Yes, I do love that former cashier from that grocery store I still patronize.  I knew I wanted to do something about it as of the spring of 2021, and I did.  Nothing in that regard has changed.  I still love her.  I'd give anything to see her again.  Of course.  Yes.

I'm giving Schmaylor Schmift two months to show herself for real.  Past experience tells me this is a very, very reasonable, generous amount of time to give someone.  If anyone in internet land wants to try catfishing me using the Schmaylor Schmift angle, well, now's the chance.  I might fall for it, but then again maybe not.  I'm counting the full two months of June and July as my two months limit.

Before I list all of the people and things I feel thankful for, I'll say this.  I often don't appreciate how much flows from me to those around me in my world, and to some extent, in the larger world.  I think a lot of outsiders such as Simon Rodia gave so much to a world that just didn't know what to do with them.  I think people such as Vernon Hoe appreciated this one way street dynamic I've exhibited over the years and do what they can to inform the newly initiated of its existence.  In case my readers haven't figured it out by now, I'm speaking freely underneath the Cone of Silence right now.

That said, I'm so grateful for all the women in my world who DO seem to get me on a level that I can appreciate.  Soon enough I will attend a going away party at my intern job organized by the women I work with.  The baristas at my coffee shops seem to get that I'm not coming into their place of employment on the make, and that they can give me discounts on coffee now and then and not have to worry about any willful misinterpretations of such gestures.  I'm glad the very attractive young women at that grocery store now know enough to just leave me alone.  I appreciate what some women at clubs might want to express to me when they say, "Thank you," to me in some sort of context that fits into that other, Richy Vegas world as well,

Whether this appreciation of what I have to offer the world extends to the realm of the Schmaylor Schmift types, well, I can't say that I can totally rule that out at this time.  The truth will out on that front.  I've come to care for this person I've never met, who I may never, ever meet, as well as that former cashier in that grocery store who so preoccupied me for these past several years.  Yeah, I'd say that former cashier definitely didn't know what to make of me, didn't know what to do with me, and she may not be the last to feel that way about me, but I love her just the same, and I hope I expressed that sentiment to some extent towards her during that time.  And while the Cone of Silence sits parked securely around us, I will say the same about Schmaylor Schmift, and I hope that she gets that I really tried to bring that same sentiment across to her over the years.

I find myself thinking about Schmaylor Schmift a lot these days.  At some point I usually start to find such obsessive thinking a bit worrisome.  I wonder what will become of me if I never meet this person and nothing I would want to happen ever happens between myself and her in the real world.  Will I continue to think A LOT about this person if nothing good developed soon enough?  Maybe I will.  However, I find that, eventually, such a dynamic brings about an issue of diminishing returns.  If past experience tells me anything, the obsessive fantasies will diminish, diminish further, and eventually fade altogether if nothing substantive happens for me personally on the Schmaylor Schmift front.

In order for diminishing returns to work optimally in my favor, I find it helps to encourage the process along through the decisions I make based on what does or does not happen with such an ostensibly unavailable person such as Schmaylor.  In her case, I will refrain from looking her up on the internet twenty or thirty times a day, and on many days, I will not look her up at all.  Of course, I see absolutely no point in trying to contact her via her social media accounts, or through any stalky in-person attempts to see her.  Nope, right now I just look her up on the internet a few times in a twenty-four hour period, and often enough I make a point of refraining from looking her up over the course of a full twenty-four hours.

I encouraged the phenomenon of diminishing returns when I found myself so very, very fixated on that former cashier who used to work at that grocery store.  After she didn't accept my invitation to attend my comic book sale in late October of 2021, I had my feelers out for anything coming back whenever I found myself around her at that grocery store.  When she seemed to have no desire to talk to me or otherwise engage with me, I bailed and started patronizing another grocery store.  I kept that up for six weeks, after which I came to miss her and decided to go back to her place of employment to do my grocery shopping.  She didn't work there by the time I returned, and so the process whereby she really, really faded in significance began in earnest.

