It was ten years ago or thereabouts that I committed to abstinence from drugs and alcohol.  Since then I've not had any booze, and I have only smoked a little marijuana on a few occasions and done more crazy drugs on a few more occasions.  It's been since 2012 that I've done anything.  I don't miss any of that at all, for the most part.  I realize every time that I want to get high that it's not possible for me to do drugs and alcohol on a moderate basis.

I discovered very soon after I initially quit, that for me at least, it took roughly half the effort to abstain completely from drugs and alcohol that it took to try and maintain a moderate level of consumption.  So abstinence was a lot easier for me right off the bat than all those years where I tried to practice moderation.  That really set the tone for my "recovery," to use that language.  There was not a lot of drama to any of it.  Quitting all drugs and all alcohol consumption was a lot easier for me than quitting smoking cigarettes.  I mean, by a LOT.

The main reason I quit drugs and alcohol in the first place, was to improve my relationship with women.  As regular readers of this blog know by now, that has not been easy at all for me.  I would say that coming to terms with my struggle with Love Addiction (a layman's term, I know) has been more along the lines of quitting smoking as far as the degree of difficulty I've had with it.  

The other night I remembered a key part of Dr. David Burn's Feeling Good  that really hit home.  In the section I remembered reading, a woman was having difficulties interacting with her husband in a meaningful way.  It may have been that her husband didn't like joining in activities that she wanted him to, and this made her unhappy.  Anyway, Dr. Burns counseled this woman, and the reader, that it might be a good idea if she made herself the main person responsible for her happiness.  That way she could have a more reliable source of someone providing her with the things and activities that made her life more meaningful.  

I thought about that a week ago Friday night when I was trying to talk myself into putting myself out there more for some young woman in my world.  I really gave myself a pep talk for the cause of trying to make something happen with this person. Then I thought about the concept outlined in Dr.Burn's book, that one might find a more reliable provider of happiness and fulfillment from oneself than from another person, and I subsequently asked myself, "With that in mind, do I still want to put myself out there more for this young woman in my world?"  The answer was no.

During the Summer of 2016, I posted about the power of rejection relative to myself and the attractive young women in my world, whom I can go on at length about on this blog.  I pointed out that these twenty-two year old baristas, waitresses, and whatevers could reject a guy- a nice, good-looking guy their age, mind you.  I'm not even talking about a guy my age- that they could reject a nice, good-looking guy their age for reasons such as; they thought he was too short, his hair was thinning on top,  they didn't like the music he listened to, they thought he smoked too much pot, because he didn't have a car, and so it goes.

That statement implies that a young, attractive to very attractive woman who has her shit together enough to hold down a pretty demanding service industry job near or at full-time hours has the pick of the litter.   If one of these girls wanted to date an older man who was a costumer at her place of business, they could go with someone only ten years older than themselves, maximum, if they wanted to.  They could pick up on a doctor just coming out of residency, or a guy becoming established at a law firm, or someone in the process of being a big deal in the tech sector, the mind reels at the possibilities.  That would leave a fifty something, overweight, part-time employed, receiving government assistance, receiving government assistance because of a mental illness diagnosis; that would leave such a person in the shithouse with women such as the ones I've outlined.  

I remember doing temp work for a friend's company, and a smoking hot Latina worked there as the receptionist.  Just out of college, her main hobbies seemed to be eating right and exercising vigorously, yeah.  I didn't do temp work there for very long, maybe a week and a half at the most.  I remember saying to myself, "If you had a chance to talk, in a kind of social way, to this gal as she sat behind that  desk, what on Earth could you say or do that would make her want to go out with you, Rich?"  My answer: "I don't have the slightest idea how I would go about trying to pick up this woman.  I really haven't the slightest idea how I would go about that."

Now, as the last several years can testify, if this smoking hot Latina were to have some inkling to try to shit on me somehow...If she were to, within the parameters of being an employee of a company where I was friends with a principal owner and CEO.  But, know this, a principal owner and CEO whom I call Dickbag McNuttsack on this blog and in my books; if she were to try to shit on me in a major way within the parameters of that kind of a deal; where she could, if all went her way, pit her word against mine as to what happened and quite possibly expect to be believed; if she were to try that kind of shit on me, I would have that covered.  So, picking up twenty-two year old baristas, and waitresses, and whatnot is not a specialty of mine, but beating such women like a fucking gong when they try to bring some jive ride shitstorm down on me, I've got that.

