He's growing up, fast

The boy who lives in the house behind ours, that is, the one with the controversial bedroom window. I caught a glimpse of him an hour or so ago, for the first time for a while, and he's becoming embarrassingly lovely. He's around 13 now, 'perfect-ville' for me. I've always had serious qualms about gorgeous boys on my doorstep, for obvious reasons - I can resist everything except temptation, as Wilde wrote! Break out the straitjacket, save me from myself. And all that.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

I tell you the truth, but you don't believe me

As The Jesus & Mary Chain memorably wrote. The 'you' in this case isn't a specific person, but society, or a large majority of it, in general. The 'right-thinkers' who know that anyone who purports to love boys is just a rapist waiting for an opportunity. Simply interested in their own perverted gratification. Everything else is just window dressing, 'grooming'.
Except that when you're on the inside, looking out, you know, really know, that it's not true. I'm not saying I wouldn't ever have a sexual relationship with a boy, but I'd have to be utterly convinced that it was what the boy himself wanted. If I wasn't sure of that, I'd never do it.
I know this is all old stuff, things that I've said before, and anyone who didn't believe me in the past doubtless won't believe me now. It's true, though. Yes, I'm a boylover. But I'm not a liar.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

All alone

Not physically, but certainly emotionally. I eventually managed a couple of hours of fitful sleep, although I ended up dreaming, or was that having a nightmare, about financial issues, which probably isn't that much of a surprise given our near-terminal circumstances. And I looked at that GIF again, and had my breath taken away again. I wish I could have dreamt about that, instead.
But, apart from whispering into the void here, I can't talk about any of it, certainly not about the boy stuff, anyway. Alone in an ocean of people.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sleeplessness

I can't sleep, partly because it's warm, partly because I dozed off for a while earlier in front of the TV, and partly because of the stuff churning in my head.
There are two strands doing the churning, neither new. Money and boys. We're getting ever closer to the brink financially, despite my weeks and months of exile. I doubt it's going to be long before it all falls apart, and everything we've worked for is gone. And after what I saw that so shook me earlier, my desperation to find a boy has been ratcheted up even further. I want it so much, but know I can't, in any realistic way, achieve that ambition, at least without hurting someone.
Something's going to break. The only question is whether it's going to be physical or mental.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Oh, F@*!

I'm sitting here, literally open-mouthed. I've just seen something so mind-manglingly erotic I can hardly breathe. A GIF. And it was from a proper, mainstream film, not some porno flick. Just the head and shoulders of a boy, acting. I don't know what else to say.

Except I want to see the real thing.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Why it's so difficult

One of the reasons, anyway. On the way back from shopping earlier, we drove past one of the local schools, having taken a diversion to avoid some roadworks and the associated queue. Some boys were going back onto the school site, evidently coming back from elsewhere having been involved in some sport or other, probably football, judging by how they were dressed. One of them was, to me at least, so lovely, everything was just perfect, face, hair, body. I couldn't help a second look, and even a third, despite my wife sitting in the passenger seat of the car, next to me. I wasn't being deliberately reckless, just doing what a 'normal' man would do in the face of an attractive female. Except that my gaze was drawn towards an 11 year old boy. And he, and his like, are all around. Short of becoming some kind of hermit, temptation, even if it's only temptation to look, is always there. And with the temptation, the potential for exposure.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sad stories

Not what the world wants to read, evidently. Even if they're true, maybe especially if they're true. Well, I apologise to the world for being such a downbeat mess, but that's me, I'm afraid, that's where I've arrived in my life. It's no-one's fault but mine, and I'm not suggesting otherwise, where I am is the consequence of decisions I've made, lack of courage, particularly the courage to be myself. But, by way of an excuse, perhaps, it would take some pretty desperate courage, or recklessness, to come out as a boylover in the current climate. So, it's greetings from the darkness, again.
More disappointment, too, over the past day or two, as I sent a hopeful e-mail to someone I miss seeing around in Blogland, but I suspect the e-mail address I've got is out of date, so the message hasn't got through. Like my ridiculous trip to try and find DBJ a few weeks ago, though, it's all pretty pointless, I'm not going to find a way out of my trough by tilting at unobtainable windmills. The trouble is, happiness seems to be one of those unattainable things, at the moment.
My wife came into the room while I was writing this, so I had to tab to a 'safe' screen for a while. She noticed that I wasn't exactly overflowing with joy, and asked what the problem was. Thoughtful of her, of course, but impossible for me to reply in anything other than platitudes. I really don't know how much longer I can sustain this situation, skating around the edge of the truth, because going to the heart of it will destroy everything. Why does it have to be like this? Is this my punishment for wanting? Suffer, paedo, suffer. The haters would love it, no doubt. Because 'wanting a boy to love' is the most disgusting thing in the world, of course.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Once upon a time....

