I've been talking, supposedly in a general sense, about twenty year olds.  "Twenty year olds this," and "twenty year olds that."  The reader can probably guess I'm talking about a specific twenty year old.  I think she's twenty.  Let's say she's twenty.  I'm not asking her out.

I never asked Sara out in 1988.  Nope, never.  She presented too many problems.  Plus, I pretty much decided to let her slip through my fingers from the get go.  I grew to like her more than I probably ever would have if I'd pursued her to the ends of the Earth and back.  When I let her know I wasn't talking to her anymore in the Fall of 1988, when I went to the art school to visit with teachers after I'd graduated that Summer, she'd glare at me angrily.

But, when I saw her again in 1992, I learned her name, and I walked off to the bathroom when she sat next to me wanting to talk.  I didn't walk off out of anger.  I sat on the edge of the stage at Flamingo Cantina, She walked up and sat next to me and asked, "What's up?" in a friendly manner.  Up until then she'd come off as pretty standoffish at Alice's house and outside the club.  So she sits next to me and asks, "What's up?"  I say, "I don't know," and float off on a cloud of bewilderment to the men's room.  Bewildered because earlier that night I found out her name, found out she was gay, and the really baffling thing, those feelings of longing and yearning I'd nursed in my bosom for those two-plus years I'd thought I'd made a terrible mistake in letting her go- the torch I'd carried for Sara for those two-plus years- burned not even a little; a total absence of any feeling for her inside at the sight of Sara that night.   I saw her talk to Alice a little from the men's room, but she'd left by the time I got back.

This particular twenty year old now.  She presents too many problems.  It seems as if, maybe, my skeptical blog posts of late regarding her have hit a bullseye, which is problematic.  I say things like she sees me as an object of curiosity, I think, and she just wants to fuck with me for the experience of fucking with me.  That's not a good person to ask on a date, even if I get some kind of opportunity.

It's not as if I'm too afraid to approach any attractive, even young women for that kind of thing.  Last weekend I talked to a very pretty young woman at a club whom I noticed looking at me.  She later had occasion to stand close to me, so I talked to her.  I asked her later if she could give me contact info, and she said no.  I said that it was nice meeting her and left.  That was it.  I wasn't too intimidated to talk to her in the first place, and I wasn't too intimidated to ask for her contact info.  I didn't even get beat up or anything.

I mean, I can say "hi" to this twenty year old, make small talk, etc.  I don't dislike her.  She works at a business where I wouldn't feel comfortable asking a female employee for her phone number or out on a date.  I felt comfortable enough asking that young woman at the club for contact info, so it's not, "No, never," under any circumstances.  Just not these circumstances, and not her.

Other young, attractive women at other businesses who acted a little flirty with me in the recent past seem to like me fine even though I neither asked them out nor gave them CDs, comic books, or info on my next musical performance.  In earlier years, attractive young woman seemed uncomfortable when I asked them out at their place of employment, and they would try to retaliate or just not want to talk to me.  I want this girl to like me.  To my way of seeing things, she might like me better if I do like I've done recently and not ask her out or give her presents or gig info. 

On this blog I frequently rail against attractive young women I sense may be playing games with me at any given time.  It seems as if for every one that goes down; after I've made an intelligent decision about a young woman, and that decision usually involves refraining from favoring them with romantic attention or pursuit; it seems as if another just springs up almost immediately to take her place, and I have to make another intelligent decision; again, a decision to refrain from pursuing this next young woman in question, and it seems as if this process just goes on, and on, and on.

I realized today, in the midst of all of this, that I don't form inappropriate, premature, and obsessive emotional attachments to attractive young women in my world anymore.  I defy any young, attractive women in my world to try to level that kind of accusation against me; that I've formed an inappropriate emotional attachment to them or anyone they know.  Truth to tell, It's been years since I can say that about my tendencies to do that in regards to anyone in my world.  But, at the beginning of this decade or thereabouts, I would try to ask young, attractive baristas and waitresses out in my world, and I would frequently run into problems.  If they weren't trying to set me up for a fall from the get go, then they would try to retaliate for my gesture in the aftermath.  I think these toxic, negative behaviors that these young women would engage in stemmed from a fear that I would form, or already had formed, an inappropriate, premature, and obsessive emotional attachment to them. 