I've mentioned someone of this stripe, waitress, barista etc., whom I'm pretty fond of, and if I were to guess where she's coming from these last several days, I would say she just wants to let me off easy.  She doesn't strike me as particularly psycho, and she doesn't seem to necessarily be just another good enough woman who sees me as the bad guy, which is what I seem to have endured these past several years, not to mention for many years going back to my youth as well.  I remember some barista starting in on me around 2010/ 2011, and I wanted to ask her about her relationship status.  I remember telling myself, "This could be, just the usual bullshit, or, geez dude, get ready.  This may be that experience they go on at length about in those songs and books and movies and what all ever."  Well, it wasn't. I asked her if she was still dating this other employee there, and she said she was.  The thing is, I think she was lying-which is okay.  I think the guy she was dating had dumped her because she was such an asshole.  Whether it was because she'd been such an asshole to me in particular, or was just such an asshole in general; I would guess because she was such an asshole in general.

I was googling "richy vegas" to see if I could find any bad stuff on the web about me, but I found a nice review of my books instead.  Here's the link:  https://fourcolorapocalypse.wordpress.com/tag/richy-vegas-comics/
The review is pretty thorough and makes no bones in regards to the idea that my comics are not for everyone.  It's really weird seeing how someone else sees me.   I got that sense of things reading this review as the writer brought up the darker stuff that's in the books.

With that in mind, I just have to talk about the subject of my last post.  The young woman in question doesn't seem to want to talk to me much, is someone I don't know at all, really, and is just someone-an employee of a business I patronize- that I see on a regular basis. So that's the main reason that I would, in a perfect world, like to get to know her better.  But, this is not a perfect world.  It's easy for me to imagine that we really don't have anything in common.  I've  talked about how women in my past seemed to regard my designation of them as my love interest as a really arbitrary decision that has little or nothing to do with anything they actually did, and so it may be the case with this young woman.

note: the post has been corrected to change the word "assignation" : a scheduled appointment or meeting, to "designation" : tp appoint or set apart for special purpose.  I'm so ashamed.

These last three days I inked the final sixty-three pages of the text of this issue of my comic book.  Yesterday (Monday) I broke up the grind with a visit to an open mike night where I did a song making fun of kombucha.  For those who don't know, kombucha is a kind of fermented tea that was basically made for me to make fun of it and the people who drink it.  I hope to finish this issue of my book by the end of February.  I'm really crankin' these things out now.

I've talked about women in my world whom I am very fond of.  I think for now, I will try to not talk more specifically about any of that.  This blog might be very boring for the next several weeks.  I hope that I can keep my mouth shut and just let things be for a while.  I plan on spending New Year's Eve in my room in my apartment.  That's about all I have to say.  

I just started to ink the text for the next issue of my comic book yesterday.  I hope to finish with everything by the end of February.  I want to give myself ample time and energy for my music.  It becomes too easy to just focus on the book at the expense of my guitar playing and songwriting at this stage in the production of a book.  I've streamlined every element of the production of these books  so much that I could just go balls out on that at any stage and neglect everything else I try to do, but I don't want to do that.

I haven't written any new songs lately.  Songwriting is something a person has to do pretty much all the time to be any good at it.  Right now I'm trying to memorize about fifteen songs I've written over these past several years so that I can record another album by next Fall.

A lot of these songs I've written over these past several years have to do with all the struggles I've had with women over these past several years.  Right now I don't want to write any more songs about all of that.  Last month I wrote about how I hypothesized that someone from my past has put some sort of web site up about me that perhaps ALL of the women I've had such trouble with these past several years all knew about.  That concept had me reeling for quite a few weeks there, and it still has me reeling as I write this.
I'm just not interested in writing any more songs about any of those women or this subject.

I saw the ex-husband of the woman that I hypothesized may be behind such an alleged web site.  I introduced myself to him at a friend's party last weekend.  He seemed pretty friendly.  I told him about my connection to his ex-wife, and I told him that I'd had a run-in with her back in the day.  He chuckled and then excused himself and he and his current wife left the party.  Oh well.  I said I was willing to make amends to the aggrieved parties, but I guess that will be as much on their terms and on their timeline as much as any of this can be on my terms and on my timeline.

Earlier this year I went into a post at great length that had to do with the notion of male feminists and male allies of female feminists.  I emphatically said in that post that I considered myself neither a feminist nor did I consider myself a male ally of female feminists.   I've just had too many women label me as the bad guy and come after me while cloaked in the garb of empowerment, all to justify some pretty nasty attitudes and behavior towards me. 

