Self-esteem

I've always been seriously overweight. All my life. It runs on both sides of my family, at least two generations back. Like most overweight people, I've been on diets, some voluntarily, some imposed on me. Just over twenty years ago, I decided, of my own volition, that I was going to make a serious effort to lose a significant amount of weight. And I succeeded. In a little over a year, I lost something like 8 stones (around 50kg, for those of you who deal in Metric). But the diet was still a complete failure. Why? Because I undertook it not for the good of my physical health, but to try and make me feel better about myself. And after all the effort and sacrifice, my self-esteem was still just as non-existent as it had been before.
For something that's been ongoing for a similar length of time, I'm getting the feeling that this blog (and 'Cuckoos', for that matter) is heading the same way. There were various things I felt I wanted to achieve when I started blogging, but one of the most important was to be able to express my feelings in a forum where I felt safer than speaking face to face to a real life person, to try to come to terms with aspects of my character and psyche that I'd been struggling with for years and years.. And I'm afraid I have to conclude that, like my diet, I've abjectly failed in that regard. The feelings of self-hatred and worthlessness are, if anything, more entrenched than ever. The pain and frustration, the lies and deceit, the sheer bloody hopelessness of it all, just won't go away. Any logical person would no doubt say it's because what I want is simply not obtainable.
While I was typing the last paragraph, Planet Rock played a song I really like, All Fired Up by Pat Benatar. It's a very optimistic song, and I usually particularly like the lines 'I believe there comes a time/ Where everything just falls in line'. Just at the moment, though, hearing that song seems like some kind of cruel joke.
I know I've said this before, but I really don't know at the moment whether I'll carry on with the blogs, or even whether I should. The balance of probability is that I will, because of my 'hoarder' personality. If I do, it will probably be another victory for vain hopes over common sense. If I don't, thank you all for reading.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The pointlessness of the hamster wheel

Round and round and round. Net progress = nil. Nothing changes, I'm still a desperately frustrated, closeted boylover who hasn't got a hope in hell of ever being anything else. I'm still hiding, still lying to all and sundry, still hopelessly pretending to be something I'm not and never can be. And that's before I even get started on my work/life situation, my health, my finances. Pointless doesn't even begin to describe it all.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Chewed up

Maybe Just Hit 'Send' wasn't such a good idea after all - I've just been crying like a baby over a fictional character. I actually got to the stage of banning myself from reading stories on 'It's Only Me....' about 18 months ago, because so many of them seemed to reduce me to quivering wreckage. The ban didn't last long, though....
I spend so much of my life holding things inside, gritting my teeth and pretending everything is fine, that when the defences are breached from within, floods can ensue. Of tears, sometimes.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Quite a contrast

On my 17th wedding anniversary, I was at home cooking a nice meal for my family. A year on, and I'm stuck on my own in Surrey, wishing my wife the compliments of the day over the phone and eating ready meals because my accommodation only has a microwave by way of cooking facilities. I know which option I prefer. At least I won a few brownie points by sending my wife a nice e-card - she'd never had one before, being a bit on the computer-phobic side.
That apart, it's been a bit of a bland day again, although I did take the 15-20 minute stroll into the centre of the town where I'm staying to do a bit of grocery shopping, so there was a little bit of exercise and fresh air to leaven the mix on my day off.
I've begun re-reading Just Hit 'Send' - I'd almost forgotten how good a story it is, especially considering the youth of its writer at the time he wrote it. If anyone isn't familiar with it, I'd recommend it highly. (It's here - http://iomfats.org/storyshelf/hosted/grasshopper/)

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Nothing much to say

Nothing worthwhile, anyway. I suppose it's a function of my life being so work oriented at the moment - I'm just getting up, pottering about, going to work, coming back, internetting, going to bed, repeat tomorrow, and so on (although, having said that, I'm off tomorrow, but I suspect it will end up being a chill-out day). It isn't exactly the backdrop to sparkling, engaging blog posts. Even the little events that punctuate the days all seem to fall into a very limited range of categories - for instance, when I changed trains en route to work at lunchtime, there were a couple of absolute cuties on the station, but what difference does it make? They were too young, anyway, and I'll never see either of them again in any foreseeable circumstances, even if they hadn't been. Apart from the odd exception to prove the rule, like my visiting day on Wednesday, my life at the moment feels like an old clockwork toy, winding down to a halt - no traumas, no excitement, just....nothing.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Life is like a seesaw

