Billions of things

One of my work colleagues had agreed to work overtime today, staying on after the regular early shift to cover the first part of an uncovered late turn. He commented that, if he was able to go back and revisit the decision, he'd have said 'no'. I was prompted to say that if I could go back, armed with a dose of hindsight, there were 'billions of things' I'd have done differently. 'Billions', of course, is an exaggeration, but when I think of the major decisions in my life, I've got almost every single one wrong, in some cases wildly, hideously wrong. And I wonder why my life is such a mess.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Psychological winter begins

5:20, and it's dark. The clocks went back to GMT this morning. If I really dislike one thing about the winter, it's the dark evenings - or even dark afternoons, as the solstice approaches. I've just closed the curtains, so I don't have to be reminded about the depressing view outside. Five months of winter to endure. I can hardly restrain my enthusiasm.
This morning's shift at work, at least, didn't add to the gloom - it was, not to beat about the bush too much, money for old rope. I refuse to feel guilty, though - I've had enough headache-inducing days at work in the last 13 months, so an easy one every now and again isn't too much to ask for, I hope.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Truth, but a hole in the truth

For someone who prides herself on always being honest, my wife was, to be as charitable as I can, disingenuous when I spoke to her on the phone earlier. She started to say something about my daughter and an attachment to someone, but then didn't want to elaborate. After some coaxing, it appears that she's getting herself worked up again about the girl that my daughter wrote about in her diary, which my wife surreptitiously read some months ago. What has disinterred the subject is that it's the girl's birthday in a few days time, and my daughter has ordered her a personalised card from some website or other, which she was showing to my wife this morning. The message printed inside says something along the lines of 'Love you loads', which my wife has taken as further evidence that my daughter is bisexual, if not gay. As I said last time this issue was raised, as far as I'm concerned, our daughter's orientation is none of our business, and when I said so again earlier, my wife, despite trying to appear as though she was agreeing with me, was obviously, even over a phone line, speaking through gritted teeth, particularly when she spat out the word 'gay' as though it was a furball she'd had to hawk up from some nether region. She says she's worried about our daughter getting bullied and losing her friends, but, for one thing, there's no evidence of that happening, and, secondly, her evident distaste when discussing even the possibility of our daughter not being 'normal' makes me seriously question who her main concern is for - I get the impression there's more of 'The shame of it' in her attitude rather than 'Let's do our best to help our daughter live a happy life, whatever she chooses to do'. From things she's said to me, I still think our daughter leans considerably more towards the straight end of the spectrum, but if not, she is what she is, and no amount of disapproval is going to change that. I can certainly vouch for that assertion, personally.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Brain fade

A long day at work, ten hours at the 'coalface' has left me feeling thoroughly washed out, more mentally than physically. I'm in no way 'digging ditches', but to concentrate to the extent necessary, hour after hour, is draining in itself, of course. And there's more - another even longer day shift tomorrow, albeit Saturday is usually slightly quieter, then a double back for Sunday early shift, again. It makes the end of next week, when I've got two and a half days off and the chance of a flying visit home, all the more worthy of looking forward to.
At least the 'bigotry meter' was on a much lower setting today - if there had been a repeat of yesterday, when the bullshit flowed by the hour, I might have been tempted to defenestrate someone. And we're short enough of staff as it is!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Thanks a lot, you worthless bigots

Another casualty of the haters, it seems, It appears that the wonderful, delightful love story that is Twinergy and the Boys of Clear Lake has been brought to an end by cyber attacks on Cody's site. It has been one of my very favourite stories from before I set sail onto the cyberspace ocean in my own right - indeed, it's one of the main reasons I've got a blog at all. For anyone not familiar with the story, I would recommend that you go and see it for yourself while you can - the link is in my Blog List.
Sad news, on many levels, as far as I'm concerned.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Autumnal

