My fourteenth and final volume of, "The Legend of Richy Vegas," awaits the completion of the cover, the photocopies, and the layup of the copies into a book for the printer.  This will complete about six years worth of time and labor on this one iteration of "The Legend."  1,120 pages, baby!

My old drummer gave me the name of a guy he knows who works for a comics publisher.  The guy seemed nice when I reached out to him online today.  I will sell copies of the book with or without a publishing deal, and I will do many other things to ensure the documentation of my legacy in the coming weeks and months and years.  But a publishing deal would be nice. 

If one word can label or sum up the dark places I go in my mind in regards to this young woman at this business whom I can go on and on about, that word is "insecurity."  Has she deliberately succeeded in keeping me in the dark about where I stand with her and her intentions towards me, or do I in fact project that onto someone who never had an interest in me at all?  An art teacher from SVA once said that one thing artists can do is live with ambiguity for a long period of time.  Wellll, alright then.

I've spent the last twenty years coming up with more constructive ways of spending time by myself than the standbys of those days: marijuana, alcohol, and cigarettes.  I'm prepared to spend the rest of my reasonably healthy time on this Earth engaged in things such as music and art, both of which require a great deal of time by myself to get good at.  In the last month or so since I reached out to that young woman, the time spent by myself does not abate, I have no way of contacting her outside of her place of employment, and I still function as a dateless wonder on other fronts.

That stuff doesn't bother me as much as the underlying insecurity that existed before I reached out to her, and still exists to a lesser extent since I reached out to her.  At least I really, really imparted to her the knowledge that I care for her a great deal, and that I did have the courage to punch through that invisible wall that existed between us.  That knowledge that I did really do that, and the gratitude that I experience every day at her kind response to my overture, really helps with the insecurity.  If our deal exists at all, one major thing I did already counts as major turning point that I have no desire to undermine or sabotage through word or deed.

Something about women such as her brings out some effort in me to do the very best I can.  The women she readily reminds me of were not saints or sisters of mercy, exactly.  Hell, some of them weren't even that nice.  For the most part, I never really even dated the women from my past she so readily reminds me of, but in dealing with the Saras and Ann Maries of the world, I made out a pretty reliable roadmap that pointed me in a direction of self-reliance and a greater ability to provide myself with some of the better things associated with a meaningful relationship with women.  As least as far as providing myself with a sense of peace about any given situation I found myself in with such women.  Yeah, that more than anything.  Way more than actual girlfriends and all one associates with having girlfriends.  

The first girl I ever dated, I see that as a product of its time more than anything else.  With the Saras and the Ann Maries of the world I learned a great deal about sublimating my tendencies to obsessively pursue women and instead spend that time and energy on other aspects of my own life.  That includes cleaning house, exercise, diet, overall health, working on art and music, all of that and more.  I think anyone who tends to obsess over women would do well to follow my example, even if I get hit by a bus or a meteor tomorrow and never actually get the girl.  

My deals with Sara and Ann Marie ended at moments where I had the impression they expected me to keep going that extra mile in pursuit of them.  In both cases I felt I had done enough, and in terms of satisfying my own standards of conduct, I had done enough to get with them.  They both had me as the obsessive type I guess, and therefore expected me to keep going for them, and they held  out on giving me, in my opinion, enough affirmation that they actually liked me and that they actually wanted to play a part in keeping the deal going.  In 1997, I'd established these changes to my game-the tendency to refrain from all out pursuit of someone- to such an extent that I only talked to a girl I call Snolly a little at a party, even though I'd liked her for a couple of years, and I soon left to get cigarettes at an all night grocery store.

This unexpectedly light approach to Snolly on my part resonated with other young men in that social circle, and they seemed to like me for it.  Those kinds of signs of encouragement from people like that convinced me enough over the years that I no longer wish to live my life as a romantically obsessive guy who will pursue women to the ends of the Earth and back. The last attractive young woman who gave me contact information of any kind, I call her Daria; I've sent her maybe five emails since March, 2020, at which time she gave me this email address.  The ratio between her emails and my emails remains at my four or five to her two or three.  That's a ratio I can live with.

Whether that young woman whom I go on and on about on this blog actually reads this blog or not, I will pretty much handle the current situation with her in the same light manner.  I remain very happy and satisfied with my effort to reach out to her last month, and, as I told my psychiatrist yesterday, I am very, very grateful that she was so nice about it.  I said in a post last Summer, in regards to Jenna, that the only expectations I feel obliged to meet are my own, and I conduct myself accordingly, no matter who I have an interest in or to what extent I think about them in my day to day life.

This last experience I had that involved my efforts to invite that young woman at that business whom I can go on and on about at length on this blog to my comics sale counts, if my math proves correct, as not only the fifth truly transcendent Richy Vegas experience with these kinds of women, but also the first experience of this nature to occur after my diagnosis and treatment in 1992.  My, my, the more things change, etc., etc.