Or so it seems. The fluctuations between up and down seem to be more frequent than ever. I was a bit down this morning, as per my earlier post, but I soon got over that, really. Then, at work, I finally found myself unable to restrain myself from commenting on another example of the reactionary claptrap so seemingly beloved of some of my colleagues, although I did pick a subject where my views might not be quite so controversial as some others - physical punishment of children by their parents or other authority figures. 'It didn't do me any harm' was trotted out a couple of times, but I had to beg to differ - it obviously did do harm, in that some people have grown up as adults thinking it's acceptable to assault a child. I was smacked as a child, and the only result it had was to make me resentful towards my parents. One individual came out with what, in my opinion, was the worst attempted justification of all - 'You can't talk to children, they don't understand.' So you beat them instead? What will they understand from that? Arrant nonsense. Overall. I think I 'won' the argument, in that at least one or two of them seemed inclined to think about the issue rather than just continuing to parrot the kneejerk stuff, so I ended up by feeling a little bit pleased with myself.
Then I get back from work, to find DJ's blog has disappeared again. Not that he's got any duty to carry on with his blog just to keep me happy, but it wasn't the best news of the week, by any means. I hope all is well with him, even though, as I've said numerous times before, there's really nothing I can do to help either way. If only there was - I wouldn't hesitate.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The power of music

There are various theories about the evolution of music - I've even seen one that suggested that music came first to hominids, and spoken language evolved from it. What's undeniable is the effect that music can have on people's emotions. I've just gone through such an experience, although I guess it was the combination of music and words which caused the effect on this occasion.
Planet Rock have just played Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've) by The Buzzcocks. The title pretty much encapsulates my emotional life since I was about 15, and hearing the song has pitched me into an unexpectedly downbeat mood, thinking about various people in my life who I have fallen in love with, and definitely shouldn't have. What I need now is for the radio station to play something uplifting to counterbalance their earlier depressive effect.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Off on a visit

It's my day off today, but given that it falls between two late shifts, it hasn't been practicable to go home again, so I'm going to take the opportunity to head off and spend this afternoon and evening visiting the friend who was so generous with his hospitality in the latter part of last year, but who I haven't been able to visit for a few months. It will be nice to be able to catch up, all in all a congenial way to spend a day where I would otherwise have achieved little or nothing, in all probability.
It's a nice day for a trip, too, at least up to now, plenty of sunshine and blue skies. There aren't many situations, in my opinion, that aren't enhanced by a sunny day. All that's needed to now to really make the day is a bevy of cute boys to admire en route!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Not writing

I seem to be going through one of my periodic 'low tides' as far as my fiction writing goes. I feel that I want to write, but it just doesn't want to happen at the moment. The most notable casualty of my creative hiatus is Noctivagant, which, after having got off to a reasonable start, has rather run aground. I've still got some ideas about how to move the story on, but I can't say at the moment when, or even if, it will be resumed. That apart, I wrote one paragraph of what first struck me as a brilliant idea for a new story a few days ago, but got no further, so I've now resorted to leafing back through the notebook I kept before starting my blogs, where I had bits and pieces of another long short story or novella, according to taste, but re-reading what I've written on that front, it's even more fragmentary than I remembered. There's one very good scene, which would be close to the end of the story were it to be completed, but precious little else to back it up. There is an overall plot, though, so maybe it can be resuscitated in some shape or form, There may be temporary issues of motivation, but I still find it a bit disheartening that I haven't written anything remotely as good as Lucent, at least in my opinion, which was first posted nearly a year ago.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Seek and ye shall find

This could either be seen as a bit of serendipity, or a cautionary tale about how easy it is to spend money online, but I'm pretty pleased with a purchase I made this afternoon, during my break at work. I only had my laptop with me because I'd gone straight to work after travelling back up from home this morning, and it was far too much of a temptation not to use it while it was available. What made me look today particularly, I couldn't say, but I did a search for a book I've been after for a good couple of years, and which I've never seen offered for anything resembling an affordable price. Until today. Although I've still paid what many might find an unconscionable amount of money for a second-hand paperback - £40 - the fact that I should soon be the proud owner of a copy of Sandel by Angus Stewart, which I've never seen on sale for anything less than £90 before, easily outweighs the financial downside. I'm going to call it a late birthday present, because there wasn't anything I especially wanted last month that was anywhere near any feasible budget, and I did mention it to my wife when I spoke to her earlier on, so I'm not doing anything underhanded. She asked what book it was, and I told her the title, although whether she'd make any further enquiries about it I don't know. Probably not, but it might cause a few ripples if she found a plot synopsis.
I found a few almost forgotten backwaters in my memory yesterday, too. On the way home yesterday morning, again for no reason I can readily explain, I began musing about the first time I was really consciously aware of being attracted to boys, and who the 'first boy' actually was. I know I wrote a while ago about a cricketing acquaintance who, with the benefit of hindsight, was the first I couldn't stop looking at, when I was 12, but I didn't properly realise at the time why I was so fascinated by him. By the time I was 14, though, I was well aware that I was looking at boys in the way that my coevals were looking at girls, and it's those early 'window shopping' exercises I was thinking about yesterday. What amazed me was how many there were, when I really thought about it, all a year or two younger than me - Laddy, Jamie, Clucker, Michael, Timmy, Paul, and the one I think must be awarded the dubious accolade of being my first 'crush'. Sorry Tony!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A flying visit, and maybe another visit to come