Reviving the experiment I first tried with Sara in 1988; where I wanted to see what would happen if, for once, I refrained from pursuing Sara as much as I could; I think that has made the biggest difference in my recovery from love addiction.  One reason for that resides in the insight I gain as to why these young women engage in these horrible behaviors towards me in the first place.  Shutting my end of it down makes it easier for me to see the part the other party plays in these dramas.  I think these days I might be an object of curiosity to young, attractive women in my world more than anything else.  They just want to see what it's like to fuck with some old dude who resides in the mental and emotional place I'm in right now.

So nowadays, I frequently find myself caught up in the individual women and whatever they have or haven't done, but like I said, today I took a step back and realized the big picture over the individual dramas that I can find myself caught up in.  When I realized that I'd become horribly fixated on Cathy, a fellow student at UT, in 1984, I felt so lost and did not know how to proceed.  Well, it took a long time to come up with my solutions, and these solutions came from, for the most part, self-diagnosis of the problem and self-help as to the solution, neither of which came easily or quickly. 

My last post talked about someone in my world reminding me of the type of young woman that is like a shark that smells blood in the water in regards to me.  That may not represent a fair characterization of where this person really comes from with their deal.  This  young woman seems to be a type that I could become terribly fond of if I got to know her a little better, and fair enough, I'm someone who has been known to become terribly fond of sharks who smell blood in the water.  So there.

Years ago I decided that I wanted a relationship with someone who could give and receive love in a way that I could understand.  I don't know if very attractive twenty year old girls really fill that bill, though.  People who know more than I say that women get more complicated to a man as he ages, not less complicated.  That would go doubly so for twenty year old girls to someone such as myself.  I guess what I mean is, I would want to date someone who knows something of what they want more than a typical attractive twenty year old girl does.

My advice to this young woman, and anyone else her age, for that matter, would be to find someone closer to her age who has her best interests at heart, and whose only shortcomings mirror her own in regards to how they make mistakes in their respective journeys through life.

If this young woman feels misunderstood by me, then welcome to my world, my dear.  It seems that a great deal of my adult life has consisted of clearing up misconceptions about me that those around me have had in regards to the mental place I was in and whether I intended to harm anyone or not.  Again, this young woman doesn't seem hobbled by the stigma of mental illness, and a person closer to her own age might represent the best solution to any misconceptions one might have about her.

Back when I made the big push to quit smoking, I remember a guy in my support group who made a very good point.  He had quite a bit of time, over a year or more probably, since he'd quit smoking.  He said that he felt that going back to his old ways of heavy smoking would not be the same as it was before he quit.  "It just wouldn't be the same," he said.

A couple of posts ago I talked about someone whom I'd been thinking about.  I talked about how I ran the usual tapes I run in my head about a future where I married this person and we had kids and all of that.  Two Fridays ago I thought these thoughts while in Bandera for some time off.  So, I'm running these tapes.  Right?  One thought that slipped in there concerned a date I had in 1985 with a fellow UT student named Veronica.  On our first date she made such an impression on me that I decided, then and there, that I loved her.  As I thought about married life with this young woman in my world while in Bandera, I thought, "Man, this deal might be like the one with Veronica, where there was nowhere to go but down from the high of deciding that I was in love with her on our first date."  And there was, indeed, nowhere to go but down as far as that whole deal with Veronica went.

So, my next train of thought really embraced the notion that these deals will run their course no matter if I fantasize about marriage and babies and all of that or not.  I have plenty of cruel examples of that, and I've never come nowhere near to marrying anyone in my entire adult life.  The first woman I dated, Lisa in 1985, I talked to some friends about how she was my "future wife" before we ever really hooked up.  So, even under the more favorable circumstance of someone actually wanting to go out with me and things working out to some extent, my deal with Lisa lasted about a month from around our first date to the end. 

Two Fridays ago that lead me to the notion that a more realistic train of thought concerning this young woman in my world might involve seeing if I could get something going with her that broke my old record of dating someone for a MONTH before there was any talk, anywhere, of marriage and babies and whatnot.  I went to Darrel McCall's show at Arky's Silver Dollar in Bandera that night, by myself, thinking, "Even a deal that is more successful than anything I've ever experienced with a woman might find me, soon enough, back where I am right now, doing all kinds of stuff by myself."  I enjoyed Darrel McCall's first long set pretty well, and then left for my hotel.