I also brought up two friends of mine in that post.  One was Vernon Hoe.  At the kind of juncture I find myself now, I asked the other friend what to do.  We went back and forth, and this other friend said, "You know who used to call women out on their shit?  Vernon Hoe, and they HATED him for it."  This other friend recommended that I take a more forgiving stance, which I regret to this day.  The only artifact I have of this "forgiveness" is about thirty-five issues of my comic book that portrays these women and their boyfriends as victims of the Whitman Massacre, issues that I no longer try to sell.  So much for forgiveness.

There is more than one woman in my world that I am very fond of, but that I have some reason to believe may have knowledge of this hidden web presence, and therefore they may have been complicit, to a great extent, in its intended purpose of bringing me low.  The last thing I want to do is come off as all forgiving of these women I'm still fond of in hopes of getting something material in return, such as sex, general acceptance, companionship etc.  When that stuff doesn't come back to me to my satisfaction in return for my "forgiveness," that's when I am likely to retaliate in some measure that I think is justified, but that the other party does not feel like they deserve AT ALL.

So yeah, if I had to pattern my behavior and attitude towards these women after Vernon Hoe or the friend who advised a more "forgiving" stance, I will go with old Vern any day.  That, despite the fact that the the other guy has had sex with a lot more women, had a lot more girlfriends, and a lot of women seem to love him so much.  I won't rehash ALL of Vern's virtues towards women over the other guy, I'll just say this; instead of expressing any remorse about the physical abuse this other friend visited on one of his girlfriends, often times in the presence of myself and other friends, he just said, years later, that she deserved it.  Vernon, in his youth, like me, admits to doing some things he's not proud of.  One of these guys I can relate to, one I can't.  

I honestly believe that calling some woman I'm very fond of out on her shit under the circumstances I find myself in now demonstrates a greater willingness to act in her best interest than any attempt to let bygones be bygones so that we may then supposedly proceed to more intimate relations.  I'm not necessarily saying that I believe that anyone in my world has such an interest in me, but I just want to make myself clear on this issue, just in case. I am much more willing to alienate myself from the affections of such a person with a civil, but upfront, honest statement of my grievances, then to alienate such a person with a retaliatory gesture that they are guaranteed to not feel they deserve.  I say they would definitely not feel as if they deserved such a gesture, because anyone I would like would never feel as if they deserved such a gesture.  That last sentence is why I write these things the first place.  Yes, of course.      

  

I just read a New York Times article on independent housing for people with severe mental illnesses in New York State.  The article tells of some very abject cases of the failures of some people to succeed in living on their own, sometimes with tragic consequences, and the failures of the systems that the state set up to help such people.  The only reason Texas might not have such horror stories may lie in the fact that this state doesn't even try stuff like that, relying on supervised group home settings or institutions for such people.

My diagnosis is schizoaffective disorder.  My dad, a psychiatrist, once told me that a big problem I have personally had is that care providers such as doctors have continually underestimated the amount of care that I needed.  I had problems getting medications that were both effective and that I could tolerate for the first three years after my initial diagnosis, for example.  I spent too much time sick with psychosis in early 1995, in my opinion.

Which leads to my topic today: what does anyone out there expect of me?  I am about as well integrated into the community as anyone could expect.  What do I expect of myself?  If I take into account my ability to function at a pretty high level, where should I be at this stage in my life?  That brings to mind something an art teacher at School of Visual Arts would say when presented with such a question, "By whose standards are we judging?"  The question, as presented to Brett De Palma, had to do with navigating the art world, but it applies to me as well.

In the past month I've talked about how a significant part of me has come to believe that I may have an internet presence that I'm not privy to.  This idea had added an extra dimension to how I navigate my way through my world.  Since I put this idea out there, there've been some women at these businesses i regularly patronize who no longer work in the same jobs they did.  They may work in jobs where they interact less with the public, or maybe they no longer work at those businesses at all.  I could chalk it up to coincidence.  I don't know.  Again.  What does anyone really have the right to expect of me?

I'm compliant with medication, I quit cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol, I manage my money pretty well, I fulfill my part-time work responsibilities well, I make the effort to get along with everyone in my world, and I do pay as much attention to all aspects of my living skills as I'm able.  I'm always seeking to improve.  The great experiment to have someone such as myself live in the community instead of in a more institutional setting can count at least myself and quite a few others as examples of success. 