Unlike the melodrama of five weeks ago, I managed to get through to the end of this week of nights unscathed - not that I was expecting anything untoward to happen, but I wasn't expecting the mayhem that landed on me last time, either.
Given that I'm more or less right in the middle of my three week stint at work with very few days off, and that I'm on late turn tomorrow, I decided to come home for the day, even though the travelling is pretty onerous, so I'm actually sitting in my front room typing this post.
My being here was unexpectedly opportune, too, because I'd only been indoors for about an hour when the phone rang (although I was in the shower at the time, and my wife fielded the call), a call which proved to be from my cousin and best friend. We do chat on the phone from time to time, although not excessively often, but we haven't actually met up for over two years. That might change soon, because he and his family could well be coming down to Cornwall for a long weekend in a fortnight's time, which just happens to coincide with my next weekend off. There are still a few loose ends to be tied up, but it would be really nice to see them. From my own perspective, it would be a chance to chat face to face with one of the very small group of people who knows about the boyloving side of me - in fact he knows more about it than anyone apart from myself, not least because he is actually a big part of the story. Being around family, as we would be, there's no guarantee that it would be discussed, but just having someone around who knows and accepts is a big deal for me.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

"Don't worry, dear...."

"....it isn't the end of the world!", as Harold Camping's significant other (if such exists) probably isn't saying to him as we speak. Not, I hope, that anyone with the slightest shred of rationality would have expected the world to end today in any case.
Isn't there some law against public nuisance that can be brought to bear to control these fundamentalist loons?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

AARRGGHH!!!!, or the love/hate syndrome

Love or hate computers, that is. I know this falls squarely in the 'very small earthquake' category, but I was thoroughly frustrated, all the same - I've spent bits of the last three days playing a single game of 'Runic Drops' on Freearcade (it's one of those games you can pause and resume, and I'd hibernated the laptop a couple of times to keep the game alive), amassing what would have been the highest ever score by a margin of about 40% over the previous best. You'll guess what's coming next - the bloody computer crashed after I attempted to resume it from its overnight hibernation! So I'm still only second on the all-time 'Runic Drops' list. Bleeding marvellous, as my late uncle would've said in his inimitably curmudgeonly way!
On the credit side, it looks like the missing comments from last week's Blogger meltdown have finally reappeared. It's a good job Blogger aren't a safety-critical outfit, or we'd all be long since dead.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Lonely hearts

Coming back from work an hour or so ago, I was musing about 'lonely hearts' ads. Here's an example:

'Kind, gentle, caring man seeks **** for loving relationship'

If I insert 'lady' for '****', I might be seen as a good catch (assuming I could back up my claims, of course). If I insert 'boy', I probably get arrested. C'est la vie.

Love & best wishes to all

Sammy B

Mixed up day

I've achieved even less than I would normally expect to between two night shifts during the course of today. I went to bed soon after getting in from work this morning, as is my usual pattern on nights, but got woken up after only a couple of hours and then couldn't get back to sleep. After spending a couple more hours doing nothing of any consequence - mostly playing a computer game - I started feeling tired again, and went back to bed in early afternoon and managed another three hours or so of sleep. The upshot of it all is that I'm feeling even more dazed and confused than I normally do on nights, so I was even less inclined than usual to field a call from my wife which was all about money yet again. Much as would like to be able to, I can't magic cash out of thin air, and while we didn't actually argue, the atmosphere wasn't exactly cordial. I'm not burying my head in the sand, but I just don't want our finances to be the only topic of conversation, all the time.
The familiar comings and goings of Blogland continue - I've found a couple of interesting newish blogs to follow, Felix's Dreamscapes and Soraya's The Journey, while, on the debit side, Joe has decided to delete his blog - I wish you well, Joe, should you chance to read this.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Bad

I've just had a big teary-eyed moment, courtesy of Planet Rock. Each weekday at 3:00, they play three songs by the same band, today's band being U2. I've been a fan of U2 virtually since they first appeared in the UK, in around 1979/1980, first coming across them playing I Will Follow (one of the three songs just played on the radio) on a children's TV programme, of all places - don't ask me how I came to be watching the programme, given that I was around 20 at the time, I really can't remember!
Much as I love I Will Follow, one of the all-time best Track One, Side One songs, in my opinion (from the album with absolutely the best cover artwork, ever, ever - Boy - the most beautiful portrait photograph in the history of the world!), it wasn't that song that set off my lachrymose few minutes - it was my favourite song ever, Bad. I can listen to the song without getting too emotional, but what made the difference today was the mention that was made of the performance of the song at Live Aid in 1985. I remember so clearly watching that performance on TV - one of those 'Where were you when...?' moments of my life. I was at work, doing a 12 hour day shift (some things never change!) - I can't say exactly where, because it would give away what I still do for a living, but suffice it to say that it was an extremely unlikely place for me to have been watching Live Aid, not least because watching TV on duty was an absolutely cardinal sin - I'd taken my very small black and white portable in with me that day - and also because where I was working that day was vastly busier than it would normally have been on a Saturday afternoon, and, unusually for that particular location, I wasn't on my own, there being three others there with me. I came so close to absolutely losing it that day as well, as U2 (again, IMHO!) produced by far the best performance of any of the bands in the whole event, Bad being the ultimate highlight of one of the highest profile musical events ever, for me, anyway.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

I'm sick to the back teeth....