I was still pretty high from thinking about how I managed to free myself from this notion that any move in this young woman's direction might lead me down the aisle, I worked a little on my comic book, and as I worked, I let go of the notion that I had any obligation whatsoever to make any move at all in this young woman's direction.  My trip to Bandera represented the best money and time I've spent anywhere, at any time, in recent memory, in my opinion.

So, I wonder if I'm past some developmental stage where fantasy notions of young women in my world just don't have the same kind of hold on me that they used to.  I don't know.  My progress on the recovery from my love addiction seems to come in leaps and bounds these days.  A recent interaction with a very pretty young woman in my world kind of lead me to think that she has no desire to fuck with me at all.  That would be progress, because I'm used to these types reacting to me like a shark that smells blood in the water as far as how they relate to me, so here goes nothing.

There's this really pretty twenty year old girl in my world.  There's a lot of reasons I don't want to approach her for friendship and dating.   She's twenty.  I don't really know her at all.  She works at a business where I would feel weird approaching her for that kind of thing.  In one of Dr. David Burn's books, he advises lonely, under-confident people to approach individuals who wouldn't be as intimidating to approach as this young woman.  Then, if the person has any luck, maybe they would have the confidence to approach someone who really excites them.  

That sounds like a good idea.  I think I could hit myself in the thumb with a hammer and ask a nurse out in the emergency room while I'm in there.  Or better yet, I could have a heart attack and ask the EMT out who rides in the back of the ambulance with me, if she's a female.  A hospital emergency room or the back of an ambulance would equal in weirdness the business that this really pretty twenty year old works at as far as weird places to ask employees out on dates, so I should be plenty confident when a nurse or EMT agrees to hang out with me when I ask them out, and approaching this twenty year old in her place of employment for a date should be a cinch after I pull something like that off.

Better yet, I could start drinking heavily again, go for a drive, get pulled over, have the cops give me the dummy test, and ask the lady cop out when she takes me off in her squad car.  Hey!  Maybe all I really need to ask this girl out is some liquid courage.  I could throw down a few beers and go into her place of employment and try my luck without having to ask the nurse, the EMT, or the lady cop out at first.

Come to think of it, maybe all this girl really wants is to see if I mention her on this blog.  Well, I hope she likes what I wrote.  I've been doing note taking, outlining, and reading for my next five comic books.  Heavy.  This post represents down time from those tasks.  These next five books detail how I went totally nuts in 1992.  I also finished the last three pages of my latest book.  I hope to have it at the library and other places by the middle of June.   

Last Friday I made what I feel will amount to an intelligent decision about a young woman in my world.  I decided to refrain from favoring this young woman with any attention and to not pursue her romantically at all.  I just walked myself through my thought journey, from fantasizing about marrying this young woman and having kids with her during what remains of my life, all the way to the conclusion that I'd do well to let her go instead, by about the stroke of Midnight, Friday night. 

I might go into more detail about my train of thought last Friday at a later date, but for now, if anyone wants to know how to go from grandiose fantasies about some supposed great love to deciding to let such a person go in a matter of a few days, I would suggest they buy a copy of Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns.  Dr. Burns lays out methods for getting thoughts that undermine one's stability, happiness, and well-being out on paper or in a dialogue with a competent therapist or a sympathetic friend, and coming up with ways to come to terms with things that have dissatisfied, disappointed, or nearly killed someone in the past.  For me, what used to sometimes take weeks or months to do now takes days.  In 2014, it took me four months to let go of that virgin girl at that business I still patronize.  This most recent girl took me FOUR DAYS, tops.  That's the nature of recovery I guess.  It progresses in the right direction, whereas addiction progresses in the wrong direction.

Suffice to say, after I came to my conclusion that this young woman sought to represent herself as available and interested to me when she may be neither, I thought, "I could be wrong about her." The police use inductive reasoning to solve most of their cases.  Inductive reasoning goes something like, "If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, flies like a duck, swims like a duck, walks like a duck, has feathers like a duck; chances are it's a duck."  The cops aren't always right using this method, but they are right enough of the time to draw a salary, I suppose.  My inductive line of reasoning about her, or the "math" if one prefers, helped seal the deal on my decision about her.