Not only a good word to describe the scene outside my window - damp. grey weather, half-naked trees, dull, flat light - but, perhaps, my frame of mind, and even the overall life stage I'm in, too. After all, even if I make the age that currently constitutes average male life expectancy in the UK - 77.2 according to Wikipedia - I'm over two-thirds of the way there. And, over the past few years, my health could be said to have begun to parallel the changes Autumn brings. Maybe it's an overstatement to say I'm slowly dying, but the sap doesn't flow as strongly as it did, taking me from someone who, apart from a couple of bouts of flu and other minor odds and ends, had hardly been ill in my adult life, to someone who's on regular heart medication and hasn't felt 100% well for almost five years. I'm not claiming to be some kind of bedridden invalid, obviously, but that 10% or 15% of missing vigour is very noticeable.
There have been other changes, too, most notably my increasing reluctance to carry on pretending to be something I'm not. Over the past weekend, I wasn't especially close to 'coming out' to my wife, but I did spend some time playing the relevant scenarios in my head, and this, maybe for the first time, not in response to our having had some kind of argument, but coolly, dispassionately, almost. It might still never happen, but the fact that I can envisage it coming about in a calm, controlled, 'academic' way, rather than in the 'heat of battle' perhaps suggests that I might be a step or two closer to casting aside the mask that I find so frustrating. I do still love my wife, and care about not hurting her, but what will hurt more? The truth, or ever more years of deception? Only a rhetorical question, really, even I don't know the answer, because if I did, I'd act on the insight.
Despite all this talk of Autumn, I'm not all that downbeat, except about the money situation, which still seems to be an intractable problem at the moment. At least it's payday for me tomorrow, keeping the financial wolves from the door for another week or two, but this hand to mouth kind of lifestyle really isn't in any way congenial. Complaining won't change anything, though, so it's more overtime for me tomorrow and Saturday, two more 12 hour shifts to look forward to. If that's not an oxymoron.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Long day's journey

Another one of those seemingly interminable days, hours of travelling, my shift at work, back to the domicile, and, the best part of 13 hours after I set out from home, I'm finally ensconced in my room and winding down. Not much else to say, really - one or two examples of almost legal - 14 or 15, anyway - eye candy while I was travelling up this morning, then one very, very cute but nowhere near legal young man on the way back this evening, the joys of the half-term holiday coming to the fore. Small consolation for being away again, but I'll take any crumb of comfort that is going.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Staying calm depends on your circumstances

I've been almost 'new-agedly' chilled over the last day or so, but the imminence of returning to work has begun to impinge on the preternatural calm. Five days isn't very long, in the 'deep time' scheme of things, but it's got me back into an 'at home' mindset that I would very much like not to break. The other potential 'break', my uncertainty about my health, doesn't help, either - if I'm going to keel over sometime soon, I'd rather it happened in Cornwall than 'up country'. It would be the ultimate downer if I couldn't even expire at home, but alone in exile. Yeah, melodrama queen, I know, but I can't help it.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Interpretation

No good, no bad, no right, no wrong. 
It's all interpretation.


I wrote that little couplet earlier on, trying to find a way into producing something for 'Cuckoos'. I'm no poet, though, as anyone who has had the misfortune of reading my efforts will know. What it did do, though, was to make me think about the judgmental attitudes of the 'majority', in whatever context you might choose to employ that word, to those who are not in their particular group. Those who consider themselves morally superior often draw on religious or societal precedents to justify their position, but where do these precedents come from? From the prejudices of an earlier, equally self-appointed 'majority', for the most part.
And, it seems to me, there are no moral absolutes. 'Thou shalt not kill' seems unarguable, so why are there judicial executions? What about the demise of Bin Laden, or Gaddafi? As soon as there are exceptions to any precept, there is the potential for justification of abuse. 'Thou shalt not kill, but in the case of x,y or z, you can', doesn't have the same ring to it. If you can justify killing a dictator, or a convicted prisoner, in cold blood, you can justify killing anyone. He's got the wrong coloured skin, she's got the wrong gender of lover, they support the wrong political party, I don't like the colour of YOUR eyes, kill them all, and so ad absurdum. 
I try to act in a way that doesn't hurt other people, but that doesn't necessarily make me 'good', because whose definition of 'unhurtful' am I using. My own, if I'm being honest, in most cases, and what I consider to be 'unhurtful' isn't going to tally with that of many others. How do I know I'm doing the right thing? I don't. Even if the first 99 people I interact with think what I'm doing is 'right', what about the hundredth person who finds it deeply offensive? Does the good of the 99 outweigh the harm done to the one? What if that harm is 99 times greater than the good to each of the other 99?
If there s a point to this philosophising, it may be this. Don't let anyone make you think you're worth less than them because you're different. The merits of male or female, black or white, gay or straight, or whatever other pair of opposites you choose are not absolute. It's all interpretation.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Surreal life