....of arguing about money. I've just had another teeth-grindingly frustrating conversation with my wife about how she doesn't want this, that and the other to happen, but equally doesn't seem to want to come out of her comfort zone to do anything about it. Meanwhile, I'm the mug away from home for weeks at a time, working myself into the ground. I probably sound immature and selfish, and maybe I am, but I don't see why it should all be on my shoulders all the time.
No comments necessary, I'm just getting it off my chest before I start throwing things at the wall.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Dad

It's one of my work colleagues' birthday today, as we found out in the early hours of this morning, which has got me thinking about my dad, because he would have been 85 today, had he still been alive. Sadly, he didn't even make it to 60 - he died in March 1986, at only 59, just a few months after taking early retirement, after 45 years of being a coal miner. Scant reward for such a life.
I hope what I'm going to say isn't going to sound too mawkish, or too tinted by rose-coloured glasses, but he was the nicest man I've ever met. Calm, patient, loving, good company, hard-working, a good husband and father. Far, far nicer than me, that's a certainty. For years after he died, I missed him all the time, even though I'd already left home and didn't actually see him all that often, and, even though time does heal to a point, I still miss him now. I do try, as far as I can, to follow his example as a father, if nothing else. Whether I succeed is really for my daughter to say, probably after I'm dead and gone myself. I hope she'll be able to say that I did something she found beneficial, and that, if she chooses to have children of her own, she can pass on the benefit to the next generation. That, at least, would be some kind of legacy, for me, and for my dad.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Excoriation

My 'missing' post from the Blogger outage last week has reappeared, finally, in my list of posts, as a draft. So here it is again, with slight apologies given its ranting nature.


SB


****
This is my second attempt at this post, and may not be much of an improvement on the original, and it's (yet another) rant. But here goes, anyway.
As some of my posts in recent days have clearly illustrated, I can get pretty upset about the deluge of hate that comes the way of boylovers, even those who have no intention of acting out their desires and potentially hurting anyone. It's not a pleasant experience in any way at all, but, to an extent, it's predictable - find a nice, easy target that no-one is going to sympathise with, at least publicly, and kick them hard and often, thereby earning Brownie points for the political party, church, or whatever other organ of social control the 'hater' is affiliated with. What really pisses me off, though, is when those kicks come from others in the LGBT 'community', if that's not an oxymoron in this context. Perhaps I'm more sensitive at the moment than I might otherwise be, but when I see a comment on the blog of a young gay teenager, written by someone else who self-identifies as gay, saying 'be careful of evil pedo homo fags', apropos of, as far as I could see, nothing at all apart from the commenter's own pet hates, I'm afraid it gets right up my nose. This is a rather extreme example of the genre, but it isn't exactly rare - it seems that some gay people are quite happy to pillory others of a not too dissimilar persuasion, presumably to deflect any unwelcome scrutiny in their own direction. Pass the shit on down the foodchain, until it lands squarely on the heads of the 'lowest of the low'. Well, I hope it makes you feel better about yourselves. Because it certainly doesn't make you better people.



Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Boys school train

Even the fact that I was pretty shattered didn't detract from the 'entertainment' on my way back to the accommodation after work this morning. The train I caught was pretty quiet until about four stops before I due to get off, but from then until I got to my station, it collected a bevy of boys, all seemingly on their way to some posh school or other, presumably in the largish town where the train eventually terminated. Of those who accumulated in the carriage I was in, there were two or three very cute 'sights for tired eyes' (literally and figuratively!) - my only problems were where to look, and how not to get caught doing so! The downside is that, in all probability, I won't be able to catch this particular train that often after nights - I'm far more likely to be on the next one, fifteen minutes later and with a different destination. Still, it's something to look forward to on those days, like today, when I can get away a few minutes earlier.

Love & best wishes to all

Sammy B

All work and no play....

....makes Sammy a very tired boy! Early shift yesterday then doubled back onto nights last night, and now I've volunteered for four hours overtime this evening, as we still appear to be short-staffed, so I'll be heading to work at teatime, or thereabouts. Where does sleep come in this equation? Soon, hopefully!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Too much hate in the world

