A couple of posts ago I conjectured that the Invisible Woman sent an iPad case and cables to me as an anonymous gift via Amazon.  I've since got word that the package was sent by a family member.  I guess she figured that if she didn't address the package to me, it might not arrive when she came to visit.  The case is for her iPad, I guess.  I'm pretty pleased with myself for fishing the items out of the trash.  I considered other explanations besides the Invisible Woman accusation, but I never guessed that someone in my family was just sending themselves something ahead of their visit.

My dad once told me that" life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."  I looked it up just now, and he was not the one who originally said it, but it's true nonetheless.  I'm open to keeping the gift I received the other day, the iPad mini case and cables, around for awhile.  If it's a harbinger of more trouble to come, I'll just try to duck in time, I guess.  I'm sticking to my guns on my wish to not receive anonymous gifts through Amazon, though.  If the party who sent the CD and coffee in 2016 is the same party who send the iPad mini case and cables, they will just have to find another, socially acceptable, way to reach me.

I have a right to defend myself.  I've noticed an employee of a business I patronize, whom I called out on this blog the other day, no longer seems to work at her job.  Judging from the demeanor of other employees there, everything might be alright on that front regardless.  I certainly hope so.  Like I've said many times, I think I'm within my rights to express my opinions as to what goes on around me, as long as I respect the privacy of those I interact with.  I certainly mean no harm to those I might have a beef with.

I'm finished with the pencil work on issue number eighteen of Richy Vegas Comics.  Today I will start inking the text, which should take about a week.  I hope to finish the inks on the pencil illustration by the middle of June.  I'm not going to the Small Press Expo in Bethesda Maryland this Fall.  I came up short in the lottery.  That means I won't have so many bills to pay for the rest of this year.

Today I received a package from Amazon.  It was a gold iPad mini, which I didn't order.  I looked it up online, and it's their cheapest model at around eighty dollars, if I recall correctly.  Three years ago, around this time of year, I received a package that contained a CD of a hit record by a famous female pop star, and also a bag of a half pound of coffee beans.

When I first received the gift three years ago, I didn't think anything of it.  I figured that it got sent to the wrong person, or that Amazon was just trying to get rid of some inventory, or that this was some kind of gift from Amazon to acknowledge that I was a good customer.

Longtime readers of this blog will recall the post from January first 2017 when I first mentioned the gift of the CD and the coffee beans.  In between the time I received that gift and the post from January 2017, a vision of yet another glorious chapter in the already-bursting-with-glory Legend of Richy Vegas came to me during the Summer of 2016.  In late December 2016 I ordered the Best of Badfinger CD from Amazon.  No sooner did I get it into my possession than it disappeared.  Around that time I spotted the CD that I'd received as a gift from the previous Spring lying on the floor in one of my rooms.  I gave the CD another listen and I decided that it was really pretty good.  

So naturally, I added it all up and decided that this beautiful young pop star was a secret admirer, because she knew all about the Legend of Richy Vegas too.  You see, I figured that, naturally, that she'd hired some people to break into my house and steal the Badfinger CD. because it had that track, "Day After Day," on it.  The beginning lines of "Day After Day" go, "I remember finding out about you..."  

Well I suggest that readers that are not familiar with the progression of my thought processes on this subject go back and read my posts from pretty much all of 2017 and into 2018.  The initial thrill that I could have a secret admirer in the form of this famous woman morphed into speculation that I was the target of a campaign of harassment and intimidation.  Things played out to the point where I don't feel as if I'm under the spell of this woman, and that I haven't been under any kind of spell involving her for quite some time now.

Which brings me to the gift I received today.  I called Amazon's customer service number and inquired about it.  The woman on the phone said that someone did indeed deliberately send me an anonymous gift of the iPad.  She wouldn't give the name of the person whose account in was under, but she said I could try to guess.  I told this woman that I have a major mental illness, and that my guesses would involve people in a realm of reality that this woman on the phone and myself would not acknowledge as being part of a reality we shared.  So I declined to guess.  She did say that I could flag my account, and that no one could send me anonymous gifts anymore.  I opted to do just that.