Readers of this blog will note that the former cashier became a thing again when I encountered a young women who seemed to bear a family-type resemblance to her at another business I patronize.  I'd seen someone who looked like the former cashier in this business after I decided to refrain from patronizing her grocery store in early 2022, so that all made me wonder. Also, after I encountered that other young woman who I thought resembled the former cashier in late October 2022, young, very attractive employees at the former grocery store cashier's former place of employment would affect these pissy, impatient looks whenever I walked by them in the grocery store.  Were they trying to tell me something?

After weighing the wisdom of "jumping through hoops," I asked the employee at that business if she knew a girl by that former cashier's name, and she said, politely, no.  I decided to stop patronizing that business for a while, I went back in there today for the first time in four months.  I decided to go ahead and shop at that business today, because the former cashier no longer presents an obsessive issue for me, Schmaylor does.  But, sure enough, working the diminishing returns angle probably helped compel my mind to let go of the notions of  that former cashier that resided for so long and so obsessively with me.  

Therefore, for a viable frame of reference as to how to go about getting my mind to let go of Schmaylor Schmift, I need look no further that the former cashier.  There's less decisions for me to make, because Schmaylor is a famous person I've never met, and I can't credibly contact her in any way, but my efforts to minimize looking her up on the internet should help me along greatly, I would think.  Also, accepting the reality that she has, or will soon enough, become involved with a romantic partner will GREATLY help the process along.  It helped the last time when I found out she had a boyfriend.   

The only unfortunate aspect of the whole deal with Schmaylor, in this respect, involves just HOW LONG this process will have to take.  At times, I want my notion of her to fade, big time, like the day before yesterday, but that's not realistic.  It took FOUR YEARS to fully process my fixation on that former cashier, and I hope to God it doesn't take anywhere near that long for me to process the current fixation on Schmaylor Schmift.  Okay, I fixated on her pretty hard in 2017, and she didn't fade until early 2018, so this second go 'round for her, along with the first time, might represent a significant length of time, and I'll just have to live with that prospect for now.

On the old 60's TV show Get Smart, secret agent Maxwell Smart used to talk to his boss and his fellow agent 99 under the "Cone of Silence."   The Cone of Silence was this clear, molded, plastic half-sphere that came down from the ceiling at secret agent headquarters and covered Max and whomever he talked to.  They employed the Cone of Silence when they wanted to talk about super-top-secret stuff.

I will employ my own Cone of Silence now, between myself and the readers of this blog, and talk frankly about Schmaylor Schmift.  In late February, Schmaylor became a thing again for me.  By March I figured she might have actually taken something of an interest in me, romantic or otherwise.  If one wants to go back to those blog posts of February, March, and April of this year, they will see that I bring up the subject of a woman who first came at me in an aggressive, adversarial manner, but later took an interest in me based on how I managed all of  that bad behavior on their part.

I made it very, very clear that I didn't think that my immediate acceptance of this type of woman would work out very well.  I spoke from experience on this.  I basically stood out on the runway of my heart and waved off any landings on it from such a party. I said  that I could possibly be platonic friends with such a person, at best, for a period of several months, and only AFTER such a probationary period, would I even possibly consider dating such a person as Schmaylor.  I totally take seriously  the possibility that Schmaylor came at me in an adversarial, aggressive manner, starting in 2016, and I guessed that she stood totally unwilling to relent from this posture only until late February of this year.  

As it became apparent soon after those posts in March that Schmaylor found herself recently single, that opened up a can of worms for me.  In those posts of February, March, and April, I said a period of time where someone such as Schmaylor and I were just friends would allow for one or both of us to find someone more suitable for each of us over the coupling of me and Schmaylor.  It's there, bald-faced and on the internet in all its glory, my words in February, March, and April of 2023, paraphrased in the above sentences.

So it now appears as if Schmaylor has exercised other options she considers more viable.  I say, good for her. She's a grown ass woman, she should be able to run her life the way she sees fit, just as I should be able to run my life in any way I see fit.  I only wish I'd articulated my reluctance to try to couple with such a person earlier in my life as well as I expressed my reluctance in those posts of this past February, March, and April.