....there was a boy. Not like the other boys, not that there were many of his own age around, and those who were couldn't understand our boy, he was too 'clever', and couldn't climb trees or play football very well, couldn't swim, couldn't ride a bike. No fun. And he was fat, too. Easy to 'tease', easy to leave out, to leave behind. And so our boy turned inwards, learned to enjoy his own company, read lots of books, became even more 'clever', even stranger to his peers. What he had, no-one wanted. What he wanted, he was soon to find, wasn't to be had.
Because, as the boy's body began the journey that would take him towards being a man, he found he was different in another way. A way that pushed him even further away from those around him, that pushed him into what seemed like a convenient hiding place, but that became an inescapable prison, an oubliette without light or hope. Because our boy found that he wasn't entranced, like his coevals, by the girls that seemed to be all around, but that his fascination was for the boys who he went to school with, played cricket with, tried to be friends with. He soon found, though, that his fascination was anathema to, as far as he could tell at 13, everyone. His mask only slipped once, when two of his classmates, as boys sometimes do, chose to display all that made them boys in an teacherless classroom, and our boy craned his neck to try, unsuccessfully, to see the show, and was caught by others trying to see, was subjected to merciless derision. But the lesson was learned, there and then. Don't ever, ever, let anyone know who you are, what you want. You're filth in their eyes, never, never let them see. The dungeon's door was locked in that classroom, the key thrown away - from within, by the boy himself.
And so the boy became a man, still hiding, pretending, lying. Never letting them see. And all the while, trapped within, the lost and lonely boy, who just wanted another boy to love.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Indian summer?

The weather forecasters have been promising, if that's not a contradiction in terms when it comes to meteorology, that we're going to be blessed with some unseasonably warm and sunny days this week, but, if the evidence of this morning was anything to go by, it was looking more like November (although it wasn't cold, to be fair). Things seem to have picked up this afternoon, though, and the skies are still clear and starry now, so it's a case of keeping our fingers crossed for the coming days. It would be nice if our visitor gets to see our part of the world at its best, and sunshine certainly helps in that regard, as it does almost anywhere, of course.
The girls were out this evening, having a meal and an informal get together at the home of one of the other pupils at my daughter's school who's involved in the project, so my culinary talents, such as they are, weren't required on this occasion. My wife and I decided to take advantage of the fact by going out for lunch earlier on, which proved to be pleasant enough, if unremarkable, and fairly sociable, too, although I still got the feeling that it wouldn't take much to tip things the other way - I was grousing about the fact that the pub-restaurant where we ate have changed their ordering process, which seemed to me to be a violation of the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' principle, and was moaned at in return for 'spoiling things'. I was only expressing an opinion, and it certainly wasn't any criticism of my wife, so I was a bit disappointed at her reaction. It's all a bit like walking on eggshells, even if, on this occasion, none seem to have been broken.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The invisible houseguest

My daughter's exchange partner has hardly uprooted our lives so far - I've hardly seen her at all in the almost 24 hours she's been around. It was almost midnight before we got back here after picking her up last night, which, given the change in time zone for her meant a 'body clock' time of 2:00 AM, so she went almost straight to bed, then she was up early this morning to go into school with my daughter, and has spent the evening chilling out in her room before having an early night, presumably still catching up on the lost sleep from yesterday. What I have seen of her suggests that she's a pleasant enough person, and, typically for her country of origin, embarrassingly fluent in English - embarrassing in the sense that we Brits, and other English speakers, tend to be very lazy about other languages, because we expect everyone to be able to speak ours. I apologised to the girl last night, because although I know bits and pieces of a few languages - French, German, Spanish, even a little bit of Dutch -  I don't know any Finnish at all, not a single word, and made no effort to change that fact in the runup to her arrival.
Before her arrival, M was in touch with my daughter by e-mail, and one of the subjects they'd discussed was food she wanted to try while she's over here. One of her ambitions was to try traditional British fish and chips,  so that was our evening meal today. The irony, of course, is that our local 'chippy' is owned by people of Chinese extraction, but their merchandise is usually pretty acceptable, and, fortunately, this evening was no exception. She seemed to enjoy the 'delicacy', at least, although I think she was slightly nonplussed by the spectacle of me tipping curry sauce over mine - I suppose it is a bit of a culinary mixed metaphor, chips and curry, but I like it, and that's the only excuse I'm going to offer!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Wound up, almost to breaking point