Not that my agonising over the subject is likely to make the slightest difference, but it rarely ceases to amaze, and never ceases to dishearten me that there's so much self-righteous hatred in the world. Once again, it was the opinions of some of my work colleagues which started the train of thought, the latest pontifications being about people who, for one reason or another, have had to have their identity and/or whereabouts protected - the boys (as they were at the time) who killed James Bolger being an example quoted, a case which opens a whole different can of worms about the age and degree of criminal responsibility, but that's not what this post is about. What I found so hateful was that people were advocating removing any such protection from those who may well have served their sentence, but who are populist hate figures - basically, the attitude was that they should be killed by any vigilante who can lay their hands on them. Call me a woolly liberal if you like, but I was under the impression that having a formal system of law and justice was supposed, amongst other things, to prevent any self-appointed nutcase from dispensing their own retribution. Or maybe these people think the world of vendetta and blood feud is preferable? Of course people who transgress accepted boundaries need to be controlled, and, if necessary, punished, but to declare 'open season' on those who fall foul of 'the norm' is surely not the way to deal with the problem.
I know I've said this before, but I really fear for the long term future of humanity unless we can rein in the propensity to hate anyone perceived as 'others' - we're all members of the same species, why is that such a difficult concept for some people to grasp?
At least there was a sweeter taste to savour after I'd left work - another awesome cutie in the same supermarket where I saw the '12 at 12 at 12' boy a while back. Just eye candy, as ever, but he cheered me up more than a little.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Back on the air?

I'm sure most people are aware of the problems with Blogger over the past day or so - hopefully it's back on the air definitively now. I appear to have had a couple of posts, one in each blog, and a few comments, disappear into the ether, although Blogger are still saying missing posts are being restored, but I'd like to apologise on my own behalf to those whose comments have vanished. Circumstances beyond my control, as the saying goes, but I'm really sorry, anyway.
Cyberspace issues apart, it's been a pretty quiet day - I was back to work properly this morning, for a shift that was busy-ish, but manageable. Only another 18, or thereabouts, to go, and I'll be able to go home again. (*groans*) Still, as I've said before, no point in wishing my life away - I'll try to make the best of the situation, even if it is only by way of extensive voyaging around the Blogsphere ocean.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A very short working day, and a scare

My first day back at work today was due to be a briefing and assessment day, which, coincidentally, takes place in one of my employers' offices within walking distance of my 'home away from home', so I wandered down there in good time for what was due to be a 10:00 start. Fifteen minutes later, I was wandering back again, because it transpired that I'd already done this briefing - they're on a quarterly cycle, and it turned out this week is the last of the old cycle, rather than, as I'd expected, the first of the new one. I rang into my normal workplace to see if they wanted me to do anything else, but that was nearly three hours ago, and my phone hasn't rung in the interim, so it looks like I've got myself a buckshee day off. Had I but known, I could've stayed at home for an extra day.
So, back to the accommodation, and, just for a change, into cyberspace. Except that I couldn't log into my Blogger account, despite having been able to earlier this morning. Needless to say, my first thought was that my account had been nuked, especially when I managed to view various other blogs via a Google search, proving it wasn't Blogger as a whole that had fallen over, but couldn't view my own.  After an hour or so, though, I finally managed to get back in, much to my relief. Presumably a technical hitch of some kind. The blogs were backed up a couple of days ago, so I wouldn't have lost that much if the worst had happened, but it was a scare I could've done without.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Up country, once again

I'm back in Surrey this evening, very reluctantly, I have to say, at the start of what could be up to three weeks away from home. I might manage to sneak home for a day in that time, but that will be all.
Thank you to everyone who commented on my posts of yesterday, knowing I'm not alone when I have my bad moments is very reassuring. It actually got worse almost immediately after I'd written the second post last night, because my wife came into the living room no more than a couple of minutes later, realised I was upset about something, and then got wound up herself when I wouldn't talk to her about it. Would that I could, as I've said on numerous previous occasions, but I really don't think it would be a good idea.
The first part of today was better, certainly for my daughter. She had the braces on her teeth removed this morning, after having had to wear them for the past couple of years. Her teeth are looking pretty good now, but I don't think there was all that much wrong with them to start with - I was dead set against her having the work done, the words 'over my dead body' passing my lips at one point, during a heated discussion with my wife on the subject. I still think it was nothing more than cosmetic surgery inflicted on a child unnecessarily - in fact, my wife and daughter's dentist more or less agreed with me when I raised it with him when I took my daughter for a regular dental check-up just before the process began - but I eventually gave in to what were essentially my wife's wishes rather than my daughter's, to defuse what was becoming a very serious rift between us at the time. Ironic, really, given that any outbreak of revelation last night would very probably have had the affect on our marriage that I compromised to avoid.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Am I evil, really?

Just for wanting? Just for being me, the me that's been there for almost as long as I can remember. How can I change what I feel inside? I didn't choose this way, it chose me. Or is me, whatever. It hurts, every single day. Is that enough to satisfy those who would hate me? Or do they think I should suffer something more? If so, what?
'Life. Don't talk to me about life.'

