In my last post I talked about two women I've dealt with recently.  The first one I talked about used to live next door to me by my house.  She was attractive and seemed nice, but she kept me at arm's length the whole time she lived next door to me.  Late last year I encountered her in a store where we were both costumers.  She talked to me at length, and I couldn't figure out where she was coming from with this apparently newfound interest in me.  I concluded in my last post that she had heard something nice about me from her old roommate.  See the last post for details.

The second woman is yet another very young, very attractive employee of one of these food service businesses that I patronize.  The other day she looked at me with wide, wondering eyes, and I thought maybe she'd heard something nice about me too.  Earlier this year I put in a Facebook friend request in for her, which she never accepted.  I don't know where this look she gave me on two occasions running was about, but she seems to have calmed down, and seems to kind of be up to usual flirt stuff that a fifty-four year old man is not supposed to take seriously coming from someone as young as her.

The other day and night, as I finished the latest issue of my comic book, I came again to a realization about women such as this employee: I've never dated someone like her.  I've been hung up on such an elusive type many, many times in my adult life, from the time when I was her age to now, but I've never dated someone like her.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not terribly experienced with women for a man my age, but I have dated a few and been with a few more besides.   It's a strong indictment of both me, as someone who never dated such a woman, but who nonetheless would get terribly preoccupied with this type, and a bit of an indictment of this type, whom it seems, at times, is eager to seek out what I guess they hope is some "free" male attention.

What differentiates this type from the few women I've dated, and the few others I've been with?  Today I concluded that I never had to win over the women that I'd dated to the extent that I would have to win over these more elusive types.  Believe me, back in the day, I would embark on months long campaigns to win someone over if I thought they were "The One."  "Gwen" , a fellow student at the School of Visual Arts, was one who seemed to come around, but we never consummated anything.  I could win over a woman here and there, to some extent, but back in my twenties especially, the effort would tax me to the breaking point more often than not.

And here's another thing, I don't think I ever thought of these campaigns as an effort to win someone over from not liking me to liking me.  I think, in every instance, I had the conviction that there was something already "there" for me, and that it was just as matter of cashing in.  Only when I did win someone over, such as Gwen, did I realize that I had changed their mind quite a bit in the valiant effort.  I've talked about the ugly side of humanity that I would see on this downward journey towards one of my nervous breakdowns.

So, let's get this straight, I've never consummated a deal with someone I've won over, and I'm not looking to win anyone over in my world right now.  I mean, it's not as if I'd be violating a law of physics, such as gravity or inertia, if I did manage to win over a woman and then consummate the deal, but I'm looking for ways to relate to women that are more sustainable for me in the run of time I've got left.  And here's another thing, oftentimes it seemed as if quite a number of those women I'd supposedly won over wanted me to jump through some hoops, whereas it seemed as if someone who was attracted to me from the start would let me know about that, somehow, without any prompting from me.  The guy who wins the resisting girl over is the plot of a lot of romantic comedies, but this is life, it's not the movies.

In a post earlier this year, I brought up an encounter I had with an old neighbor at a business.   She had lived next door to me by my old house around 2009/2010.  She was pretty attractive, and in that post I talked about how I'd invited her to a little party at my house when she lived next door.  I talked about how I had an occasion during the party to go outside, and how I saw her sitting in her living room eating and watching TV.

When I saw her in that business, both of us customers, late last year, she seemed really glad to see me.  She talked to me at length, and I wondered if she wanted me to make some sort of move, such as asking for contact information.  In my head, I remembered how she'd kept me at arms length, and I made myself say to myself, "Turn your back on love.  Turn your back on love."  I couldn't figure out if this newfound interest was sincere or if it was some kind of trick.  Anyway, we parted ways, and I stood my ground.

In the past couple of months, I came to the conclusion that this woman had heard about that run-in I'd had with that waitress at that diner I used to eat at.  I've posted before about how this waitress didn't like how I'd wear a t-shrt that read, "I support single mothers."  I managed to figure this out on my own, and I decided to stop wearing that shirt when I ate in that restaurant.

For shits and grins, I decided that I wouldn't call attention to the fact that I'd stopped wearing that shirt, and I just kept going there to see how long it would take for them to figure this out.   I've talked about how I figured that this waitress wanted nothing more than to do a vicious takedown of me, wearing that t-shirt being only one of my sins.  Another crime seemed to be that I worked there in the Summer of 1990, when my mental illness was still untreated, and I freaked out the owner and some of the female staff.  The other big thing was, that I went out of my way to say hi to this waitress a couple of times in early 2012.