After I make one of these decisions, I often ask myself, "Why me?  Why do I have to deal with this shit so frequently?"  I've talked in the past about how the impulse for these young baristas and waitresses and whatnot to try to shit on me this way must manifest itself as a temptation to them rather than a well thought out, intelligent  decision.  Today, I figured that strippers must have to deal with an analogous situation.  They probably have to resign themselves to the fact that a certain number of the male patrons of these places are going to want to touch them inappropriately and/or say rude things to them in a number of ways and in a number of situations.  it's just part of their job. 

For various reasons, I have to deal with abusive, asshole behavior from particularly attractive young women in much the same way strippers have to deal with abusive, asshole behavior from a certain percentage of their male patrons.  In the case of this young woman in question, I think she works in a place where a gunfighter mentality took over among employees with traits like hers and she wanted to succeed where other young women failed, i.e. she wanted to get a reputation off of me.

I write on this blog about how I displayed a vulnerability to this kind of attention from young women in the past, and how it has been my cross to bear for all these years.  I also talked in recent posts about I thought something might happen on my birthday this year in regards to recognition for Richy Vegas.  Well, the whole reason the Legend of Richy Vegas manifested itself to me in the way it did in 1992 lies in the fact that I could not deal with the various forms on unavailable women that would seize my being, one after the other,  all throughout my twenties.  Further disappointments with woman since then had me fixating on upcoming dates as a way to hopefully resolve the grandiose Legend with the reality I lived and finally receive my recognition as Richy Vegas.  The thing is, I do much better now at dealing with the things about my relationship with women that made me so crazy in the first place, so maybe this year I may just look forward to a little cake and ice cream for my birthday.    

One time my old band, Insect Sex Act, played Emo's in 2010 or 2011.  As we played, these three or four young women danced with each other energetically in front of the stage.  Just havin' fun.  The last thing I wanted to do after the set was try to talk to these young girls.  I thought it might have looked really uncool and presumptuous to try and pick up on them.  

As I go around in my world, I wonder if anyone has read those books on the zine shelf at the main library downtown.  I kind of pick up a vibe that some of the women I see at these businesses may have read the books.  I could be wrong.  It's cool to have an audience that has a lot of women in it, if my intuitions are true.  Insect Sex Act's audience seemed to consist of mainly dudes.  

Last Fall I talked about a situation that I didn't know if it was real or not.  I talked about having an internet presence that I didn't create myself nor did I consent to.  I still don't know if that's true or not, but one of my posts back then talked about how I no longer drank, smoked cigarettes, did drugs, or PURSUE UNAVAILABLE WOMEN.  This latest turn of events involving my books at the library might represent better times than I had last Fall.  I still don't want to chase after unavailable women, even if women reading my books marks an improvement in my fortunes.

Nothing could ruin any good deal I've made for myself more easily than trying to connect with some twenty-two year old waitress or barista in my world who would just not have any of that.  So, in good times or bad, unavailable women could make any deal suck.  Just because I may have an audience doesn't mean I get to go all Guns and Roses on the female members.

I've just finished sixty pages of my next book.  I hope to have it back from the printer and sent to wherever I'm going to send it by this time next month.  I hope it's true that I have an audience that reads the books at the library. 

The other night I lost it as I drove one of my parents back from a no-big-deal visit to the emergency room.  I just started exclaiming, "I can't do it!  I can't do it!" as this parent's demands got to me.  My parents aren't getting any younger, and I have to take a bigger role in their care.

These past few days I've thought about all of the asshole women I've had to deal with these past several years.  One who really comes to mind is that Virgin Girl from 2014/15.  I sure handled the pressure she put on me better than I handled the pressure this situation put on me the other night.  My response the other night in the car looked adolescent in comparison.  I think I've been handling these situations with all of these asshole women with a lot more professionalism than I've been handling the situation with my parents.

I've been out in the world.  See, that Virgin Girl from that business I patronize offered me her virginity-if I played my cards right.  It seems that the guy I saw her with one time was some kind of SOB or something, and if I just played my cards right, even though she didn't even know me, really...yeah.

I just thought about that Virgin Girl and all her bullshit as I dealt with one of my parents just now.  I mean I had to go and deal with this parent as I wrote the above passages.  It helps.  I can only think to apply the skill set I've shown with these women to the situation with my parents, instead of feeling like I'm still fourteen years old with them.