People out there might think, "Dude, why didn't you just give her a few names, including the name of this famous pop star, and see if you had a hit?  What do you have to lose?"  Here's my answer: In order for me to go about my day to day business and function on a productive level, I've found it necessary to draw up certain boundaries between the kind of stuff that goes on in my head, which many people would find bizarre and irrational, and the day to day reality which I and those around me would more readily acknowledge as being relevant to our respective life circumstances.

I'll give an example:  The day before New Year's Eve, I went to see Kinky Friedman play a solo show at Stubb's.  The last time I was really sick with psychosis, early 1995, I had a hallucination involving Kinky.  I documented a version of this hallucination in comics form and put it in the first issue of Richy Vegas Comics in 1999.  I sent this issue to Kinky's dad, who was friends with my mother, along with a note putting the whole thing into context, and a request that Tom send the book onto Kinky.

Kinky never wrote back, and I let it go at that.  Now, at this show at Stubb's in late December, I walked up to Kinky and introduced myself before he went on and did his set.  I mentioned that my mom knew his late father.  I told him of the two occasions my mother was around him, and I said how much of an honor it was to meet him, and that I was a big fan, and that this was the first time for me to see him perform, and I ended it with, "Break a leg, buddy."  Kinky smiled, with an unlit stogie in his mouth, said, "Thank you," and I walked off.

So my point is, that I didn't start in on this stuff about the hallucination that involved Kinky, or even ask him about the comic book, because I just didn't want to bother him.  After the show, he signed my T-shirt for me, and he seemed glad to talk to me, so I think I did the right thing.

I plan on donating the iPad to the Austin Clubhouse.  I might also tell one or two of the staff about how triggering it was for me to get this gift today.  If any of them want to call Amazon customer service and give them the tracking number and play guessing games as to who sent this gift to me, they are welcome to.  I doubt they'll do it, and I certainly don't require that any staff do this for me.  I think it's kind of stupid that I would have had to sit there and throw out names to this woman instead of her just telling me, but at least I can request not to have gifts of this nature sent to me.

Was this an attempt on the Invisible Woman's part to make amends for all the shit that seemed to start with the gift in 2016?  I don't give a shit.  Fuck that asshole!  I mean, if she or anyone else wanted to really make amends, I would want a full disclosure of who these people are and an apology in writing for all of the intimidation and harassment I perceived them visiting on me.  I mean, god forbid this famous pop star, if she were really involved, should TARNISH HER BRAND with that kind of gesture.  Oh, wouldn't that be terrible for her.  Right?  Fuck her!  Fuck her running.  For all I know this gift was an indicator that there will be more attempts to intimidate and harass me in the near future, so what am I supposed to think about that?  I'll save the tracking number, but that's about it.

An addendum (I think that's the right term): I just inspected my present and found out that it is NOT an actual iPad but an iPad CASE.  What the fuck am I supposed to do with an iPad case with no iPad?  Maybe the anonymous gift giver who sent this was planning on sending an iPad later.  In that case, they can just shove the iPad up their ass and I'll just throw away the case.  

Yesterday morning I went about my business after I dropped my dad off at work.  A couple of attractive young women at these businesses I patronize were really nice to me in a professional, doing-their-job kind of way.  In a perfect world I would like nothing better than the opportunity to get to know such women better.  I wondered if they read this blog, and if they were somehow reacting to the last post where I broke down the futility of romantically pursuing this one young woman who worked a job like theirs and whom I interact with about as often as I do these young women.

So, yeah, I've said it before, my stated goal in my interactions with such young women is that they don't have the impression that I'm trying to assign them the role of love interest to me.  I've said in many previous posts that I've traced the source spring of my river of dysfunction in my relationship with women back to the idea that I needed to always have a love interest from amongst the women in my world.  In earlier days this or that young woman might attend classes I attended in college or work the same job I worked.  As of some years ago, that deal morphed into these young women who worked these food service/ retail jobs at businesses I patronized.

The moratorium on love interests helps me separate myself mentally from women I desire to the point where I can tell where I leave off and they begin.  This ability to separate myself from them allows me to make intelligent decisions about how I relate to them.  Decisions that serve both my own and these young women's best interests comprise the dominant characteristic of intelligent decisions.  So far, intelligent decision involve me cutting these young women loose at some point.  That is all. 