I seem to be in some kind of strange limbo at the moment, as though I'm straddling a series of fault lines in my life, any of which could fracture and change anything or everything. We're not bankrupt, but not really solvent. I'm not ill in any easily definable way, but feel fragile, as though something might break. I'm at home just now, but I'll soon be away again. I'm still closeted, hiding, but that might not be a permanent state. It's as though my life's gyroscope is slowing down, and could fall in a random direction at any moment. It's might not even be a negative change, just the onset of a new thing. I'm in a very unfamiliar place in my life experience, where I don't know what might happen next, and what I might do about any new situation. Indecision, uncertainty, but not in an angst-ridden way. Waiting, I suppose. Waiting to see what's around the next bend in the road.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Autumnation....and complication

Autumnation - like hibernation, just earlier. That's been the story of our day today. It isn't that the weather here has been particularly uncongenial, or anything like that, just a bit on the windy side, but we didn't have any specific reason to go out, so we didn't. A quiet, lazy family Sunday, bookended by bacon sandwiches for brunch, and a roast beef dinner this evening - I do occasionally have my uses, even if they're only culinary. In between, I spent my time watching today's rather surprising events in the Premier League, and fiddling around with some of the drafts in 'Cuckoos' to see if I might be able to get something more substantial posted than I have of late. There is one story in particular that I've been working on intermittently for months that could turn into something worthwhile, if I can clarify where to take it next. As ever with my fiction writing, though, I'm making absolutely no promises.
But then, this evening, complication and confusion. Something has happened that I really don't know how to react to, even after nearly two hours of thinking pretty hard about it. It's not necessarily bad, and could, indeed, be good, but it's a situation I haven't been in before, and, as usual, life doesn't come with a map or manual - you have to make it up as you go along. Heart and head say different things. And who knows which is right, until you commit.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Oneirology

A couple of nights ago, I had one of my rare vivid dreams. I was behind a table, in some kind of 'school fete' kind of environment, but rather than trying to sell home-made cakes or raffle tickets, I sang Sit Down to anyone who approached me. And cried every time. There may be some kind of logical explanation, but it's one that escapes me completely.
Is there ever any significance to dreams at all? Or is it all just random neuronal firings? Discuss.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Well, we still appear to be here

Another 'end of the world' day has come and gone with no discernible effects. Maybe no-one was deemed worthy of being 'raptured', and we're all gong to be left here to face Armageddon. Needless to say, I think it's vastly more likely that all of these prophecies of doom are complete nonsense from start to finish, not least because the belief system they're a part of is a total delusion. I watched an arts programme earlier about the way painters had depicted hell over the centuries, where the presenter (Tim Marlow, who I'm a massive fan of) asked the question 'Why have various religions found it much easier to portray hell than heaven?'. Easy, in my opinion - they have a vested interest in terrifying their congregations into conformity, to maintain their own power and influence. And with power and influence comes wealth, of course. I'm sure there are those with genuine vocations, who genuinely believe in the gods they espouse, but I'm equally sure that are many others who are in the 'religion business' with far more worldly motives. And sadly, there are lots of people who can't tell the difference between the two.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Cherish

'If you don't have much, cherish it even more'. Such a good philosophy. I try, I really do. I know, objectively, how much better off I am than so many others. But when you try and try, and still don't do enough, in the eyes of someone you are making the effort on behalf of, it takes such resolution, maybe more than I possess, to keep going. And then you have to take your daughter to spend her own money, effectively her whole month's pocket money, on a new mouse and webcam for her laptop, because you haven't got enough money to pay for them for her, like any worthwhile parent would. It's so hard. such a rotten position to be in. On top of everything else, it's just bloody soul-destroying.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Cold?