I'm kind of stuck at my house for now.  I can work on my books and my music to keep me busy.  I just finished page fifty of the latest issue of Richy Vegas Comics tonight.  I practiced a couple of songs for my next album as well.  The progress on the book goes a lot better than the progress on the record.

I posted this picture of my inventory on Instagram the other night:

This is a picture of my complete inventory of Richy Vegas Comics.  Last year I planned on doing a count of how many issues I had, but then I said, "Fuck it."  I have a bunch of comics.  Okay?  The other night I decided to try and sell them at comic cons and zine fest for only ONE DOLLAR  per eighty pages of qualificious Richy Vegas goodness.   Yasss!  That's ONE MEASLY DOLLAR per book, folks.  

It's a classic story of too much supply versus not enough demand.  This is my legacy as an artist.  I don't want to have to recycle eighty percent of my inventory when all is said and done. Okay?  I will also offer these comics at musical performances for FREE.  Yes, Mr. and Mrs. America, you heard me right, for FREE.  If I can't put a significant dent in this inventory by offering these books at a price range of ONE DOLLAR all the way down to FREE, I guess that my next step will be to PAY PEOPLE to take them.  I plan on writing a song advertising my FREE books at my musical performances.  I don't have any ideas of the words or music right now, but I'll get on it when I have a gig booked, I guess.

This is all part of my effort to focus my attentions on a viable plan B, for when plan A falls through.  Plan A, as readers will remember, is where I finally receive the recognition that I deserve in my identity as Richy Vegas and get my wing-wang sucked every day by supermodels.  I planned on plan A coming to fruition, this time around, on my birthday next month.  The problem with plan A lies in the fact that such an outcome is entirely out of my hands.  Plan B, where I try to foist my books off on an unsuspecting public by any means necessary, looks more doable that Plan A.

I plan on completing eight more issues of my book, printing up one hundred copies of each issue like always, and then working on whittling the resulting mass of scrumditaliumptious Richy Vegas geniusness down to a number of books that I can stand to send off to recycling.  Say, thirty percent of my inventory.  If I do any more books after I complete this series, I will just have a small number of books printed up for the purpose of documentation and leave it at that.  

The last post talked about my time at the Pocketfishrman Fish Fry, and also about the Legend of Richy Vegas becoming manifest somehow on my next birthday, which is next month.  Several women looked at me in a way I'm not really used to at the Fish Fry.  They didn't look at me in any way that demonstrated great lust or longing or anything dramatic like that, but they looked at me nonetheless.  Other interactions with a dude my age here, or how I would overhear a guy there who would say something that I took out of context and appied to the Legend.... Oh god.  I don't know if I'm making any sense.  Okay, examples: I sat at a table outside, at the Fish Fry, and a dude my age came up to it with three drinks he had trouble managing.  He put them down on the table in front of me, and handed them one by one to his party of friends at the next table.  He said to me, "Thanks for saving my life."  I didn't do anything like that within the context of this situation with his drinks.  Okay?  I also wandered through the crowd at one point and I overheard a guy say, "He managed to stop it before...," and that's all I heard.

It might be that the Legend is becoming manifest around me as I go about my day to day routines.  I may shop in a grocery store, for example, and an attractive young woman comes up beside me in the same aisle or whatnot, and this is all subtly confusing and not a little intimidating. 

Anyway, I've decided that I'm not going to try to approach ANY women for the foreseeable future.  I hope that no-one out there finds this decision off-putting or alienating.  I just want to see if my perceptions have any basis in reality, and what that reality may entail.

In a Japanese Art History class in the Summer of 1987, the teacher talked about the Japanese approach to mastery of one's craft.  The teacher said that the Japanese way was to follow the rules and rise through the ranks until one achieved master level, as in the case of a black belt in Judo or Karate.  The teacher said that the person who achieved master level could then do whatever they wanted after that.  So, first follow the rules and rise through the ranks, then comes the personal freedom to do whatever one would want to do.

Following such a system means, hopefully, that doing whatever one wants does not entail doing crazy, fucked up, or transgressive things.  One has learned to play by the rules, and doing whatever one wants entails, hopefully, a personal freedom within the confines of the general rules on personal conduct set forth.  I think just kind of chilling out and not really doing anything about this possible new found attention from women for a while fits within this idea put forth by the Japanese system.