and perfect and I had some intense fantasies that revolved around how great we'd be together.  I based most of my belief in her perfection on how good she looked.  She was a bit of an asshole, as it turned out.  If I was at all inclined to have a crush on her, I don't think I've had a crush on a woman since then.

For me, at this stage in my life, having a crush on a woman is like putting money into a defective soda machine.  I might put in money at first, maybe one or two more times, but when no soda pop comes out when I push the button, and I can't get my money back, and I contact the vending company and they don't refund my money, and I do this enough times until I'm convinced that I will never get my soda pop by putting money into the machine, I will eventually stop putting money into that machine.  Other people might get their soda pop just fine from the same machine, and I might stand by the machine, dumbfounded, and see it work for them, but for me, I'll just give up eventually on getting a soda from that machine, I guess.

I hope that when everyone gets to be my age, that when it comes to the romantic love game, they only concern themselves with what works versus what doesn't work, period.  I think that is the appropriate frame of mind to have when one reaches my age.  i haven't had anything remotely resembling the longings of unrequited love in- maybe almost twenty years.  I've had quite enough spiritual growth experiences from unrequited love, thank you.

I find what helps most with that is to resist the urge to idealize someone based almost solely on how good they look.  I go into hypercritical mode and try to come up with anything to pick someone apart based on what little I know about them as a person.  An example: I saw some college-age woman at an open mic a few months ago.  She looked really good.  After I got home, I wondered why she didn't do more for me than she did,  I concluded, that just by looking at her, that unavailability just oozed from her pores.  I haven't seen her at that open mic since, nor did I try to talk to her when I saw her that one time.

I guess I have to distinguish the experiences I've written about in this blog and how they are different from a crush.  A crush is more of a voluntary thing than what I experienced with the Invisible Woman and the two that came before her.  I had the intense, involved fantasy life with these three women that generally centered around myself being accepted by them and theirs in their world- not really sexual fantasies at all, mind you.  I guess when I get right down to it, those pathways in my brain that went to those places in my adolescence are still there, but all three of those women represented more of a bad juju curse that I had to overcome than anything that I wanted to be a part of .  Furthermore, I knew that these curses wouldn't last forever, and I welcomed their passing.

​

I'm playing at the Posse East on Tuesday the 13th at 2 PM.   It will be a forty-five minute set.  Most of the songs will be off the upcoming LP, ​Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.  I've got seven guitar/ vocal tracks recorded that I'm happy with, but I've suspended that project to prepare for this gig.  

I'm giving myself the rest of the year to work on that album.  I want to put bass and drums and other, primarily percussion instruments in the production including spoons and tambourine.   I want to buy a cajon, which is a box that one sits on and has different pitches according to which side the player thumps on.  One may use their hands, drum their fingers, or use some sort of drum sticks.  A cajon costs a fraction of what a drum set costs-especially a drum kit with with good cymbals- and seems to be easier to learn how to play.

I think I will rent a drum kit from a friend for a month to record on a couple of  tracks.  I have bought a practice pad and sticks that include a book and CD on drum rudiments.  One can listen to the CD and play along and look at the rudiments charts in the book and see how the right and left hand strikes the drum in the proper sequence.

I was thinking about renting brass instruments and doing simple tuba and possibly trombone parts for the record.  That would come later on during the Summer, and I would like to take some lessons for that as well.  I'm currently taking bass lessons as well as guitar lessons.  I take two bass lessons a month and four guitar lessons.  I've been having to watch my budget really closely to pay for all of this stuff, as well as the comic book related stuff.

The new book is coming along nicely.  I'm on my second month of working on the pencils.  I'm almost through the third pass on the pencils.  I will go through the book two more times from beginning to end with the pencils, and then I may pick out pages that still need work and go over them one more time.  I will then ink the text.  I hope to finish up with these phases  by the end of March, and then I will move onto the final inking phase.  I hope to finish that phase in less than four months.