(Sorry it's part of such a bleak post, but....) Thank you to Joe for being my latest follower.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Different, but still the same

I came across an article on a psychology website yesterday, probably the first 'academic' piece I've seen which made a distinction between hebephilia and paedophilia, including a different pattern of neurological responses between the two groups. Sadly, the overall tone was still that I and those like me are evil perverts who just want to have sex with 'children', and who cause untold damage. Thanks a lot.
What the article, written from an American perspective, failed to discuss, amongst other things, was the variation in 'age of consent' laws between different countries, and thus what, in legal terms, actually constitutes a 'child'. In Spain, for example, my 'perversion' would be legal, for the most part, whereas in Malta, I could be prosecuted for sexual contact with someone I could legally marry in the UK. Does that mean that Malta is a more 'moral' country than the UK, and the UK more moral than Spain? Why, in the UK, is the age of criminal responsibility 10, but the age of consent 16? Not that I'm suggesting that the age of consent should be 10, but why the huge disparity?
It's all pretty much futile, trying to defend what most people would see as indefensible. Nothing will change in my lifetime, except, probably, for the worse. I can see myself in a concentration camp, if not a jail, yet.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Cricket

A lot of people in countries outside the Commonwealth, if they know anything about cricket at all, probably think it's a strange, genteel, thoroughly eccentric English game, exported by the Victorian empire builders, where players in white clothing spend several days in relative inactivity before shaking hands and declaring the match a draw. It does have it's livelier side, though, and I'd like to give a couple of examples, one old, one very new. I had a phone call from my brother this morning, to tell me he's off work at the moment, having had his arm broken playing cricket last weekend - he was hit by a lifting delivery (sorry for the arcane cricketing jargon) while batting, and has one, and possibly two broken bones in his forearm. My sister-in-law is somewhat less than sympathetic, because he owns an armguard, which he wasn't wearing at the time.
I know what it's like to have a coming together with a cricket ball, too, hence the reminiscent part of the post. I'd played cricket from almost as far back as I can remember, in the back garden at home or in the park, but it had always been with a tennis ball. The first time I ever played in a game with a proper cricket ball, in my first summer term games lesson when I was 12, I was smacked in the head while keeping wicket - it was a thoroughly inept piece of cricket all round, the bowler delivered a head-high beamer (a ball that doesn't bounce), which the batsman tried to swat away, but only succeeded in top-edging, I tried to catch it, but left just enough room between the wicket-keeping gloves I'd so coveted for the ball to go straight between and hit me flush on the forehead. I've still got a discernible lump where the ball hit me, nearly 40 years later! The crowning irony was that I'd volunteered to learn to be a cricket scorer for the various school teams - I wasn't, obviously, a very good player, but was desperate to be involved in some way, so I became a team 'official' instead, something I carried on with right through my school career, eventually spending 3 years as the 1st XI scorer (and playing the odd game, when we were short-handed) - and turned up in the classroom where the volunteers (all two of us!) were due to meet with a huge lump, including the imprint of the seam of the ball, above my left eye!
I don't do it so much these days, due to time pressures, but I can still, on occasions, spend hours watching cricket, mostly on TV, without any guilt at all - impenetrable it might be to some, but it's part of the English psyche, even in these cosmopolitan days.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Masochism - the definitive proof

This post probably isn't going to mean much to most people who might read it, but still....
I must be a masochist. No doubt. Nothing to do with beautiful boys like this morning's. Nothing to do with marital ups and downs. Nothing to do with being away from home for weeks at a time to try and keep the financial ship afloat. I'm a Saints fan (and no, I don't mean Southampton, or even Northampton, for UK readers, or New Orleans, for those in the US). Q.E.D., especially after watching today's game.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Too early, much too early....

....for any hebephile to be confronted with what I was at 8:10 this morning, going into the supermarket for an early shopping trip. A quite unutterably lovely boy, 12/13-ish, blond, gorgeous face, fluid movements, everything in wonderful proportion, all I could possibly ask for if some Aladdin-style genie had asked me to design my ideal of boyhood perfection. If I wasn't already in love with DBJ, I'd have fallen in love right there and then. And I hadn't even taken my heart meds! Far too much to cope with!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

It's about the oldest cliché in the book, but....

....there are times when I'm convinced that my wife doesn't understand me, at all. I suppose that the fact that there are fundamental things about me that she doesn't know can't help the situation, but there are things that I know she knows, because I've told her more than once, that she just doesn't seem to grasp the significance of. After the gradually deteriorating standard of my efforts at practical matters yesterday, I hit a very low point this afternoon, when, having taken the black ink cartridge out of our computer printer to check its details preparatory to buying a replacement, I couldn't work out how to put it back in again. I got thoroughly frustrated and annoyed with myself, and expressed my frustration in rather severely self-deprecatory fashion. It could be said that it was all a bit childish, but the one aspect of my life which I have pride in consistently is my intelligence, and I really find it hard to come to terms with when I feel I've done something that makes me look stupid. My wife is, or certainly should be, well aware of this, so her lack of empathy when I was getting wound up made matters even worse, with her accusing me, not for the first time, of 'having a go at her' when I pointed out that she wasn't getting the reason for my irritation with myself being the icing on the proverbial cake.
I'm only telling the tale from my perspective, of course, and my wife would probably tell it differently, if she had a comparable forum, and things, as usual when we have our differences of opinion, settled down fairly readily. A storm in a teacup, perhaps, but indicative of the stresses and strains that always seem to be just beneath the surface in our relationship.