When we got back from my wife having picked me up from the station earlier, she said as we got out of the car 'It's cold, isn't it?. Well, no, actually, not compared with when I left my accommodation at just after 6:00 this morning to go to work. I'm not claiming we're basking in tropical conditions, by any means, but, as is often the case, it was noticeably milder here than 'up country'. One of the many joys of living in Cornwall, the good old maritime climate. It might rain rather more than you'd ideally like, but at least it's warm rain, more often than not.
More good news when I got back, too - the two extra days of my daughter's company I mentioned yesterday has proven to be three, because she actually finished school for the half-term break today, tomorrow being a 'Baker Day', one of the occasional teacher training days schools in the UK have. How much we'll do remains to be seen, though, because my daughter is threatening to indulge in a serious lie-in tomorrow morning - whatever else, there are some stereotypically teenage traits about her, and why not, indeed?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Today's evasion

This isn't the post I've been contemplating writing for about the last three hours. What I was going to talk about were matters arising from the two posts I wrote on Monday. The reason I haven't? Mostly that what I was thinking of might have been construed as a personal criticism of someone, and also that I might come across as generally ungrateful to those of you who are kind enough to read, and in a few cases, comment on, my blog. Neither of those impressions would have been true, but I don't want to run the risk, particularly as I seem to have rubbed several people up the wrong way of late. Everything I was going to say is in the blog in any case, just not all in one place. perhaps.
What to say instead? It's been a relatively low-key kind of day - I saw my own manager today, for what seems like the first time since the Restoration, and had a brief follow up from yesterday's events. He seems to be as glad to see the back of it as I am, although it is, at least in part, his fault that it's dragged on for as long as it has. Tomorrow is my last day at work before a five day long weekend, and it will be a clear five days off, too, given that I'm on earlies tomorrow, and lates when I start back next Wednesday, so I won'r be wasting two half-days travelling. It won't be much beyond a chill-out weekend, because we're pretty skint at the moment, even by our standards, and I don't get paid until next week, but we're not going to be starving in the garret, or anything as dramatic as that. My daughter is on half-term holiday next week, so I'll get a couple of extra days of her company, too, which is far from being a disadvantage. Unless she's got plans of her own, of course - she's certainly old enough and sensible enough now to do her own thing, within reasonable bounds, and I won't be standing in her way, if that's the case.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Discipline

After more than three months, considerably more than double the time the process is supposed to take, I finally had my disciplinary hearing in connection with my safety irregularity in July. My manager had already intimated that I wouldn't be looking for a new job after today, but that was fairly obvious anyway, given that I'd been back at work since two weeks after the incident. Having said that, I was still rather apprehensive, approaching a hearing with a manager from another area - seemingly these things are not undertaken by your own manager to give some semblance of independence - who I'd never met before and knew nothing about beyond having heard his name, and given that I'd never been involved in anything like this before. In the event, it wasn't too traumatic, I pleaded 'guilty', to coin a legal parallel, and received the most lenient available 'sentence', a written warning, which will only be on my record for 12 months, as long as I can avoid doing anything else deranged in the interim. It is, at least, the end of the procedure, and one less thing to worry about, albeit a small worry in the overall scheme of things.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A question answered, maybe

In the previous post, I mused about why I'd suppressed my memories of M. The way I feel now, perhaps, answers that question. Because writing about him, and obviously, thereby, thinking about him, makes me realise how much it hurts, really hurts, never to have had what I most want, have most wanted for nearly 40 years - a boy to love who loves me back. M almost certainly wouldn't have been the one, and, anyway, it's my fault I'm unhappy, wanting what I want in the face of all the perfectly good reasons why people say it's wrong. But, even knowing I'm wrong, I can't help it, I want it so much, and knowing I'll never have it, in any foreseeable circumstances, just rips me up inside. This isn't, at all, about sex - it's about love. And its absence.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Once upon a time in the Midlands

