Thomas Wictor

Everyone I’ve ever contacted has sold my name and e-mail address to spammers. I get inundated with junk that some algorithm predicted would make me excited and start spending money. According to the demographics, I’m drunk, impotent, and unfaithful.

First the drunk aspect of my character. The way I got put on this list is hilarious.

I tracked down Becca Pilkington at her current place of employment. She’s one of the three grifters who wrecked my writing career for the third time. I asked Becca if she could help me locate Mike Albee and Lura Dold, but she didn’t respond. However, she or her boss sold my name and e-mail address to Tasting Room. I’ve since found Mike and Lura myself, and I know where Becca lives too. But I’m not going to do anything about the crime they committed against me. My gut tells me that society is on their side, so I’m standing down.

Also, I won’t give anybody Mike, Lura, or Becca’s addresses. If anything were to happen to Mike, Lura, or Becca, the same cops who didn’t lift a finger to help me would break down my door in the name of justice. I know it the way I know my own name. It doesn’t make me angry. I’ve accommodated all of this and moved on to the rebuilding my career for the fourth time. Sure, there are days like yesterday, when it felt as though I’d eaten a plate of broken glass. The nightmares have returned in full force too, but I’ll conquer them again.

Mike, Lura, and Becca, on the other hand, are in a downward spiral. There’s no recovery for them. They have my sympathy. In a theoretical sense.

That ad from Tasting Room offers a free “WinePrint™ Personality Profile, a revealing portrait of you as a wine drinker!”

What…Why…But… I’m genuinely speechless. Do people really want revealing portraits of themselves as wine drinkers? Revealing to whom? The person who receives the portrait? Do you really need a wine company to tell you who you are? Or is it part of the endless packaging and marketing of the self? I’m assuming that once you get your WinePrint™ Personality Profile, you post it somewhere, along with a photo.

WinePrint™ Personality Profile of Thomas Wictor

Thomas is fifty-one years old. A nugatory writer and musician, he enjoys his wine outdoors. Thomas’s defining qualities are his nescience and potheration. His hobby is dysthymia, and his ignis fatuus is to perdure.

For whatever reason I’m also on the mailing lists of companies that facilitate infidelity.

I was never unfaithful. Why not? Because it’s immoral. If I were going to be unfaithful, I certainly wouldn’t choose to do so with a woman who lacks genitalia. What would be the point of that? Another question is why would I need to pay someone to find me a woman? The popular culture has created this bogus notion of scarcity, but there’s someone for everyone. Phil Spector’s wife Rachelle Short is forty-one years younger than he is, and she married him after he was arrested for murdering Lana Clarkson.

If you don’t want to be alone, you don’t have to be. I’m also of the opinion that if you don’t want to be involved with a particular person, you should leave them instead of cheating on them. If cheating is part of the agreement, fine. But “I genuinely love him-her. That affair meant nothing” is a lie. If you love someone, you won’t hurt them for any reason in the world.

I was cheated on, and I overlooked the affairs because I knew that they would end. It was a means of testing me. I was supposed to shout, “YOU SLUT!” and stomp off. I didn’t. It was agony, but I figured that the payoff would be worth it. And it was, for three years. I have no regrets.

However, that was just me. If you can’t forgive cheating, your position is entirely legitimate. The reason I was able to forgive was that the affairs took place during alcoholic blackouts. And the really awful period lasted only a few months. In exchange for putting up with these betrayals, I got three years of perfect happiness. You have to decide for yourself if you can make the tradeoff. I knew also that the affairs weren’t malicious acts of narcissism. They were compulsive and desperate.

Nobody’s under any obligation to remain with someone who’s problematic. Ironically I forgave and accommodated, but when it was my turn to ask for understanding, I didn’t get it. Everyone has their limits. That’s something you need to take into account when you have baggage. Always assume that the other person will find out. If you think they won’t be able to handle it, don’t get involved with them.

If you’re going to get involved with someone, men, stay away from testosterone boosters.

What they are is fertilizer for cancer, especially when it comes to our ol’ buddy the prostate gland. In about ten years, we’re going to see a pandemic of prostate cancer among actors. Testosterone and human growth hormone practically guarantee cancer. They also cause a massively increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Yeah, I’m old. So what? I’m not missing out on anything. All life has its seasons: spring, summer, fall, and winter. I’m in my fall, and I like it. Sunset appeals to me, because I know that after the night, comes a new dawn. I’m not afraid.

And these junk e-mails come in handy for my art projects.