Thank very much you to Larry for becoming my latest follower.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

For a cold fish....

....I get far too emotional sometimes. There have been at least three instances of it so far this weekend - on Friday, I probably said, and possibly assumed, far too much in response to an e-mail I received, and I've got a feeling I might well have alienated the person who sent it, although I hope not, then yesterday I repeated a mistake I've made before in leaving a comment on a certain blog, which, while it came from the heart, was bordering on stalker-ish and inappropriate, or certainly could have been taken that way, then this morning, got myself all upset again by reading a story with love, rather than just sex, as its theme - it's always the love stories that get under my skin, and feed my desperation, the common or garden 'masturbation fantasies' I can cope with. I've calmed down again now, but I could do with calming down in a more general way, I think, because I'm achieving nothing except upsetting myself and possibly others, the latter being something I particularly want to avoid.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Mr Fixit (almost), and eyes

I received an e-mail this morning from someone who had wanted to leave a comment on the blog, but hadn't been able to. I checked and adjusted the settings on both blogs, and anyone who would like to comment shouldn't now have any further problems. Whether that inspired me in some convoluted way, I'm not sure, but I went on to attempt a couple of DIY jobs around the house. That was probably rash, at best, because my technical skills are limited to the point of near non-existence, but the next part of the story went surprisingly well, as I managed to fit a new cat flap to the back door, without, as my wife rather archly commented, any bad language at all. It all rather fell down with the final item, though, as I struggled to sort out what should, for me, have been the easier job, given that what few practical skills I do have lie in simple electrical matters, as I changed the starter on the fluorescent tube in the kitchen - I somehow contrived to damage the connectors on the tube itself, and to crack the plastic cover for the light, before finally getting it all up and running with a spare tube we were lucky enough to have to hand, but not before the aforementioned bad language had made its appearance!
Because I was away and working on my birthday last week, my wife, daughter and I went out for a meal this evening. Unremarkable in itself, except that I saw the most beautiful pair of eyes I've seen for many a long day - stunning, stunning sapphire blue, just sensational. The fact that they belonged to a boy of about 5 or 6 will probably give some people the wrong impression, but I can't help that - it makes no difference if he had been 5 or 55, he still had gorgeous eyes. My daughter was getting 'the eye' as well, apparently, from a teenage boy sitting near us while we were waiting for a table - I had my back to the 'action', but my wife spotted it - all I can say is he's a young man of good taste, because my daughter is showing signs of growing up into an attractive young woman, and I say that without too much in the way of paternal bias, even if I do love her to bits!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

No matter how long you're away....

....some things at home never change. Cornish weather for one. I haven't seen a drop of rain for the past fortnight, but that's all changed today - it hasn't been all that wet, and the middle part of the day was quite pleasant, but it has rained, and I'm now looking out of the front room window to see dark clouds coming from more or less due south, straight off the sea, so I wouldn't be surprised there's some more wet stuff to come. When my daughter was due to go to Finland a few weeks ago, and she was looking for a small present to take for the family she was staying with, we came across a fridge magnet with two identical cartoon pictures of a sheep standing in the rain, one captioned 'Cornwall in winter' and the other 'Cornwall in summer'! That about sums it up!
There seem to be more cuties per head of population down here as well - I saw quite a few this afternoon when we were out shopping, including one very eye-catching blond who was heading into the supermarket as we left, then another very nice looking boy who peeled off from a group of lads and walked along our street just as we arrived back at home - I don't remember seeing him before, but, presumably, he's local. Not that it makes much difference to my life either way, but I won't go down that path, because I'll only upset myself again.
Old age must be catching up with me more quickly than I thought - I was sitting in the lounge this afternoon, watching an AFL match I'd recorded earlier, and generally minding my own business, then the next thing I remember was waking up, thoroughly dazed, forty minutes of my life having disappeared into a total comatose blank. Relaxation is one thing, randomly falling asleep is quite another!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Homeward bound

Through the wonders of the mobile internet, I'm blogging on the train on the way home - as I'm typing this, the train is just approaching Westbury. I didn't think until yesterday I'd be able to catch this train - I was expecting to be on the overnight service - but I finished early enough to make a mad dash to Paddington to catch this train instead. The upshot of it is that I'll get home about 6 hours earlier than expected, so that certainly qualifies as the good news of the day.
Hopefully, the long weekend will give me some time to chill out, but I suspect that, having been away for a fortnight, there will be plenty of odds and sods that need doing as well - I'll have to try and find a congenial balance between slobbing around and being the attentive husband and father that will be expected of me. At least I'll be at home, whatever the next few days bring.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