Two hours or so until we meet my daughter's exchange partner at the coach station in 'town', and there's a distinct flavour of tension in the air. As I would have predicted, today has been a mess of trying to get things done at the last minute, but what I wouldn't have predicted was the degree of backbiting aimed in my direction - just about everything I've said today has been 'wrong', or so it seems. I lost my cool a bit this afternoon, after yet another dig, asking if I should disappear back to Surrey if I'm such a persona non grata. Given that I'm already having my doubts about whether I'm in the right place anymore, emotionally, at least, this kind of drip of what I perceive as criticism isn't helping, at all. Yes, I know it takes two to make an argument, and I'm not claiming to be an innocent victim, but it does make life much less congenial than it might be having to deal with the, to say the least, difficult atmosphere here at the moment.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A mystery of the universe, solved

My daughter and I have just worked out why seagulls are scavengers -  because they learn at their mother's knee that anything is better to eat than regurgitated fish!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Home, and assuredly not dry

Here I am, looking out at damp, black darkness, after a damp, grey day, with a damp cat in the crook of my elbow - and I still love it. There are places in the world that I'd choose to live in ahead of Cornwall, but not many, and none in the UK.
And we have cuties, too - when I was taking my daughter to her stage school this afternoon, I spotted a very sweet boy, and looked on admiringly. He saw me looking, and stuck his tongue out. My daughter (who, of course, knows about my 'other' side) commented about his reaction, but, as I said to her, I couldn't have cared less - I was only looking, so no harm, no foul, although I could think of a few places I wouldn't have minded putting my tongue in return. Appalling, in most people's eyes, I know, but that's me, I'm afraid.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Neutrality

OK, so things haven't been quite as fraught as I expected. Partly because, I think, I was so dispirited by what I found when I got home that I couldn't even be bothered to argue, but also because I do still love my wife, and I'd rather we had a congenial time during my time off than not. So, neutral is better, much better, than hostile. And, of course, there's always my daughter, who I love to bits, and for who I can go through almost anything.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Home, but not home and dry

Finally, I'm blogging from the comfort of my front room, the first time I've been able to say that since August 23. That's about the only good thing I can say, though. I'm not going to go into too many details, but I have a feeling things are going to become very difficult when my wife gets home from work in a couple of hours time. I speculated earlier in the week about how much might need to be done between now and Sunday evening, when my daughter's exchange partner arrives, but it seems that even my worst fears have been exceeded, substantially. I'm sure there will be plenty of excuses, but, ultimately, after some of the discussions - OK, arguments - we've had in the past, what I've found on my return is effectively me being told that what I want, what I think doesn't matter, at all. I really don't know where things are going to go from here, but I don't have a good feeling about the immediate future.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Don't do as I do, do as I say

Another judicial murder in the US overnight, of a man whose guilt was, to say the least, in a considerable degree of doubt. And this in a country portrayed by many of its inhabitants as the paragon of freedom, justice and civilisation, to the point of 'exporting' that civilisation, by force if necessary. If any flag-waving, tub-thumping American ever again criticises some 'backward' country for the iniquities of its justice system, it will be nothing other than blatant hypocrisy, as far as I'm concerned.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

29 down, one to go

Consecutive days at my place of work, that is. Technically, I've had two days off in the past month, but both of them have been Sundays after working a Saturday night shift, so I was in the building for more than 7 hours on both of those 'non-working' days. I think my employer has had their pound of flesh from me for the time being, or will have by this time tomorrow, at least. One of the shift managers will have departed, having taken early retirement, by the time I get back from my two weeks off - I'm thoroughly jealous, I have to say, especially as he's only a couple of years older than me. I'd happily retire yesterday, if I could afford to.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

£9.99 worth of calm

That's how much I've paid this evening at a mini-supermarket in 'domicile-ville' for a couple of bottles of beer and a nice bottle of Chilean Chardonnay, on special offer, no less. I'm now in a slightly floppy state, having drunk most of the contents of the sundry bottles. I've drunk far too much alcohol in my adult life, by any realistic criterion, but it's almost never been an emotional crutch - my excuse is that I drink because I enjoy it, which is a good enough reason, so far as I'm concerned - and I don't think this evening's imbibing has been markedly different, but I do feel more relaxed than I have for a while. How much of that is real, and how much alcohol-induced? Hard to say, in all honesty. I've often thought that it's only shift work that has saved me from being an alcoholic. Maybe I'm right, who knows?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

I've got to find a way....