If this internet presence stuff is true, it has to do with stuff from a long time ago.  Again, maybe someone could just reach out to me via my contact page if they have issues with me.  I have a lot of trouble with dissociative thinking as I navigate my world- I can't "just know" when an interaction I have in some day to day setting has to do with larger issues- so in my mind, I don't expect myself to discern what the aggrieved parties expect of me in the way of making amends if they refuse to open up some more overt, but socially acceptable, lines of communication to me.

Be specific.  Okay, Wednesday night I played the Songwriter's Circle at Cheatham Street Warehouse in San Marcos.  A young woman traveling the country playing music on the streets for money came up and talked to me right before the show.  She was quite attractive.  I said at one point, "You're on quite an adventure... nowadays, my adventures are mainly in my mind."  She replied, "Well yeah, it's about doing whatever you want.  Right?"  I tried to interact with her a little more that night, but she didn't seem to want to.  After she finished her two songs, she left with a handsome young man who'd also performed that night, and whom she'd been talking to, outside, during the show.  I performed several slots later, and left before the event ended.

Last night I was in the grocery store (Thursday).  I get my groceries checked out, and I proceed to leave.  About fifteen feet in front of me, I see a male manager interact with two female cashiers.  Something seemed to strike them all as funny, and I thought I heard this male manager say, "And he'd left before she (or they) got back.  Hah, hah, hah!"  The connection my more dissociative side made with these two disparate events on two successive evenings points out a prime example of my dilemma.  Did they, the manger and/or employees, read on some site where this young woman who was traveling related the story?  Did I inadvertently trick anyone by leaving earlier than they expected?  Did she return to the club just to mess with me?  Was she trying to teach me a lesson about something that happened in my life thirty years ago?  Do people now see what I mean when I say that this tendency to make such seemingly unrelated connections really complicates things for me?

Look, the introduction of effective psychiatric medications to treat people such as myself, and the effort to integrate people such as myself into a larger, "real world" setting, amounts to a great experiment that has everything to do with this country's stated aim of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," for its people.  If anyone finds my efforts coming up short, please say something.

   

Saturday night I went out to see some bands.  It was a show where some of the bands featured people I know.  Last month I speculated about how I might have an internet presence I don't know about.  I suspected at least three women in this scene of knowing of this supposed presence, and these three women were at this club last night.  I saw one talking to a good male friend at one point, and I walked near them with thoughts of approaching them, but I stopped myself before going up to talk to these two. I just didn't want to come across as some great guy about what a significant part of me thinks might be going on with this internet presence.   I thought that it would come off as so manipulative, and it would come off as so manipulative that this woman would call bullshit on it and react accordingly.  I didn't try to talk to any of these women Saturday night.

I'm going to keep this in mind as I go about my daily routine in these businesses.  The attractive young women at these businesses whom I suspect of being in on this conspiracy have to interact with me to some extent some of the time.  I don't want to find myself trying to buddy up to these women either.  I imagine all of these women, in both worlds, might be familiar with female friends, or male friends for that matter, who have tried to almost coerce someone who has been a total asshole to them with this "niceness" in hopes of getting the offending parties to love them back.  I hope I didn't confuse anyone with overly vague pronoun usage.  I mean, this tendency to be the "nice guy" about someone who treats him or her shabbily can crop up in both men and women.  I almost think that these women are so familiar with this sort of thing, that they may even be for me in that they don't want me to succumb to this impulse.

I think it's pretty healthy that I'm not really trying for meaningful engagement with women now.  After my initial hospitalization in August of 1992, ALL I wanted was to finally get a girlfriend and be in a relationship.  This desire dogged me as the pendulum swung from the extreme psychosis that led to my first hospitalization to the extreme depression that led to my second hospitalization.  It took me months to stabilize enough to return to Austin and try to live on my own.  I still clung to the desperate hope that I would "get" a girlfriend soon enough, that I became overjoyed when I heard that a woman I'd had a few dates with in New York when I went to school there a couple of years earlier had moved to Austin.  I literally saw her as my salvation.  Well, there were reasons we didn't connect in New York, either.

I guess this time, right now, might represent a real payoff for all of these years where I really worked on being by myself.  I worked so hard at this that I quit smoking, drinking, and drugs in the process.  By the way, the overall vibe I get from the women in my world is really nice right now, at least it was today.