OK, I'll STFU and keep my opinions to myself

And my 'perversions' under wraps. I'm sure it's all distasteful, if it evokes any reaction at all, to those out there who think they're much, much better than me with my pathetic, unnatural lusts. I'm sure the righteous will get their rewards in heaven, while I'll be damned to torment for eternity, except, of course, I don't believe in any of that stuff, anyway. Any torment that could be devised in some imaginary hell would only be a continuation of the here and now, in any case, just longer lasting. If there was any way I could make the boyloving part of me go away, I would, but, 40 years on, more or less, I somehow doubt that's going to happen.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Counting down, and double standards

By this time tomorrow, if all goes according to plan, I'll be less than an hour from home, on the verge of bringing to an end my longest separation from my family ever. It's just a foretaste of things to come, though, because it looks as though my next sojourn in the Home Counties is going to be for three weeks, eclipsing the two week stint that's just about to come to an end. Still, I've got my six days off in between to look forward to, so I'd best not spoil the better times by fretting about the next uncongenial bit.
My work colleagues managed to spoil my mood again this evening, this time in a more despairing, heartsick way than the anger I felt last week. There has been plenty of talk, unsurprisingly, of the demise of Bin Laden over the past couple of days, and that led on this occasion to discussion of various videos people claim to have watched online depicting people dying in various violent circumstances, with a seeming acceptance from everyone there, except me, that watching such things is completely unobjectionable. My thought, which, needless to say, I had to keep to myself, was that if it's perfectly acceptable to see people dying horribly, why would I be thrown in jail for years if I was caught watching a video of a boy having an orgasm (not that I have, I hasten to add - for all the internet is supposed to be awash with child pornography, I've never seen any, nor would I seek any out). It seems that some forms of dehumanisation are more equal than others.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Introducing the 'real' me....but not yet

I spent quite a while earlier today trying to concoct a way that I could step out, at least partly, from behind my pseudonym, while still ensuring my family wouldn't be detrimentally affected. And I failed. There are already quite a lot of clues in my blog to identify me, especially if it chanced to be read by someone who knows me IRL, so to make it any more obvious would, at the moment, be too dangerous, potentially. It is something I'd like to do eventually, though - 'Sammy' is me, of course, not a fiction of any kind, but, as I've said almost from the start of the blog, I'd much prefer to be able to dispense with the mask and just be myself. All the while the current hysterical hatred of those like me who are attracted to boys persists, though, it's always going to be a seriously risky business to put your undisguised head above the parapet. Will things ever change? I'm not hopeful.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

False. Self. Easy.

I was playing a word game on the computer earlier this morning, making words up from a longer word (Text Twist, if anyone knows it). When the time ran out on one of the rounds, there were three words left that I hadn't found - the three in the title of this post. Seeing them there, highlighted, made me laugh wryly, almost bitterly. Because, from my experience, there's little that's less easy than portraying a false self to the world. It's not just the grinding negativity of it all, the not being able to speak out when you want to, the not being able to be honest with the world, and, particularly, with those close to you, the sheer not being able to be yourself of it all, there's also the absent positive to contend with, an absence which has been becoming increasingly difficult for me to deal with over the past couple of years. I know there are people who would say that I should be satisfied with what I have, that I'm far better off than many, and that's true to an extent, but when you've spent so long in hiding, even from myself at times, there comes a point when it's almost unbearable.
There are a couple of bloggers of around my age who are in the throes of coming out at the moment, and I wish them every success and happiness - if only that was a viable option for me. If I was, to reuse a slightly discriminatory sounding phrase I've used before, 'conventionally gay', I'd almost certainly do it, but because my tastes lie elsewhere, way beyond the pale for most people, I haven't, up to now at least, reached a pitch where I could justify taking such a risk to myself. How much of a risk? Judging by the horrible, self-righteous gloating of some of my work colleagues a couple of days ago in connection with someone who worked where I now work several years ago, and who has recently received a long custodial sentence for sexual offences against his stepdaughter, too much of a risk. They were openly advocating his being raped by all and sundry in prison - I'm sorry, but I don't believe anyone, whoever they are and whatever they've done, deserves to be raped for any reason at all, even if they are a rapist themselves.
I've got to get ready for work now, but I might well revisit this subject later.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Incontrovertible proof....

....of man's inhumanity to man. Late turn on a Sunday, that is! I'm no fan of late turn at the best of times, but there's just something about late turn on a Sunday that makes it surpassingly dire, and the fact that today's was the first one I've worked since 2002 is no consolation at all! (I've worked plenty of Sundays in the interim, but they've always been twelve hour day or night shifts.) Oh well, I'll just have to get used to it, because we get five in each thirty week roster cycle, and, for all my complaining, they pay too well to think of giving them up.
The journey to work, including the brief shopping trip I made when I got off the train, was by far the highlight of my day. I've bemoaned the lack of cute boys in the area where I work a few times since I moved to this job, but it was a definite case of famine to feast this lunchtime - they seemed to be out in droves. Most of them were much too young, but still more than pleasant to look at - one in particular, in the supermarket where I picked up the few groceries I needed, was an absolute delight. I could quite happily have cried off work and just sat in the town centre, watching the cuties, but duty called, and all that!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B