....of pulling myself together. There's no doubt about it. But how? All of the stresses, problems and frustrations that have been weighing me down are still there - even the prospect of going home on Friday for the first time in a month isn't as tempting as it should be, because 'diplomatic relations' with my wife are not in a particularly good place at the moment, and I also know that I'll be faced with a mountain of things to do and no time to do them, with my daughter's Finnish exchange partner due to arrive on Sunday evening.
I've got to try and find a way out of the trough I'm in, because if I don't, I suspect there will come a point where despair really does kick in, and I'll end up doing something stupid and damaging, most likely to myself, but always with the possibility that some innocent bystander could be caught in the crossfire. The platitudinous might say 'Look on the bright side, be grateful for what you've got', which is a nice trick if you can find the 'bright side', but that is rather the point with me of late - the positive is stubbornly absent, even as a distant prospect. I know there are people worse off than I am, and they have my genuine sympathy, but, at the moment, and with apology, I'm going to be selfish, and try and find the chink of light that I desperately hope must be there in my situation.
I'm sorry, to my smattering of remaining readers, that everything has been so relentlessly negative here for such a long time. Thank you all for your patience with me.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Cuddles

That's what my life lacks that would have the greatest benefit for the smallest cost, I think. A cute boy to cuddle. But it's as far away as I can imagine.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Charade

My late shift at work yesterday was spent alongside, largely, colleagues whose company is more congenial than most. I'm still left feeling, though, that I did no more than play a game of 'hide and seek' with them, trying to present my 'hail fellow, well met' facade, while feeling nothing like that inside. One of the people I was working with is a genuinely nice guy, and probably the person, of all those I work with, I would make first choice to socialise with, but he's also the father of the two boys I wrote about a while ago, and I have no doubt that if he knew, or guessed, for a second, about my predilections, I'd go straight to the top of his 'hate parade'.
This encapsulates the problem I'm faced with for 99% of my life, at least in as far as it involves interactions with other people. With, literally, only one or two exceptions, I can never be my real self with anyone. Not the people I work with, not the people I socialise with, not family, not even the person I'm married to. My closet is a very deep, dark, and virtually inescapable place. And I hate it.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sad, old pervert

I've just read a post on a blog I've followed almost from the beginning of my time in Blogland, written by a gay teen here in the UK. It was his second anniversary post, an achievement in itself to stick around for so long, but it was also littered with remarks about 'peds' and 'sad, old perverts'. That must be me, then, especially after my remarks about the boy in the Chinese takeaway earlier. It's a shame that those who wish to be accepted despite their 'differences' are so heedlessly dismissive of others who don't fit the 'normal' template, even for gays. Some, evidently, are more equal than others.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Bookends, and Tlaloc unappeased

I followed my last early shift of the week with the planned jaunt this afternoon. Sadly, the meteorological deities weren't on my side, so the trip was aborted at an early stage, and I decamped to the pub(s) instead, drinking far more than was good for my health, or my wallet.
While West London was still in shirtsleeve order, though, I saw one delicious boy, with a guitar case on his back, who joined my first bus one stop after me, but stayed downstairs, sadly, so his presence in the bus queue was as much pleasure as I was granted. The other bookend, though, was around for a little longer, in the Chinese takeaway back in 'domicile-ville' this evening. He wasn't, in all honesty, that cute, but I still couldn't help fantasising about kissing all the way down his spine. A fantasy that will see me condemned to a still lower circle of hell, no doubt, but, as they say, as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Nothing makes me feel my age more....

....than being in pain. I've had an attack of gout today, and it was bloody sore. Still is, really, but having shovelled a few doses of ibuprofen down my throat during the day, it is starting to ease a bit. I still went to work, though, the dutiful ethic coming to the fore again, even though the walk to the station this morning was extremely unpleasant, and left me sweating profusely, even in the 6:00 autumnal cool - even I'll admit it's more or less autumn now! I'm sure I'll live, but with quality of life diminished for a day or two.
To slightly contradict what I said about the seasonal change, I'm hoping tomorrow afternoon might be pleasant, weather-wise, because I'm intending to go 'outing and abouting' after work, it being the last Saturday of summer, to do a bit of watching the world going by, although I doubt, in my current condition, I'll be doing much walking. Nice weather might induce a few cute boys out of hiding, hence the fingers being crossed to try and keep the rain gods at bay. We'll see.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Where do I go from here?