In my last post, I talked about how notions of women such as Schmaylor go in and out on my schizoid psyche like the tide.  The Cone of Silence is back up, and now I will bet my bottom dollar that my notions of Schmaylor Schmift that I've harbored these past seven years or so will go out with the tide soon enough.  Sigh of relief, or sour grapes?

My dad, who was a psychiatrist, told me something about treating patients who'd diagnosed in the schizophrenia spectrum.  He talked about the delusional constructs they could get caught up in.  He told me the prognosis for such a patient, if they complied with their medications and took care of themselves alright, would see them getting caught up in day to day routine so much that when he would ask, for example, "Frank, what about the CIA and how they wanted you to do some work for them?"; the patient would say something like, "Oh man, what are you bothering me with that stuff for?  That's the last thing on my mind these days."

I've replied that way to a therapist when he asked me about something of that nature.  It was a long time ago.  However, for me, at least, the grandiose, fantastic things I can get caught up in come in and go out like the tide.  For example, I hadn't really thought about Schmaylor Schmift to any extent for a long time, until my notion of her came roaring back to life late last February.  Now, I probably thought a lot about equally bizarre stuff at that time, but I do remember how Schmaylor made a big comeback late last February.

I had dinner with friends this evening.  I'm comfortable talking about the specifics of all that can go on in my head with them, so I did.  I said that, hopefully, this latest Schmaylor intrusion will go out with the tide soon enough.  Maybe just talking to them initiated that process.  Maybe just thinking along those lines before I visited with them initiated that whole process.  That's why I'm so keen on treating this whole "love" issue with this notion of Schmaylor in my head as a symptom of my illness, and not some REAL THING, because the day may very well come when I dismiss all talk of this time and my delusional notion of this person as trivial stuff in my past.

So, right now I'm happily refraining from looking up Schmaylor Schmift on the internet.  The last time I looked up her was about this time last night/ yesterday morning.  I realize that the idea of treating whatever feelings I have for this person (whom I've never met) as an illness based on illusion and delusion rather than a REAL THING might come off as negative to a lot of people.  Well, maybe to a few people out there.  

In the days since I've decided to regard my fixation on Schmaylor as the symptom of an illness and I therefore feel absolutely no need to "keep my end up" in some supposed deal I have with her, a funny thing has happened.  A whole new world of possibilities has opened up like a fat, fresh raw oyster for me to just dig into.  I see my move as turning away from a solid brick wall of undeterminable height and width and turning instead to MY LIFE and seeing all that I can work on in that sphere.

And it's not as if this notion of Schmaylor has disappeared from my being as I've talked about with other women.  The only notions of Schmaylor that appear now are happy, joyful fantasies that involve connecting with her on a talk show panel and shit like that.  Not bad at all.  So, concentrate on doing laundry and cleaning my apartment instead of racking my brain on how to get with Schmaylor, and I find myself in a happy, joyful place in regards to the notion of her that resides in my head.  Not bad at all.

My clinic called today.  The lady said that my lab reports on my cholesterol and blood sugar and all that were great.  I've lost about twenty pounds since last fall.  I had a diagnosis of pre-diabetes based on my blood sugar levels of these last several years.  The medical advice says the best thing to do about that is to lose weight.  I'm curious to see the actual number on my blood sugar level to see if I am indeed out of the pre-diabetes range on that.

Which, of course, brings me to the point I want to make about Schmaylor Schmift.  I think I will have much more success dealing with that situation if I regard the whole phenomenon of  the notion of her I have in my head...: I think I will have much more success regarding all of that as the symptoms of a chronic illness rather than making any attempt to "keep my end up" in a supposed deal I have going with this person.  The whole situation will prove much more manageable if I take care of it much as I would if I had diabetes or high blood pressure.  That is all. 

In 2009 a friend of mine had two girlfriends. One was his "real" girlfriend, and one was his sidepiece.  My friend lied to me about the nature of his relationship to his sidepiece in an effort to foist her off on me, because she proved inconvenient to his relationship with his real girlfriend.  His sidepiece lied to me about the nature of their relationship as well.  All the while I had issues with my antipsychotic medication, because I had recently quit drinking and drugs, and the sedating effect of the excessive alcohol use wore off as I withdrew from that drug.