In my last post I talked about a young woman at a business whom I suspected of vying for my romantic attention in less than honest ways.  This particular young woman started working at this business several years ago.  I remember last Spring I asked her something in a small talk way, and she answered courteously enough.  It may have been after that time that she kind of looked at me in a lingering way as I left her presence and I went on my way.

A couple of months ago I asked her something that related to the business where she worked, and later I realized that that was the most I'd ever talked to her, ever.  I'm talking about a brief exchange that lasted maybe thirty, forty-five seconds on two separate occasions.  

Soon after those brief exchanges, I went in there and she kind of gave me a look with snarled lips that seemed to indicate that I disgusted her in some way.  So I guess that my fantastic progress I made in getting to know her better was all for naught, and I had to start at square one again.

My last post talked about how other attractive young female employees seemed to display an energy that indicated I was on the right track when I went into that business a couple of days before while this particular woman worked her shift.  This was the first time I allowed myself to be around her since she snarled at me that time, because I don't really like young women snarling at me and trying to let me know that I disgust them on a basic, primal level.  Soooo, anyway, I was around her, but she didn't say hi to me or otherwise indicate to me that she wanted to see more of me, but this other time, with these other women, a couple of days later, on this other shift seemed to constitute an attempt to give me some kind of shot in the arm as encouragement.

Okay, let's go with that.  So let's see.  She's been working there for several years now, and the previous paragraphs pretty much summarize how far things have gone between us up to this point.  Sooo, based on how long it has taken for things to get as far as they have, I will try to put a timeline on the stages of progress that pretty much have to occur before I can go on like, maybe, one date with this person.  

Sooo it might take, I don't know, two or three more years before she will greet me in a pleasant manner and let me know she's glad to see me in a general sense.  It may take another year or two after that before she will let me talk to her and maybe another three years after that before the small talk exchanges become more personal in nature.  Let's see, adding all that up, it might take about six to eight years before I can approach her at this business and talk to her about stuff of a personal nature.

Now, provided that she manages to be nice to me that whole time, it may take another two or three years before I'm comfortable enough to invite her to a musical performance of mine, or ask her if she'd like one of my comics.  Then another couple or four years after that, maybe, before I could feel like I want to ask her out.  That is, provided that she actually shows up for at least one of my shows and shows a general interest in what I do creatively and otherwise, and provided that I like her well enough, and oh yes, provided that she doesn't snarl at me as if she wants me to know that I disgust her on a deep, personal level.

So, I guess it might take about ten to twelve years before I go on one date with her.  Now, she's a young woman, with a young woman's appetites for life's pleasures, I reckon, so if she needs to have certain needs met before I'm allowed to come along, I guess that would be alright.  A fine romance indeed. 

The other day I patronized one of these businesses that employ a number of attractive young women along with other folks.  As I left, I noticed that a couple of the young female employees ran around like young Greek mythology wood nymphs.  You know, kind of going about their jobs with youth and vigor, like.  

When I got home I thought that word of the Legend of Richy Vegas might have finally got 'round- something I've been wanting to happen for about twenty-seven years, okay?- and, boy, did I get excited.  I kind of sat on this thought and didn't darken this place's door for a bit.  

Then I thought about it a while later, and I came to a different conclusion.  I thought that these young attractive women flouncing around as they were might have had something to do with how I said "no" to a situation I found myself in with a young, attractive female coworker of theirs.  I essentially said a couple and three and four posts back that I would not pursue anyone at this business romantically, and that I had a right to make such a decision.  

This past week I found myself patronizing this business during the shift of a young woman I'd made that kind of decision about, a decision to refrain from romantic pursuit of this person, and I wondered if that could explain this nymph-like flouncing about by her coworkers on another shift on a later date.  Work with me here, people; it's as if I inadvertently signaled something to these coworkers, and they wanted to tell me something about the deal with this young woman in question.  The headline of this post says it all.  This notion might just exist in my head.  Maybe the young coworkers were just being young women and they don't even know anything about me.  In that case, no harm done, I guess.

But, if these young women attempted to do me or this young woman some kind of favor with this display of energy, I have a problem with that.  I strongly suspect, as has been the case with every single young woman at this business up to this point, that the young woman in question is not what she seems.  I mean, I suspect that this young woman represents herself as available and interested for me to date, when in fact that may not ring true.