OK, so post 500 pretty much sunk without trace, with the odd honourable exception (Thank you, Jay). It's got me thinking 'Where next?' for the blog. There were a few things I thought about doing for the milestone post, from writing a long, ranty post about whatever came to mind, to doing what I've wanted to do for ages, tell the world who I 'really' am, to even going as far as closing the blog and slinking off into well-deserved obscurity. But I have, self-evidently, done none of those things. So, what do I do? I set out, in February last year, with a few ideas of what I wanted to achieve by having a blog, but, in all honesty, I don't know that I've succeeded in any of those aims. I haven't had the cathartic experience of getting all the hidden stuff out of my system effectively, I haven't written much fiction (hived off to the other blog, of course, at an early stage) that has pleased anyone, even me, and, if I can be selfish for a moment, I haven't managed, either through my blog, or in 'real life', to make myself happier with myself, and my life in general.
Sitting here typing this has made me realise that the answer to the question posed in the post's title is 'I don't know'. This post has turned out to be rather aimless, and that sums up where the blog as a whole seems to be at the moment. And maybe where my life is at the moment. I do still have ambitions, and regular readers wouldn't be surprised by what would appear if I listed them, but the things I want seem to be as illusory and unattainable as finding the end of the rainbow. Perhaps, one day....but probably not.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Quinquagenarian's quincentennial

500 posts. With Blogland being characterised by comings and goings, I suppose getting to 500 is at least proof of the victory of hope over experience, if nothing else.
Over the course of those posts, there has, as anyone who has read my blog even casually will know, been a lot of discussion, soul-searching, self-loathing, even the occasional bit of good cheer, on the subject of boys. If I'm being dispassionate, I would have to admit it's been a bit of an obsession. For all that, though, there's never been a picture of a boy. Until now.

This was the picture I found a couple of weeks ago that so reminded me of my cousin, my darling boy, when he was this sort of age. The hair colour isn't quite right, but, that apart, it really is very like him, or like he was. Imagine him with slightly darker, honey-blond/reddish hair, and lovely green-brown eyes, and there he is.
I wanted there to be a second picture, and I spent hours looking for a DBJ 'lookalike', but I didn't even come close to finding one. Which just goes to show, by definition, I suppose, that there is only one 'most beautiful boy n the world'.
Thank you to everyone who has read my blog over the last year and a half, and especially to my followers. I love you all.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Another day, but hardly in paradise

Not that anything has gone particularly badly - although I haven't rung home yet, so I don't want to tempt fate - just more of the same old, same old. Work was OK, if you like that sort of thing, followed by a brief shopping trip, then back to the accommodation and another afternoon in cyberspace. Nothing much to add beyond that, really, except, perhaps, that I'm trying to think of something a bit more out of the ordinary for my next post, as it marks, I suppose, a significant milestone. Sadly, I'm not all that inspired, my seemingly intractable low mood and the tiredness which inevitably goes hand in hand with a week of early shifts conspiring to suppress anything much in the way of creative thought. Maybe I need someone standing behind me with a cattle prod to electrify me, figuratively, at least.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Storytime, and paragon, gone

I've found a new source of online stories over the past day or two - my kind of story, that is, with boys and a certain amount of consensual, it always has to be consensual, sex. Apart from finding The Geppetto Project in a more user-friendly font than the place I originally discovered it - it might be time to re-read the whole, delightful, 850,000 word saga, methinks - I found a series of short stories, very cute and many written from boys' points of view, by someone who has obviously read Sandel - as soon as I saw the pen-name 'Tonimus', I had no doubt of that fact, reinforced by the fact that quite a few of the stories feature a boy in a cathedral choir school, albeit in the US. A little oasis of sweetness, in what's been a pretty desolate time for me of late.
One not so good piece of online news was the disappearance of the link to the lovely picture I wrote about in 'Cuckoos' the other day. Given the breadth of what's defined as 'pornography' these days, I didn't dare download it - no point in taking unnecessary risks just for a picture - so it's going to have to simply be another page in my mental photograph album. I won't forget it in a hurry, that's for sure.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Tired, tired, tired

Physically, mentally and emotionally.
Fed up with the unremitting crap.
Fed up with bad news every time the phone rings.
Fed up with being 200 miles away from being able to do anything about any of it.

