I'm going to try to record two more songs in the next couple of days.  I recorded two on the Telecaster today.  I'm going to give my fingertips a break before I play any more.  I've also done some editing today.  I edited some of the pauses out of "Three Days In the Tickle."  It sounds a little better.

I'm really pleased that I've started the text layout for the fifth of the five comic books of the first part of, "The Legend of Richy Vegas."  I might even be able to finish the layout of text by the end of this month.  That would increase the likelihood that I will have the first book ready by January of next year.  I gave myself until Labor Day to finish the layout of text phase of this series, so being this far ahead is great!

As far as the women in my world are concerned.  I think the best thing I can do is blow them all off.  One or two have been pretty, oh you know, but I'm just trying to push the envelope in the direction of not doing much of anything about any of that.  I just want to see what, if anything, is on the other side of that coin.

I want to try to save up for a bass guitar and a beginner's drum kit.  I figure both those would run me about eleven hundred dollars, so I've got my work cut out for me.  I still have some credit card debt that I'm trying to pay off, plus I've got to pay for the mastering and CD pressing of the latest record, and further on down the road I have to pay for the book I want to have done by January.  I might not be able to afford the musical stuff until next Summer.  Then I would have to think about lessons.  I don't want to just charge that stuff on my credit card.  I'd do that only if I could pay it all off in three or four months, but that's definitely not the case.

I've become a lot better at being able to tell when someone I know is lying to me, men or women.  A lot of higher functioning skills many many people seem to take for granted and don't have to think much about are ones that I have absolutely had to learn through many painful experiences.  When a woman is representing herself as something she is not; in other words, representing herself as available and interested in me in some way when she is not, and my ability to detect that this is going on before the shit hits the fan; that is a skill I pretty much had to teach myself, with no guidance from parents or other friends or family members.  Some friends have been helpful, mainly the ones who refrained from telling me how they were right and I was wrong when I described scenarios that were going down and what I thought was happening and where I thought the other party was really coming from.

But yeah, I think a guy who regularly obsesses on individual women on a regular basis is a type of pushover.  I find it helpful to talk back to my initial impulse to idealize the very attractive young women who typically inspire this line of thinking.  Most of the really attractive women I can get so hung up on are usually also really square, and these are often the types that seem to eagerly play the games I find so hurtful, so they may look perfect, but right there, that is not my ideal at all.

Another thing I've realized is this: these fixations don't last forever.  If I just slow everything down and pick my spots, things will play out to my satisfaction.  A willingness to face reality is the most helpful thing in this kind of ordeal.  These unavailable woman deals I find myself in don't seem to last much longer than four months these days before the big reveal.  I try to do as little as possible about it, knowing pretty well that a big reveal, that this person was not what they seemed to be in some part of my brain, could be in the offing.  

The biggest difference since 2012 for me has been the revival of the "What If I Turned My Back On Love?" experiment that I tried just one time previously in 1988.  The post, "I'm not bad," from January 2016 goes into detail about that first experiment.   This approach really makes the coping skills I've mentioned; learning how to not idealize someone, not doing much at all when a fixation does go down, and a willingness to let a supposed opportunity slip through my fingers; I can really put these coping skills into play when I just kind of fling this love bullshit right back at these trolls and let them know right off that they can go fuck themselves with that shit at first whiff.

Right now I'm just liking the fact that I'm not at all interested in finding a love interest from amongst the women in my world.  That seems to be where a lot of that bullshit starts.  I don't seem to have the ability to change the ways of the world, so I just try to concentrate on what I can change in myself.



  

My last post might have given some people the impression that I'm really depressed.  That is not true at all.  I respond really well to my medicine, and just as importantly, I've been resolving my conflicts with those in my world in, I must say, a pretty efficient and competent way.  

I used the comparison to Harvey Pekar, and how he had to undergo ECT after his retirement, to convey a sense of drift and aimlessness after satisfactorily resolving this Invisible Woman thing.  Be assured, I have my comics and music to give me a something to do on an almost daily basis.  I also have a small circle of friends that I see as much as I want.  I also have the near constant presence of family in my life, for better or worse, and that is mostly for the better.

Don't any of you young ladies out there get the idea that I NEED to be in conflict with someone in order to feel fulfilled.  That is NOT TRUE.  Don't even think about it! 