In my world, such women can't let such transgressions such as being mentally ill and wearing a t-shirt they don't like go unpunished, and so, in the Summer of 2012, the fun began.  I stopped wearing the shirt, after one day when I sat in that restaurant, and decided that the conversation that this waitress had with a coworker about how her ex-husband admitted to still wanting her intimately was maybe for my benefit.  She went on about how it was with the young kids and all that, and I guessed that maybe she wanted me to get the wrong idea about her availability, and my countermove was to stop wearing the t-shirt that read, "I support single mothers," and featured a silhouette of a stripper next to this phrase.

Anyhow, it took about two years and four months for her and others to figure this move out, and by that time they'd tried to play all the fun games I know about better than such types realize.  It really did mean something to me that she and others finally figured it out on their own, just as it mattered to me to show that I cared for her on some level by not wearing the shirt anymore.  I just saw that whole time as a one-man civil rights protest, in that I figured that as long as I didn't bother anyone, costumers or staff, while I ate there, and was courteous to everyone, that I had as much right to eat there as normal people. 

So, this old neighbor of mine had as her roommate, while she lived next door to me, a sister of this formerly aggrieved waitress, and months after I encountered this old neighbor in that store and blew her off, I figured that this sister might have told this women about the t-shirt stuff and put in a good word for me.  So, that means that the old neighbor was coming from a genuine place when she talked me that night at that business, but I'm not a mindreader, and all I could think about at the time we talked in that store was how this neighbor had kept me at arm's length while we lived next door to each other.

The reason I bring this up now is because there might be a young woman in my everyday-patronizing-businesses-world who might have taken something of an interest in me.  The only problem is, I put in Facebook friend request for her months ago, and she never accepted it.  At this food service business that she works at, she would continue to throw out flirty gestures and looks after it was apparent that she'd never accept my Facebook friend request, and that she'd probably declined it when she first came across it.

This quite young woman's new found friendliness towards me might be because she heard something nice about me, or it might be just something along the lines of a realization that my formal manner towards her is something that she doesn't need to take personally, as I've made it clear, in general to everyone, that I just have no interest in pursuing someone romantically if they present themselves as unavailable to me.

She seems quite nice, and she's very attractive, but a LOT younger than me, and I've given myself the permission to blow her off if she presents me with a similar fight or flight/ jump through hoops dilemma that my old neighbor seemed to present to me.  Why do I have to perform for this person?  I put in a Facebook friend request for her that she probably declined.  It was the most discreet, non-confrontational way I knew how to get the ball rolling, and she just came back with this phony flirtation stuff when I patronized this business at later dates. If I don't want to fuck with it, I won't fuck with it.  Maybe she'll do the same thing this old neighbor did, and just passively wait for me to make the big move, and maybe I like her so much that I'll go ahead and go for it.  Then again maybe I won't.

Sure, Mark Zuckerberg's a dick for letting the Russians co-opt his social media platform and not copping to it when the word first got out, and yada, yada, yada, yada.... But, I owe him another box of chocolates for this one.

  

In 1995 I had an experience that I attempt to convey in the web comic on this homepage, Richy Vegas: a psycho memoir.  After I encountered the young woman in that convenience store at the end of the story, I remained ill for a full month and a half afterwards.  

I remember the medication change I finally got in the middle of April, 1995.  The old medication would get me to sleep okay, but I would go to bed hearing voices and having delusions, and the voices would return soon after I initially woke up.  The morning after I took the new medicine.  I remember the first rational thought in my head, clear as a bell:  "I'm not going to have any answers to all that I experienced these past several months." or something along those lines.  

I still haven't really had any answers to what all was going on in my head at that time.  Nothing in the real world really changed with me: friends still said shitty things to me about how crazy I was, women shunned me more than ever, because I was for sure crazy, no doubt about it, I still had to take any crappy job I could get- I took a dishwashing job in June of 1995.  All of the grandiose shit that roiled through my head in my sick time just sank like a stone.  For all I know that was, and still is, the only place where any of this really cool stuff ever existed.

The other day, I formed this consoling  thought: even though I can still get quite preoccupied with thoughts that others call delusional, I've gotten pretty good at smelling a rat, as far as my deal with women is concerned.  If I ever did become world famous back then because of my wondrous deeds, I would have wrecked my ship on the nearest super model.  I mean, that was pretty much a given.

I did two issues of Richy Vegas Comics that chronicled my experience, in the 80's, with one Veronica Ortega.  The experiences I have nowadays with her figurative descendants don't play out in anything like the traumatic drama of my experiences with Veronica or certain women before and after her.  The sheer number of major asshole women who seem to form a line outside my door that snakes around the block seems to have increased exponentially from those days.  I just process these total asshole women in a much more sustainable, efficient manner.  I'm like a limber little flat rock that skips along the surface of a lake, instead of a big stone that immediately sinks after an unceremonious toss into the water.  I'm okay with skipping along this way until I reach the age where it's going to be about actual grifter women coming after my financial assets somehow, and I hope that I have dealt with demon loneliness well enough to tell them to go fuck themselves like I do with all THE ONES now. 