People out there should note, this has happened before, at this same business.  The first time it happened was with that virgin girl in 2014.  The other major time it happened occurred after the virgin girl failed to win at her games, and her friend took up the cause in 2015, and again in 2016.  Other young women at this business have tried me to a lesser extent than these two, but this one I'm referring to these days might be using the same playbook as the previous two.

She could be playing both ends against the middle, and leading these young woman on about her level of interest in me.  On the other hand, maybe this young woman just doesn't know what she wants, and the fact that I said "no" to the whole deal at this place and with her has her energized to try and win me over.  The purpose of trying to win me over despite my resistance, regardless of where she's coming from, is to see if she can do just that.  She may have no thought of what might occur as a result of any of that.  So, all of that energy I saw the other day in those employees may come from the fact that I said, "No."

I, of course, have a big problem with this.  Trying to win me over shows a basic lack of respect for my wishes, both on her part and on the part of these other employees.  Of course, I'm just thinking out loud.  None of this may actually have any basis in reality.  But, no matter, because my chosen course of action requires that I do not much of anything about it.  Writing about it helps.

Think about it, people.  Let's say the genders were reversed, and it was a man trying to win over a woman with such tactics.  People would consider him and his mostly male confederates to be real scumbags, wouldn't they?  I mean, the confederates may serve as unwitting dupes of the player dude, but still, they are all knowingly going against the wishes of the lone female- if the genders were reversed.  Just because they are all attractive young women and I'm a fifty-four year old man doesn't make what they do cute or okay.

I've read that a sex addict will have sex with someone just because they have an opportunity, regardless of whether they want to have sex with that person or not.  Maybe someone such as myself, a love addict, would feel compelled at times to love someone even though he or she didn't really want to.  That makes any machinations of other parties to bring about that result seem really slimy,  does it not?  Hey, people, I don't HAVE to love anyone.  All anyone can do is ask, and maybe the answer is "NO."  The preceding came from a public service announcement from the eighties.  That is all.

I haven't been going to restaurants or coffee shops or the bakery as much as I usually go.   Since the start of the new year, I've put a token reward system in place to help modify or accentuate everything from spending habits, to diet and exercise, to practicing guitar and other musical instruments.   An example of token reward is a teacher giving an elementary school student a gold star on some class assignment that the student handed in.  Another example could be someone putting an "x" on a calendar date to signify that they didn't smoke during that day.  People in the know say that such a trivial-seeming reward can really help motivate people to a surprising degree.  As I go about my day to day routine, a mental image of those little stickers on my calendar at the end the day helps me to drive past the bakery or the coffee shop and refrain from stopping and buying something.

I went crazy and bought a whole bunch of little stickers to signify every little thing I would like to work on.  So I have separate stickers for both eating the kinds of foods I want to eat for meals, and not eating sweets and other junk food for snacks.  If I don't go to the coffee shop for one whole day, that's TWO stickers because I usually go twice in one day.  I have separate stickers for practicing guitar and bass as well as a separate category for other instruments such as drum pad and musical saw.  I have separate stickers for walks and other exercises such as crunches and pushups.

I give myself a small monetary reward for each of these things I achieve on a daily basis.  I originally intended to make little payments on my credit card balance almost every day based on how much of these rewards I earned, but the money got tight, so I just use the monthly total reward as a benchmark for how I want to do the next month.  As it goes with the individual goals, I set the next month's reward goal at a bit less than what I achieved the earlier month, so that I will have it in my mind that I can attain the goal I set.  This helps me to go ahead and do all this stuff, and that makes it more likely that I will approach or tie the previous mark before the end of the month, and then I will have the rest of the month to exceed the previous mark.  See how I'm going on about this topic?  Ah, obsession!

I think that Facebook wanted me to download their app for my phone this morning, so it wouldn't let me log on through the Chrome browser as usual.  I thought that Facebook had a hell of a nerve trying to push me around, given all the stuff that's come out about them since the 2016 election and afterwards, so I deleted my account today.  It will take a full month before I will be completely off of Facebook and not able to just log into my account if I change my mind.  I don't know if I can do it.  I will lose my friends who read this blog from the site, so that might affect my decision on whether to go ahead and do it or not.  In the mean, I'm going to try to get contact information for any one of my old friends I don't have info for, and if I succeed in getting off of Facebook after a while, I  may consider some other social media site.