Sorry to those who were kind enough to comment on my last but one post, and who haven't had the courtesy of a reply, and sorry to anyone who took my post last night at face value when I said I'd explain more of the downer that dampened my improved spirits. I'm not in the right frame of mind at the moment. Just for a change. I can see by the stats that people are staying away in droves from the slough of despond that is masquerading as my blog at the moment, and I can't blame them. Sadly, I can't make the same decision to 'stay away' from my own life. It's round my neck all the while, like the Ancient Mariner's albatross.

I'm tired, of all of it.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Just when you think you might be having a nice day....

....something comes along to bloody ruin it. I'm barely awake at this point, so I'll have to elucidate tomorrow, but everything seemed to be going well today, good company lifting my mood to a level that hasn't appertained for the last couple of weeks, at least, And then I get a phone call.
I'm going to bed, in the desperate hope that tomorrow might just be better. But I'm not holding my breath.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Lost

Life doesn't come with a roadmap, you have to navigate as best you can by your own efforts. When you've taken one wrong turning too many, though, you can find yourself helplessly lost, rudderless, in a featureless landscape, without love, without hope. After another depressingly futile phone call home, I'm not too far from that kind of place now. One of my colleagues at work last night said that he didn't know how I could do what I'm doing, spending a month, virtually, away from home. I answered with a platitude, but I could just as easily have said that I know how I do it, by just keeping on and accepting, but what really I don't know is why I do it.

Enjoy the music, it is, IMHO, one of the best records ever made. And more than apposite to my current situation.

Love & best wishes to all

Sammy B

I still don't get it

On my wanderings around the internet yesterday, I was unfortunate enough to come across a site containing a post with various 'Manga' style cartoons depicting boys being tortured. I hate the idea of boys (or, indeed, anyone else), even fictitious ones, being hurt for others' gratification, as I've said before, so I quickly went elsewhere. It wasn't until around 5:00 this morning, at work, that fuller implications of what I'd seen occurred to me. The site I'd stumbled upon was evidently aimed at boylovers, but if you claim to love boys, as I do, why on earth would you get off on images of them being, in some cases, horribly abused? The only saving grace, I suppose, is that being cartoons, no real boys were actually hurt, but I was still left upset by the existence of that kind of mindset. There are, no doubt, those who would instantly accuse me of hypocrisy, who would tell me that what I want is just as damaging as the kind of thing I'm railing against. In response, all I can say is that I really, honestly, don't want to hurt anyone, physically or emotionally. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I have such a difficult relationship with my own sexuality at times, because what I want can hurt, although I still believe, in the right context, that hurt isn't inevitable. Sadly for me, 'society' has decided that man-boy love is totally beyond the pale, that it is never anything other than abusive and manipulative, that the man never has any concern beyond his own sexual gratification. I know, for me, that isn't true, but it seems to be impossible to convince almost anybody that I'm telling the truth. This dichotomy between what the world assumes me to be, and what I know myself to be, is one of the most difficult issues, psychologically, that I have to deal with. If you're told that what you see as love is really hateful often enough, it's hard not to believe it yourself.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Would-be theocrats are here, too

I've read, and from time to time posted about, numerous stories from the US which suggest many people there are working to set up a fundamentalist Christian form of government, and impose their antediluvian worldview on everyone, oppressing, and, if necessary, killing anyone who doesn't fit into their ridiculously narrow template of acceptability (I'm doubly damned, of course, being both a boylover and an atheist). Now, it seems, fellow travellers are here in the UK, too - there was a vote in Parliament yesterday on a proposal, supported by sundry Christian and 'pro-life' groups, to prevent organisations which provide abortions from being able to offer women pre-abortion counselling, the object, of course, being to restrict access to such services and reduce women's control over their own reproductive system. In an ideal world, abortion wouldn't be necessary, because everyone who wished to be sexually active would have access to accurate information and effective contraception, but the same organisations who are against abortion are often just as opposed to the provision of sex education and contraception, especially to younger people. Fortunately, the proposal was heavily defeated, but the fact that the issue was debated and voted on in the first place shows that we here in the UK need to be vigilant if we're not to join the US on what appears to be a slippery slope to theocracy.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Two down, two to go