So, the major changes since the days of 1995, let's list them: 1) I quit smoking cigarettes 2) I quit drinking and drugs 3) I've quit pursuing unavailable women.  I've brought a lot of shit to the change table, and have got not a lot to show for it as far as the world changing.  

I will ask for only one change:  I would like certain friends of mine to not ask me to loan them monies until payday.  That's it.  I'm marking "X"s on my calendar to see how long it will be until these people hit me up again.  It is not scientific of me to guarantee that these friends will hit me up for money, but seeing as how nothing ever changes for me in the real fucking world of this nature, I would say that it is highly probable that they will hit me up soon enough.

I'm going to give them a month, starting last Monday, the 18th of June, to strike again with their hard luck shit stories about needing gas money and all that kind of shit.  If I lose the bet, and they don't hit me up for monies by July the 18th, what do I win?  Here's what I will do:  I will buy a vinyl record to play on my turntable that they sold me.  The turntable actually works! I sold about 2/3rd's of my vinyl collection in the '90's, during and after my sick period in the first half of 1995.  My family was putting the squeeze on me financially to get a job, so I had to come up with other ways to pay for cigarettes and all of that.  I sold a lot of  comic books and prose books, and, as I discovered last month, a lot of my old, cherished records.

So, that's the deal.  I will buy a vinyl record once a month for every month they don't hit me up for cash.  I was really disinclined to start collecting vinyl again, because I'm used to the CD format now, and that vinyl shit costs money.  I'm not going to try to buy back the records I sold, I will just comb used bins for anything I might like, but that's the rule: if I get this nickel and dime shit from these people between the 18th's of any two given months, no record for me. And no, telling these friends to fuck off won't cut it.  I don't want to have to make such a change myself.  I want this little bit of my world to change on its own.

Every so often I go into some of the grandiose notions that I have of myself and how I try to come to terms with these notions.  Right now my comic books are about the time that preceded my major breakdown in the Summer of 1992.  The thoughts and hallucinations that marked that breakdown are where these grandiose ideas about myself really took hold.

Right now, if I were to align myself with any previous versions of me, I would try to emulate a lot of how I was before this major break.  Back then, all I wanted was to do right by myself and those around me and to see that whatever conflicts I had, with Jenna in particular, reached a resolution that benefited her, myself, and everyone else concerned.  That was a tall order in and of itself, but it was nothing compared to the times on this blog where I go into this notion that I am able to save the world.

My behavior towards Jenna, though erratic, was nothing short of exemplary in the months, weeks, and days that preceded my meltdown.  So much so that my hospitalization, even as sick as I was, was entirely voluntary- in as much as I kept myself out of trouble all through those rough times.

Nowadays I'm not burdened with this notion that I have to make up for some past wrong I did towards someone like Sara.  A friend said years later that, at that time, it seemed as if I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders.  That belief that I had to make up for how I let Sara go was the catalyst for the courses of action that I took towards Jenna, and that's what led to the major breakdown.

But, through it all, I was just Richard Alexander, not Richy Vegas, a guy who just wanted to do the right thing by all concerned.  I just had misguided notions of what that entailed.  Now, I feel as if I'm on a better track, and that it has been many, many years since I set myself up for such a great fall as I had in 1992.  Now, I don't want to set myself up for a big fall with these notions that I can be Richy Vegas by getting blackout drunk or something such as that.

A friend that I don't see too much of anymore told me over the years that I'd made a big mistake by getting sober.  For me, statements and behaviors from people like him just feed into these grandiose notions of Richy Vegas saving the world, and I'm tempted to use drugs and alcohol again. If I do any world saving again, it's going to be as Richard Alexander, the guy who quit all of that substance abuse to improve his relationship with women, and not Richy Vegas, who apparently had the ability to channel divine intervention when he was blackout drunk.  That's why I'm glad that I'm doing the comics about a period of life where I had more grounded notions about myself, and all I wanted to do was the right thing, and I may have done something pretty damn special anyway.

The vocals could have been louder, so I heard from some audience members, but other than that the Pocketfishrman show went pretty well.  I don't realize how personal my songs are until I'm up in front of an audience and my voice breaks and quavers because it's so hard getting the lyrics out.  Hopefully that will be better too.

Jason said I could open for one of his bands sometime.  I saw tonight's performance as an audition for that sort of thing.  I hope to have some more gigs this year.  I got the bug.

I'm glad that I didn't invite any hot young women from businesses I patronize like I said a couple of posts ago.  I had too much on my plate to get all stressed out whether or not someone like that would show up.  That's going to pretty much be the rule from now on.  

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