All this stuff costs money, and the only extensive resource i have is my credit card.  But, I don't want to get too charge-happy with that. I try to reserve credit card charges for stuff like music and art projects.   I have to eat at home a lot, and I can't get my coffee shop coffee as much as I'd like.  I'm really trying to pay down on these big charges every month.

My last couple of posts involved me kind of letting go of any notion of wonderful things happening as a result of the "Invisible Woman" and all the nonsense I've posted on that topic.  I truly felt kind of bummed soon after it occurred to me that I would, once again, face the daily dilemmas of aging, loneliness, and feeling lost about how to solve the challenges presented by such dilemmas.

When I crashed and burned in 1992 and received a pretty heavy diagnosis of a major mental illness, the main thing I thought would take away my emotional pain- extreme emotional pain- was to be in a romantic love relationship with a woman I considered desirable in all ways.  Unfortunately, unlike cheeseburgers, beer, or cocaine, that kind of thing wasn't, and still isn't, easy for me to come by.  I had to settle for going against the advice of the psychiatric and therapeutic professionals whose care I was under at the time and chill out in the hospital in Big Spring and stay with my dad for a few months.  These professionals wanted me to keep my full-time factory job and severe all financial ties with my parents.  They painted my parents as the villains of the piece.  Their treatment plan might have proven lethal if I had sincerely tried to follow it through, because I might have made an attempt on my own life.

Ugh, enough of those assholes.  I've received some kind of support from my family ever since, and I have recently come to the conclusion that blaming my parents or other members of my family for my failings in my relationship with women or other areas of my life does nothing to help me make intelligent decisions about women or those other areas of my life.

Back to the topic at hand: I crashed and burned in 1992 in a failed attempt to romantically connect with "Jenna," and the first  thing I wanted to do when I hit bottom was go out there and get me a girlfriend.  I remember earlier episodes of my life, such as the time with Veronica when pretty much the same thing happened, and how I had a great desire to be "successful" in some way to prove my worth to the world and to myself. After my failure with Veronica, I tried to work two jobs and go to school at the same time.  That didn't last.  After I failed to connect with "Anna" in 1986, I wanted to be an astronaut!  At the end of 1987, I wanted to try out for an NFL team.

I think one sign that I'm doing a lot better in my relationship with women these past few years is that I'm attentive to the idea that it may not be a good idea to try to rebound after these disappointments with these unavailable women.  Even in the best of times, women in general have been a real challenge for me.  

I've thought about that these past few days.  I've tried to focus instead on more achievable goals.   Goals such as rehearsing for my upcoming performance.  Music practice in general.  Working on my comic book.  Staying sober.  Taking my psych med as prescribed.

I've had this problem with vertigo this past week.  I've had problems with it before these past few years, and I'm hoping that it will go away without treatment. That and the psych med have combined to kick my ass, but I'm doing pretty good.  I will at least have my set memorized and rehearsed before the gig during the week of South by Southwest.  My book chugs along at it's usual pace.  I don't know if I will be able to maintain the consistent production schedule for the long term, but I haven't had any trouble with working on it this past month, and I see no problems with working on it in the foreseeable future.

I like to think that at least some people in my everyday world read what I write here.  If that's true, then there might be a fair number of attractive women who are kind of with me on a lot of what I say.  They, for what I can tell, are not necessarily available or interested for me to date, but they might be with me otherwise.  The last thing I want to do is to undermine this sentiment they may possess about me by trying to make any of them into my girlfriend.  I think that desire to just leave well enough alone on my part is a sign that 1) I'm negotiating my way through the unavailable women "straits" better and, 2) That I've got a more realistic concept of what constitutes success when I have to negotiate those treacherous waters.

Whether any of this translates to career success in the arts and entertainment fields remains to be seen, but at least I can reliably say I won't have to count on crash and burn episodes every year or year and a half or so, and then try to pull myself up from that abyss every single time, and then go out and try try again, only to have it happen all over again.