Weeks away from home, that is - I'm more or less halfway through my record breaking exile. And I hate it, all the more because, as extensively discussed recently, it doesn't seem to be achieving anything worthwhile. All it seems to be doing is making me more bitter and twisted than I was to start with. If I hadn't been at work today, apart from a few words with the housekeeper (yes, that is her official job title, not me being in any way patronising) this morning, I wouldn't have spoken to anyone in person all day. Even allowing for the fact that I'm not all that gregarious, it isn't a particularly enjoyable lifestyle. Rays of light - a cutie in the supermarket at lunchtime (it seems that, even today, not all of the schools have resumed), speaking to my wife and daughter on the phone during the early evening while I was on my break, that's about it, really. I am, contrary to appearances, trying to stay as positive as I can - I have no ambition to go back into the kind of trough I was in a couple of weeks ago - but, for all I'm sure I'd be told how much better off I am than many others, it's hard to accept that premise when 'more of the same', off to the horizon, is all I've got to look forward to.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Boys, buses, booze, birthdays

This post would have been far more rant-ish if I'd written it an hour or so ago, but I guess I must have calmed down a bit. I went out and about after work today around West London, just for a change of scenery, in all honesty - I was on earlies today, and I'm on lates tomorrow, so that perhaps tipped the balance in favour of doing something other than just heading back to the accommodation and doing my well-practised impression of a hermit. I like travelling by bus sometimes, especially when I can sit on the top deck, as is often the case in London, see the world go by, and, in my case, do a bit of boy watching as well. There seemed to be a 50/50 split about the summer holidays having ended - some schools had obviously resumed, but there were still plenty of school age kids in civvies around the place, too (my daughter went back to school today, but her friend who goes to the equivalent boys' grammar school at home doesn't start until tomorrow, so the inconsistency isn't restricted to the London area), so I wasn't short of eye candy. There were, though, two boys this afternoon for whom the 'eye candy' appellation doesn't do justice. One was just a fleeting moment, getting off a train with (presumably) his father while I was waiting for my train back to 'domicile-ville', but the other, who I was able to more or less surreptitiously moon over for fifteen or twenty minutes on one of the buses I caught, was an utter delight - on first inspection, he seemed very young, but when he spoke to his companion, who appeared to be a German (speaking) exchange student, his voice was quite deep, as though puberty was well under way, but, whatever, the boyish looks were irresistible - for the likes of me, at least. I could have been tempted to become a kidnapper, momentarily, anyway!
After the sweetness on the bus, though, I still ended up 'bumping along the bottom', on my own in a couple of bars, drinking more than is strictly good for me. I'm not particularly inclined to 'drowning my sorrows', but there are times when I perhaps don't restrain myself as much as I might, including this evening. Mind you, I'm here two or three hours later typing away, and hopefully making some kind of sense, so it's not as if I'm 'drunk and incapable'.
A couple of birthdays today - my brother, who I would've rung anyway, but even more so after his hospitality a few months ago, and my cousin's oldest son, who is 18 today. My wife is his godmother, so I suggested a phone call on such an auspicious day might be in order, but she didn't seem that keen. I suppose godmother/father is, these days, largely honorary, so I shouldn't be surprised - and, as an atheist, anyway, there doesn't appear to be much of a reason to get wound up about it.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Here I am, shoot at me

I've been prevaricating about this post for a good couple of hours, but it was what originally came to mind, and if I leave this kind of thing out of my blog, because of how others might react, I don't believe I'm being true to myself.
I've mentioned before that I spend a certain amount of time reading erotic fiction, mostly on a rather well-known internet purveyor of the genre. I wouldn't say I'm obsessive about it, but I do find it to be a way of dealing with the corporeal effects of my attractions without involving any real-life complications. And yesterday, I read part of a story that has to be amongst the most head-spinningly sexy things I've ever experienced, always bearing in mind, of course, that it was fictional, the product of a writer's imagination. It was a chapter describing two pre-teen boys making love - and I use that phrase advisedly, it seemed to me that there was far more to it than just sex - describing it in a way that engaged me totally, in both a physical and emotional way. If the passage had been written about two adults, it could easily have been lionised as 'great literature', but because of the age of the protagonists, the vast majority of people would dismiss it, no doubt, as mere child pornography. Well, without apology, I'm prepared to say that I loved it, and if that makes me a pervert, mea culpa.


Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A straight answer, at least

Following on from the unhappy financial discussions of recent days, I actually managed to get a straight answer - eventually, at about the fourth time of asking, after some chicanery which might have made a spin doctor blush - from my wife about whether she preferred bankruptcy to using her nursing qualifications to earn money to try and help our situation. And she prefers bankruptcy. So, as I said to her, where that leaves me remains to be seen. If we're going to go down in flames anyway, what's the point of me being away from home for weeks at a time doing a job I don't particularly want to do? I might as well cash my pension in and live on that for a year or two, before the vultures get their hands on the proceeds. It would only postpone the inevitable, but if I'm going to watch that inevitability approach, I'd rather do it from the comfort of my own home.
Or there's always Plan B.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The power of music, Part X

Where X is some arbitrarily large number. Music is sometimes said to speak directly to the emotions, but I often find the lyrics of songs have as much, if not more of an effect on me. Like this:

Oh, Starlight, don't you cry, we're going to find a place where we belong (from Starlight, by Slash).

Straight to the point of vulnerability in me - because, it seems, there's nowhere I belong, wanting what I want. Tears in my eyes, again. I suppose, in some ways, where I am now is as close to being where I belong, or where many would feel I belong - in a room, on my own, feeling desolate, feeling that terrifying word, never, creeping up on me again. FFS, the haters call this a 'lifestyle choice'. I'd never choose this, never in a million years. But, to repeat myself for the umpteenth time, I can't wish it away.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Soul destroying

Nothing but a cliché, I suppose, because I don't believe in the concept of souls, but there you go.
It's been one of those days, again. Unremittingly disheartening, in a number of areas, personal and more widely. Our finances seem to have lurched a little closer to utter meltdown, as I didn't receive as much today as I was expecting, although it seems that what I was paid was right, while at least one of our creditors has been merrily moving the goalposts, while telling us that half of our expenditure, even down to having haircuts, are 'luxuries' we can do without - go back to the Stone Age, so you can give us more money. But 'we're here to help you'. Yeah, right. In the way of these things, it led to another acrimonious phone call between my wife and I - I seem to be expected to work every hour going, while my wife still refuses to come out of her comfort zone and use her nursing qualifications, as she easily could, to earn extra money. And then, in the next breath, she claims that it's my 'free choice' to work where I do and as many hours as I do, and that if I don't like it, I should give up my job and go home. As though that's going to solve our problems. Although she denies it, if I did that, I'd give our marriage about three months - and that's before we get into boys, and matters arising.
Speaking of medievalism, another call for justice by vengeance today, from the mother of a 15 year old girl who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, of the same age. What he did, and the way it was done, was horrible, but by calling for the boy to be executed, the mother, in my eyes, has forfeited any 'moral high ground' she might have had claim to. Where do we go from there? Back to hanging hungry children for stealing a shilling's worth of food? That's real moral progress for you. Who needs The Enlightenment? Hang 'em and flog 'em, it'll solve everything.
On a related subject, the 'raving right' have come up with another brilliant solution to all of society's ills - parachute redundant soldiers into schools to impose 'military discipline'. Of course, all the disaffected kids are going to suddenly become model citizens because some superannuated RSM is yelling at them. If that doesn't work, presumably the next step is to bring back the leaded whip and flog them into submission, and if a few kids get beaten to death in the process, that's just collateral damage. If that's the kind of world these people want, I'd be better off out of it. There is a Plan B, I just have to reach the right depths to enact it. And those depths are getting closer.
And, as an afterthought, and one which was almost pushed out of my mind by the truckloads of crap that landed on me in the first hour after I got up this afternoon, I had a vivid dream about my cousin as a boy, partly erotic, no doubt nudged from my subconscious by the photo I found the other day, and which I've looked at more than a few times this week. My cup runneth over.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Autumn? Not yet, I hope

Now we're into September, all the talk seems to be of summer's end and winter just around the corner, nights drawing in, and all that sort of thing. As far as I know, autumn doesn't start until the equinox, which I heard this morning isn't until September 23 this year, and winter doesn't begin until December 21, or thereabouts. I don't understand the attraction of the rush to leave summer behind - it's been a nice day here in Surrey today, and in the years we've lived in Cornwall, September has been one of the best months, weather-wise. Winter is depressing enough, surely, without wishing months more of it on yourself.
As if my 'addiction' to Runic Drops on the PC isn't enough, I've found another very 'hard to put down' game which I've downloaded to my new phone, called 'Dropwords'. More hours of my dwindling remaining lifespan will be frittered away, I suspect!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B