What to do now?  If my past experiences with women in the aftermath of these events provide any clue, I should really ask myself, "What do I NOT want to do now?"  Well, first, don't try to rebound.  Second, don't try to cash in.   Third, don't try to find a love interest to take this young woman's place.  All three of these interconnected impulses to try to improve upon the current situation I find myself in led to seriously horrible experiences every time I tried to make something happen with women after the previous four times this very thing pretty much happened.  

One thing I could try to do is make comics about this last experience, but I don't think I will do that.  I  think this blog documents the experiences of these last five years pretty thoroughly, while at the same time guarding people's privacy, because I don't use people's names or likenesses, or other specifics like where exactly they work, for example.  Plus, this blog documents my take on the events as they unfold before my eyes.  That's something a series of comics documenting these experiences after the fact can't duplicate.

Again, I'll try to refrain from writing anything mean, hateful, or ugly about this young woman I write about on this blog, and in regards to her, I'll continue to try to give her credit where credit is due, but if my guesses prove correct about where exactly she positioned herself in regards to me these past several years, well, that's between her and her conscience to resolve.   

Well, a LOT of women might now, at least, have an idea of the kinds of things I had to go through in my youth, all without the benefit of a diagnosis, medications of any kind, or the insights that those things plus the passage of a lot of time can bring.  I'll just say this.  Of all the experiences I had in my past that I try to draw on to resolve these conflicts, the one experience that proves most beneficial, HANDS DOWN, remains the experience I had with Sara in 1988.  No doubt.  

That experience, head and shoulders above the others, seems to prepare me the most, emotionally, for the realities I still, I suppose, continue to face regarding what, I guess, amounts to an unvarnished hatred of men by a LOT of women and how it manifests itself in a vicious, cowardly attempt to take down a man, any man, whom they consider vulnerable to such attacks and sufficiently guilty in whatever offense against womankind they judge him guilty of committing that justifies, in their hateful, vicious, resentful, vindictive, terrified, petty, little minds, such an attack in the first place.  

​When they start giving out Nobel Prizes for being total assholes in life, I will nominate these nameless legions of heroes for an award of one for the whole team of them en masse.  I know what I said about trying to not be mean to anyone, but I think a distinction between a dialogue centered around HATE (them), and dialogue containing HEAT(me), must be made.  I draw a LOT of heat.  Agreed?  Ima, Ima heat drawing, giant killing, phenom.

Oh, and another thing; I will not try any phony attempts at forgiveness of ANYONE in the foreseeable future.  This is important.  I will not try to forgive any young, attractive women, such as that young woman I can go on and on about on this blog, because I now, in the fullness of my years, see such attempts at forgiveness as not at all genuine forgiveness, but as attempts at super-niceness in the hope of getting some material rewards such as sex, companionship, and overall acceptance and approval from these same young, attractive women.

From what I can tell, actual forgiveness involves one letting go of one's pain in an attempt to get on with one's life.  I think the token reward stickers I give myself at the end of the day for trying to get along with those in my world in a general sense possibly represent an actual attempt to forgive someone such as this young woman at this one business whom I can go on and on about at length on this blog.  If I judge my efforts to pass muster, I will reward myself with a CD purchase from Amazon or Bear Family on the 15th and 1st of every month.   

Back in 1987, when I had all that trouble during my deal with Wanda, I delivered documents for my dad's private psychiatric practice for money.  One day I found myself in the office of a group practice of psychiatrists and therapists, and I noticed a flyer for a group they proposed. The flyer said something to the effect that people who grew up in households with often-absent parents, parents who worked long hours or what have you, these people often felt emotionally accessible in relationships to the point of feeling victimized.

That flyer hit a nerve with me.  At the time, I had very little confidence in joining such a group, because I'd submitted to the incompetent counseling of the therapist I was seeing at the time, and that incompetent counseling from that therapist contributed greatly to the trouble I found myself in with Wanda and our peers.  

The therapist I saw emphasized that in situations that presented the man with a sexual opportunity with a woman, that the man sometimes had to FORCE the situation to a sexual conclusion.  Now, in hindsight, I see where that kind of thing COULD count as appropriate counseling.  For example, some years ago a friend of mine found himself in his bedroom with a girl he'd picked up while having drinks one afternoon.  They were making out by the bed, the girl says something to the effect that she didn't want to do this right now, but my friend said that now was the perfect time, all like that.  The girl related this story later, after she and my friend started dating due to this consummation of this deal.

Okay, so maybe words such as pressure and force to describe my friend cutting through the girl's girly bullshit to bring things to a head.  Okay?   Are we all adults here?  Now, my therapist counseling me that the man sometimes has to FORCE the consummation of a date to sex went through my mind-grinding experience with Wanda, and quite a different result.  I had already told my therapist about my time at that party, where Wanda came up and laughed in my face, twice.  I didn't describe it as a psychotic episode, because I hadn't been diagnosed, so I didn't know it as that at the time.  I then described how Wanda had appeared to take a romantic interest in me in the weeks and months after that party, because of my efforts to reconcile the conflict with Donna, the object of my obsession that culminated in the party where Wanda laughed in my face, twice.

