I went to see some friends play in their band yesterday.  It marked the first time I went out after I feel as if I'd beaten this whole, okay, conspiracy, against me.  The conspiracy centered around a belief that I had and still have an internet presence that I did not consent to, and that many, many women had access to this internet presence and hated on me over stuff that went on in my distant past.

A few weeks ago I felt as if I'd beaten this, okay, monster, by sending one of my friends-a friend who played in that band yesterday- I got the feeling that I'd beaten the rap by sending him a copy of issue number nine of my Richy Vegas comic.  Issue nine told my version of the events of the time so many of these women seemed focused on, as I believed, and put the incident they seemed so invested in hating me over into a larger context of all the shit that went on with me at that time.

I felt as if I came off as very sympathetic to my friend's wife, who I believed played some part in this conspiracy against me.  I came to believe she read the book and did a complete one-eighty on what she thought of me and that whole time I talk about in issue nine, and that she proceeded to advocate on my behalf to all of these other women who hated on me.  So, yeah, I felt I was like Carl Kolchak, the Night Stalker, and that I'd managed to kill this giant monster.

I wore my Night Stalker t-shirt to the show yesterday and talked to my friend in the band about how I like that show, but I did not bring up the subject of the book I sent him, issue number nine, and neither did he.  I didn't want to broach the subject, perhaps because I felt it so tender and new a thing that just happened. The new, tender thing centering around how I'd beaten the rap.

Long story short, I feel as if several women at the show yesterday were privy to this internet presence. My friend's wife didn't show up, and I figured she might feel bad about the role she played in the conspiracy before she did her one-eighty.  Anyway, I felt creeped out by these women, and I'm trying to sort  out this creeped out feeling. They may want to make amends, but I may just not want to deal with them at this moment.   I've just decided to follow my buddha and see what happens if I let this supposed opportunity to get with these now-contrite women slip through my fingers.  I'll try to elaborate on all of this later, but I need to get ready to go to work now.

I've decided to just chronicle my side of the story in my comic books.  I see that course of action as much more constructive than retaliating against those I perceive as my enemies.  I can point to two issues of my Richy Vegas comic book, specifically issues 4 and 9, and cite my side of the stories I tell and say telling those stories likely helped me.  

I have three main objections to hurtful retaliation as a means of achieving some measure of satisfaction for the wrongs I may feel I endure in interpersonal conflicts with those in my world.  1) retaliation doesn't seem to deliver the satisfying payoff I hope it does, 2) retaliation seems to cause more problems than it solves, and 3) people don't ever seem to think they actually deserve such retaliation.

On the other hand.  Telling my side of the story in my comic books seems to show those aware of the situation that I have a side of the story worth telling and a perspective worth advocating.  The people I find myself in conflicts with seem to rather easily convince themselves and many of those around them that their side of the conflict is the only side worth considering.  I think this has something to do with the stigma my mental illness presents to many people.  Many people seem to think a mentally ill person doesn't have a side worth fighting for and defending.  My comics actually seem to open some peoples' eyes to other possibilities centered around that supposed bottom line.

This means I may continue self-publishing my Richy Vegas comic book for a number of years.  For a while I wanted to phase that book out after issues number 31 or 32.  If I do go ahead and publish up to issue number 32, I will see how it goes after that.  I anticipate a queue for the production of what will amount to three different titles in the Richy Vegas Comics Group: Richy Vegas Comics, Tales from the Richy Vegas Psychoverse, and The Richy Vegas Songbook.  I figure I will do very well if I come out with three books a year at my current rate of production.  How the books line up in the queue will shake out over time.

I used to try to make women in my world over into love interests in order to give me someone to think about as I went through my work shifts and other challenging times.  Two posts ago I wrote about how I would take stock on December 8th, 2024 over the issue of whether my relationship with women has actually improved by then.  I think I will focus my energy over this next year on refraining from retaliating against anyone I might otherwise retaliate against if I refused to listen to my better angels.  That will give me something to think about during my challenging work shifts and whatnot.  The way I see it, such an effort requires an ongoing commitment.  Not unlike the commitment I had to make in order to quit smoking cigarettes over twenty years ago.  To bring about that change I had to stick with it for a long period of time.  I couldn't just make a one time decision to quit smoking and that settled that.