Amidst all of the storm in my head as a result, I blew off my friend's sidepiece girlfriend and stopped calling her.  My friend started squawking about how hurt she was that I wasn't calling her any more, and called me a piece of shit etc., etc.  After I told him off and got him to stop bothering me for a while, I also never heard from his sidepiece ever again.  All I had to do involved refraining from calling her, and it was like, 'Poof!', she disappeared.  

At some point in this process, I told myself that she might call me or come see me at my house to try to talk to me, but that never happened.  As mad as I was at her, I imagined presenting her with a crude sexual proposition if she did show up at my house, but I then thought better of it.  I figured that should this girl actually go to the trouble to come see me and talk about my issues with her, that I'd do well to regard that as a potentially very good sign, and that I could give her a day in court to present her case to me.

Recently, I had another unavailable woman dilemma in the form of how I should handle that situation with that girl who used to work at that grocery store I patronize, and how I thought that another young woman who worked at another business I patronize might have been the former grocery store employee's sister.  I asked the "sister" if she knew a girl by the grocery store girl's name, and she said no.  Soon afterwards, I decided to stop patronizing that business where the "sister" worked, and again, 'Poof!', the dilemma disappeared.  Was the "sister" lying to me about not knowing a girl by the name of...the grocery store girl's name?  Who cares!  Once I stopped buzzing that store where the "sister" worked, that issue, along with all of my other issues with this former grocery store employee went, 'Poof!', as well.

I had a similar experience recently regarding these young women in this up and coming band I like, and I did pretty much the same thing.  I decided I wouldn't find anything I'm looking for by following this band on social media, or going to their shows, so I stopped doing those things.  I made an exception a few weeks ago when I saw this band play on the same bill as a band that had some of my friends in it.  Other than that, 'Poof!', they disappeared.  I still see videos of theirs come up on YouTube, but no big deal.  Right?

Therefore, in regards to the celebrity person who I've never, ever even met, what to do?  I decided to sharply curtail the occasions I look this person up on the internet, and to give myself token reward stickers on my calendar for the daily observance of this effort.  I give myself a heart sticker for looking up this person only one time or so in a day, and I give myself a daisy sticker for not looking this person up at all over the course of twenty-four hours.  I predict, once again, 'Poof!', there will go my issues with her, before too long.

Of course, I have scenarios go on my head where this celebrity person, whom I've never met, mind you, comes into my world try to talk to me.  The sidepiece girlfriend of my friend could not even be bothered to call me herself, come over to my house, or anything else.  Again, all I had to do was refrain from calling her and, 'Poof!', she disappeared.  I emphasize this: the sidepiece resided in my active social circle, and all I had to do....Therefore, the restrictions on my internet browsing of this celebrity for news and whatnot should take care of that unavailable woman dilemma.  And I reiterate, if this celebrity person actually took it upon herself to come into my world somehow, that might actually be a good thing, and not an occasion for shitty behavior from me towards her at all, but I'm not holding my breath, to say the least.

Any woman who throws the curve, yet again, after each and every critical juncture I go through with them puts up a giant, red, red flag of all red flags for all the world to see, and that includes me.  A couple of posts ago I vowed to refrain from retaliating or otherwise lashing out at someone I've come to care for a great deal.  I have not wavered at all on that commitment.  

​In August of 1988, I took yet another curve ball from Sara in the form of her friend demonstrably coughing in the painting studio at UT one night a full two months after I last laid eyes on Sara.  I didn't even know Sara's name at the time, but by the time Eva stood there, just me and her in the studio, and coughed as if to cue me to action somehow, well, I decided that was enough of Sara's shit.  

​Eva had Sara's tacit approval to treat me that way.  I cut Sara loose.  I DID NOT retaliate, okay.  I just said, "Enough," and cut her loose.  Sara has no cause to complain about how I treated her to this day, because it was my prerogative whether I wanted to have anything to do with her in the first place.  Just as it's my prerogative now, and I don't want to have anything to do with the person in question any more.