I just want to apologize to all the wonderful young Latinas in my world for my remarks in my last post.  I guess that I just wanted to give them a little ribbing, but it may have come out wrong.  To the extent that I understand women that I'm attracted to at all, it is through my experiences, in large part, to Latinas I have been acquainted with since my twenties, and for that I am grateful.  In my youth I knew more than one Latina who simply forced me to deal with another person in the world rather than just be in my own head all the time, and I probably learned more from those experiences than any others that I've had with women.  So, again, I apologize.

Where I am at right now, I am reminded of what Harvey Pekar related about his retirement.  Harvey retired from his file clerk job at the VA hospital in Cleveland after around forty years.  Right after he retired, he fell into a deep depression.  He had to undergo shock treatments to bring him out of it.  His daily grind after so many years had come to an end, and how could he have expected to fall into a depression because of it?  

I had a major conflict go down that I've well documented since the beginning of this year.  You know, the Invisible Woman and all of that.  It seemed to be a nadir, a low point, for conflicts with women that started coming to a head in 2014.  Whether this conflict with the Invisible Woman actually had any basis in reality or not did not seem to diminish at all the intensity of what hit me at the beginning of the year.

Now it's over, I think.  The last thing I want to do is go around stirring up trouble with anyone else in my world.  So again, I apologize to all Latinas who might have taken offense.

On Monday I did a take on "Three Days In the Tickle" that I think is the keeper for the album.  I might edit out a pause here and there when all is said and done, but I'm okay with the one screwup in the lyrics.  That leaves ten more tracks to complete.  "Three Days In the Tickle" clocks in at eight minutes, so one take is a real good thing.  I had no real choice, because my editing prowess are limited by my lack of knowledge, for sure, and perhaps my software.

I took a few days off from the book.  I'll be happy if I spend 17 or 18 days on it this month, regardless of how much I get done. I should be able to start the pencil work on the first volume by sometime in August.

Now, Latina bullshit artists:  I'm doing good to just be able to make the call when this or that young Latina acts like she has some sort of problem with me, when in fact it's just Latina Bullshit Artist bullshit.  I interact with them in exactly the same sort of withdrawn, diffident manner that I interact with other young women, but they act like I'm doing something wrong.  Like I said, I'm doing good to know when they are loading it on with their mantis tractor loader (if that is what is called) and I can begin to scoop it out with my bare hands.

Just like in my youth, it's pretty much useless to think about love, girlfriends, or relationships with these types, because it just never, ever stops.  The fact that I can keep my head above water with these types, and that I sometimes have a little bit of clue about where they are coming from with this, god, such bullshit, is about the most that I can expect from myself.

It's becoming more and more clear to me how to relate the women in my world.  One the one hand, I could try my best to reach down deep inside myself and be super nice and try to treat it like some quest for enlightenment in doing so.  I unwittingly did that for years and years and have a bunch of psychotic episodes/ nervous breakdowns to show for it.  That song "The Rose" about how love is like a river and how those too afraid to die never live etc. etc.  I mean, that's all great and a lot of stories have been told with that as a setup.  But, do that however many times one does it and come up empty, or worse, have breakdowns, and one starts to think it might be time to change it up.

I mean, it's looking pretty cut and dried to me right now.  What if I just let any supposed opportunity with any of the STONE FOXES in my world just slip through my fingers?  I tried that just one time with Sara in my youth, and that one time: no nervous breakdown, no psychotic episode.  This last experience with the Invisible Woman really bore that out.  Regardless of whether that was a "real" thing going on or not, I could have had a lot of problems if I tried to be the most loving man I could be.  In that case, the world that broke my heart in my youth hasn't changed, but I have.  And, I don't think I've changed into a bad, unloving, or cold-hearted man as a result.

So, if I do just "turn my back on love" in reaction to any of the STONE FOXES  in my world, I guess that I shouldn't be surprised if I come up empty.  But, if these last several experiences with the women in my world, starting in 2012, carry over into whatever transpires with this or that STONE FOX in my world now; my mental, emotional, and overall health should turn out pretty robust, and I can continue to work on my art and music at the same productive pace that I've attained over these past several years.