I've retaliated against individual women and others in the past at similar junctures to this one.  Think of it: people finally see me as something resembling an actual human being, much like them, and it's been at these times, sometimes, when I just went, "Wammo!," and hit them with some retaliatory gesture.  Talk about shooting myself in the foot!  That's why I find it necessary to stay committed to my path of non-retaliation over a long period of time.  If there's one thing that could most improve my relationship with women over this next year, over anything else I can do, this could very well be it.

A couple of posts ago I vowed to refrain from retaliating against those I've considered myself pitted against these past however many years in a conflict I definitely did not choose, initiate, or really wish to engage in.  Did my last post declaring that I'd managed to kick Schmaylor Schmift to the curb constitute retaliation?  Remember, a couple of posts ago I also vowed to really try to refrain from "micro-retaliations" in addition to making an effort to refrain from really anger-fueled, vindictive behavior.  I defined micro-retaliations as snarky little things I might say or dirty looks I might give to those I thought might have had something to do with what I've been up against for so long.

Well, declaring that I've kicked Schmaylor to the curb does sound pretty snarky, but here's where such a statement might actually constitute something other than base retaliation.  Okay, I don't think sending my male friend issue number nine of my Richy Vegas memoir comic, a book that told my side of a story so many of these people seemed so invested in one part of, I don't think the act of sending my male friend that book constituted retaliation.  Nope, not by any stretch of the imagination.  

Remember, a couple of posts ago, I hypothesized that my male friend's wife got hold of that book, read it, and felt compelled to do a complete one-eighty on how she felt about the version of that crude sexual proposition story she may have heard about me from someone in her world.  The crude sexual proposition story I openly talk about in issue number nine. The crude sexual proposition story that I place into the greater context of what all I went through at that that time.  I hypothesized that my friend's wife, whom I also count as a friend, became an advocate for my position and interests after reading that issue of the Richy Vegas comic book.

Does any of that, speculative though I may sound right now, sound like base retaliation to the readers out there?  I think sending that issue of my comic book to my male friend may have set in motion the kicking to the curb of one Schmaylor Schmift.  Does happily crowing about the possible outcome of said kicking to the curb of one Schmalyor Schmift amount to a micro-retaliation? Well, if one really has a stick up one's ass, maybe, but I personally would disagree with such an opinion.

I see it as more akin to spreading my peacock feathers over possibly winning a game of Schmaylor's own devising, a game Schmaylor played using her own set of rules, and a game Schmaylor played where she got to define what exactly signified victory for her and hers over me.  The reason I feel ready to crow and strut at this time has to do with my experiences of this same game women played with me in the past; a game they got to make up the rules to; and a game where they got to define what it was that made them such a winner at it.  They all think they're so special and unique as individuals when they start up on these games with me, but to me it all registers as the same shit I've been dealing with since the mid-eighties, and I handled the situation accordingly.

Okay, I'll come out and say it.  I think Schmaylor lost this game, and she deserved to lose at this game.  I don't think any god of any right-living, right-thinking person's imagining would be on the side of someone coming from the place she came from.  I don't think her and hers aggression against me had anything to do with a higher moral code they tried to adhere to.  I think the reason for their aggression had to more to do with their overall perception of me as vulnerable to such aggression, and that their aggression had to do with their overall perception that they could get away with it.  I think she saw me as a helpless, mentally ill guy who couldn't defend himself, and they saw such a seemingly tangible chance at a rather easy victory, they couldn't help themselves. 

I don't consider any actions I've taken up to the point in regards to this situation as retaliation.  Furthermore, as far as I'm concerned, it's over.  I have no desire to hurt anyone over what they've may have been up to with me.  If anyone from law enforcement or the media ever wants me to tell them what I think was going on all these years, yeah, I might talk to someone like that, maybe, but I'm not looking to reach out to anyone in those worlds.  My work is done, as far as I'm concerned.

Since I managed to kick old Schmaylor Schmift and her cohorts to the curb a few weeks back, I've wondered what to do next.  I'm terrible at picking up women.  When it comes to kicking the Schmaylor Schmifts of the world to the curb, I'm aces.  But actually picking up women, not so much.

So I've decided to make a bet with myself.  I'm loathe to make bets with myself regarding my relationship with women, because if I don't out and out lose the bet, I often walk away with nebulous, ambiguous results that I really can't hang my hat on.  But maybe things have really improved with the very act of kicking Schmaylor Schmift and her confederates to the curb that I can just kick back and take a hands-off approach to the issue of whether I can actually pick up actual women for actual dates and whatnot.