So as things got underway with Wanda at the start of the Spring semester in 1987, this therapist thought that vying for a relationship with Wanda would be a great idea.  But you know, sometimes a man has to force things at an opportune time, you know?  I didn't tell the therapist that Wanda had a REAL boyfriend at the time she displayed such interest in me.  I didn't tell him that, because I didn't snap to it until years later, and that came only after I put some pieces together and made some guesses that still only count as guesses.  So yeah, crude sexual proposition etc., etc,. the rest is history.

So, delivering documents for my dad's office during the Spring of 1987, AFTER the incident where I made the crude sexual proposition to Wanda, I had no desire to try some other form of therapy to address whatever problems I found myself having at the time, but the idea that feeling emotionally accessible in the extreme while a love interest felt very, very inaccessible to me hit a nerve. 

I felt very emotionally accessible to the point of feeling victimized the other day as I hung out in a coffee shop.  I won't get into the specific exchange with the male barista that triggered this feeling.  I'll just say that I took his remark out of context and applied it to my situation with that young woman at that business I can go on and on about.  I felt extremely emotionally accessible, while, at this current time, I can't even talk to this young woman, and access to her still proves very limited and circumscribed.  

I realized that this feeling I experienced does count ONLY as a feeling.  Whatever reality exists between myself and this young woman who works at this one business might have little or nothing to do with how I felt at this time in the coffee shop the other night.  What do I do about this feeling?  I approached this young woman for social reasons two weeks ago at her place of employment, in a very bold yet humble manner, if that makes any sense.  She did not show up to the comics show I invited her to, though.  The invitation I extended to her constituted as much an attempt to draw up some boundaries that would allow me to go to places such as coffee shops and not feel psychologically harassed by people there or anywhere else as much as it constituted a sincere attempt to break the ice with her and see if she would actually come to something such as my comics show, if I invited her nicely.

As an attempt to draw up a boundary, it went off okay, but the idea that some person could make some remark to me at any time, and I still feel compelled to examine the remark in an out-of-context way, even after I totally served the ball successfully into this young woman's court, and it's up to her to return my serve or opt out; the idea that someone could wittingly or unwittingly get my goat, so easily, bothered me to the point where I kind of felt victimized.  I don't like the idea of existing as an open book for those around me, and I don't imagine this young woman feels like an open book at all in regards to me, and I remember times in my youth that would cause me to lash out in some way at a love interest over this very thing.

So I came up with another solution.  A solution in addition to my attempt to draw up a boundary by breaking the ice with her.  I will give myself a token reward in the form of a sticker on my calendar at midnight every night if I'm nice, not only to this young woman in person, but to everyone else out there- the whole rest of the world, basically.  I will give myself a token reward if I refrain from writing anything mean on this blog or writing anything on this blog this young woman could take the wrong way.  Since I find her so inaccessible in the real world, it's not just about giving myself token rewards for those too few occasions I find myself actually around her, but the token rewards will encompass so many other situations as well.

Last Summer I gave myself three whole months away from this young woman to slow things down, take stock, and see if I could find a way through the impasse I found myself at in regards to her.  Well, I did reach out to her in a little over a month after my return.  So I will give myself until the beginning of February before I attempt to favor her with any more attention in the real world.  If she still works at this business in February, fine, I will attempt to favor her with some attention sometime this coming February.  Until then, I will just attempt to stay in my lane, so to speak, and not go out of my way to be around her at her job.  Yeah, I will attempt to favor her with attention in February.  Then again, maybe I won't.  After all, I did serve the ball into her court pretty damn righteously, and if she can't find the wherewithal to return such a serve as I go about my business at her place of employment in the THREE WHOLE MONTHS I'm giving myself, I'll probably have all of the answers I need in regards to her actual availability and interest.

I mean, I used to try to DEMAND, in blog entries, that this young woman reach out to me in some meaningful way, because I did not feel at all comfortable with the idea of approaching her in the manner I wound up approaching her after almost THREE FULL YEARS after she fired a shot across my bow with her little flirty look in February of 2019.  But approach her I did.  I have no desire to undermine my righteous move towards her by chasing her to the ends of the Earth and back.  I mean, ZERO desire to undermine any of my hard work on the life dilemmas that came up after she started in on me.  So, my desire to see something from her as a demand really amounts to no demand at all, just a desire to follow the rules of dating as we in Western society generally agree upon them, and in following these rules, I understand that I no longer have ANY obligation to, what(?), break the ice with her, twice(?).  Huh?

"For nothing is hid, that shall not be made manifest; nor anything secret, that shall not be known and come to light." How's about it, baby?  Oh, right, right, pressure.  That's so bad.  ANYONE feel like doing the right thing?