I'm giving myself until December 8th, 2024, to show a substantial improvement in my relationship with women.  I hope that giving myself a full year will teach me to have some patience regarding this matter.  After all, it took seven years for me to kick Schmaylor Schmift to the curb once and for all, so maybe a little tiny smidge of patience is in order on this front, still.

I might even accept improvement that may seem vague, nebulous, and ambiguous to someone else.  Such as someone who may have a lot more success in their relationship with women than I.  Maybe a willingness to accept such vaguely defined improvements will teach me to look on the bright side of these matters.  I mean, it's conceivable that I could accept the next year as substantially improved even if I don't land even ONE date with ONE woman in the next year. I've gone many, many years, in a row oftentimes, without even ONE date with ONE woman.

When I quit drinking and drugs in 2009, a move I made to improve my relationship with women, they sure didn't line up around to block to go out with me then, but I accepted an overall improvement in my mood and outlook regarding life in general as a substantial improvement.  No way I was going to give up on my commitment to sobriety just because I wasn't getting laid every weekend within the first two or three months of executing that commitment.  Wish me luck.  

Oh yeah, the bet consists of me buying myself a little present like a CD or a vinyl record if I stay focused on trying the hand-offs, I'm easy approach to getting with women for the entire year.  That is, I will buy myself that present regardless of the result.  It has a lot to do with how I would like to live my life, regardless of whether living my life the way I want to live it gets me laid or not.

So far, no random woman's come up to me this past three weeks or so and made some wise-ass remark that seems to allude to whatever dirt those out there who want to have dirt on me feel they have on me, so that's good.  In my last post I talked about that kind of thing as the kind of thing I will look for first, over some kind of actual improvement in how certain women in my world interact with me and what they may think of me.

I'm not even sure there hasn't been substantial improvement on that front, either.  See, I just used a double negative to state a possible positive development in my situation.  I mean to say that things might have actually improved for me these past several weeks.  Some weeks ago I sent issue number nine of my autobiographical Richy Vegas comic book to a male friend.  I wonder if maybe his wife got hold of it at some point, saw that it was about a particularly trying time in my life- the part about people having dirt on me, remember?- and the events and people in that book, and how they treated me, and how things went for me, over and over again, might have struck a sympathetic chord with her.  I wonder if maybe my male friend's wife didn't become a vociferous advocate for my position in defiance of the consensus view that I'm some incorrigible piece of shit with no hope of ever appearing as anything other than the picture so many on that side the fence wanted to paint of me.

Oh well, just some idle thoughts on my part, maybe.  If a grain of truth exists in what I wrote in the above paragraph about my male friend's wife (who is also my friend) taking up the role of advocate for my position and interests against my self-appointed adversaries, then that would earn that couple admittance into The League, for sure.  If the powers that be made the decision to grant these two admittance into The League, then I don't expect much in the way of open, frank talk about the book I sent them.  That is, he and maybe she might say they read it, but they won't own up to anything I've speculated on in the previous paragraph about the wife possibly advocating for me in some way.  I don't have a problem with that, that's the ways of The League.  I'll just say here that I apparently picked the right people to send that book to read.

I'm getting pretty good at this.  By "this," I mean making lots and lots of people look like total assholes for all of the grief and trouble they've brought to my door.  I guess this skill-set comes from the knowledge that, no matter how much pain people like this wish to inflict on me, they always wind up looking and feeling like total assholes for their trouble.  The secret for me resides in my ability to not allow them to inflict much pain at all.  I think I've done a pretty good job of it this time around.  There's a lot more of looking like total assholes for them, if they still want to go there with me.

That part about retaliation that I brought up last week.  Yeah, about that.  I have no desire to retaliate against any of these people.  I find that my forgiveness- my willingness to not retaliate; to refrain from inflicting a self-adjudicated, "just" measure of pain and suffering upon my tormentors in order that they may "learn their lesson." Yeah, that kind of forgiveness- my forgiveness allows me to have an appreciable measure of peace in my head and in my being, rather than the usual anger and rage that inhabits that realm at these times.

I'm even trying to extend this restraint to "micro-retaliations,"  Like micro-aggressions, they are the little gestures and things I say around or to these people whenever I do see them.  No dirty looks, no snarky comments, none of that, if I can help it.  I may come across like Gary Cooper in "Sargent York," but I could do worse than Gary Cooper in "Sargent York," if you ask me.