For no obvious reason, I've found the time I spent living and working in the West Midlands coming to mind over the past couple of days. I lived in Birmingham for just over three years, from 1986 to 1989, first working in one of the 'satellite towns' in the area for a year, then two years working in the city centre. That second job was, without any doubt at all, the best job I've ever had - I absolutely loved it, every minute of it. Sadly, by the end of that two years, I'd totally fallen out of love with Birmingham itself, if, indeed, I'd ever been in love with it in the first place, which is debatable, so I went back to the Manchester area in the hope of being happier with life. It did work that way, eventually, but not at all in the way I'd originally hoped. That, though, is another story.
It might all have been different, though, had things gone in another direction with someone I met through work, and who came to mind for the first time in many years while I was thinking about my time in Birmingham. It's a surprise, really, that my memories seem to have been suppressed as much as they have, because M was someone quite out of the ordinary run. My company, or the then-nationalised version of it, used to employ juniors, from 16 years old, to work in various departments, where they gained some kind of a grounding in the industry, and giving them an opportunity to see if one career path or another might be preferable when they got to 18 and were able to choose, to a point, what to do next (it doesn't happen now, partly because under 18s are not allowed to work shifts anymore). We had one junior working with us on early and late shift when I was in the city centre job, three in total to allow for days off, basically collecting data and answering non-safety related phone calls - not making the tea, as in many places, because they were too busy! - but a couple of them were getting towards their 18th birthdays, so we were due for a new intake, and one memorable morning, two or three of the 'new boys' - and one girl - turned up, including M. I was, not to put too fine a point on it, smitten - M was 16, looked at least two years younger, was teeth-achingly gorgeous, had the most fantastic smile and wonderful, bubbly personality, and we hit it off immediately, chatting away as though we'd known each other for years, interests in common, the whole thing. He was around for a few days, on and off, and I really thought my luck might have changed. We got as far as tentatively arranging to meet up at an Aston Villa home game - he was an avid fan, and I lived ten minutes' walk from the ground, and had been to quite a few matches on my own - but it didn't come to fruition, and, as far as I was concerned, he then completely disappeared (bear in mind this is well before e-mail, Facebook, etc, and before many people had mobile phones). I found out a couple of weeks later that he'd been allocated to another Birmingham area location. I was, to say the least, absolutely gutted. I doubt very much that he was gay, and not seeing him probably saved me from embarrassing myself, or worse (the gay age of consent was still 21 in the UK at that time), but I do think I missed out on what could have been a great friendship. Why do I say that? Because I did eventually meet him again, just once, in the late 1990s, when he came on a visit to the Manchester office where I was then working - he worked in the equivalent Birmingham setup - and we took up almost where we'd left off, 10 or 11 years earlier. He was, of course, fully 'grown up' by then, still good looking, albeit not in my 'age of attraction', and still with the same personality, and that killer smile.
It wasn't entirely bad news, because one of the new juniors we did get at our place, my (real life) namesake, became a good friend in his own right, but he certainly wasn't gay - I described him on one occasion, to a friend of mine who I was partially 'out' to (out as gay, but not as a boylover), as a 'disgustingly normal young man'! I caught up with him, too, not long after we'd moved to Cornwall - he'd heard, through another of our former juniors with whom I had mutual acquaintances, that I'd moved down there, he got in touch when he and his family were due to come down on holiday, and we met up for a meal. It was pleasant, but there was never the spark there that there was with M.
So, who knows? If M had been allocated to our location rather than the other, I might have stayed in Birmingham, never met my wife, and all that followed. One of life's little bifurcations, driven by events outside of your own control. Maybe, somewhere in a parallel universe, para-me and para-M are living happily ever after. At least, if they are there, I hope they're happy.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Never got started

It's just been one of those days - right from the moment my alarm went off at 5:20 this morning, I don't seem to have been able to get out of first gear. I almost literally sleepwalked through my shift at work this morning, although I managed, more by luck than judgment, to avoid doing anything deranged, got relieved nice and early, fortunately, did some shopping on the way back, then spent most of the afternoon asleep. Even after that, though, I'm still feeling pretty lifeless, so I'll probably end up having an early night. Another example of the thrilling lifestyle I lead.
Frustrating at the time, but quite amusing thinking back now, was the way circumstances prevented me being able to admire what I think would have been a fairly high grade cutie in the shopping centre where I went for my groceries - he had his back to me as I initially approached, which was a nice enough view, but not quite ideal, then, as I drew level with him, I turned his way, to find that he was hidden behind a partition of the coffee shop in the middle of the shopping centre, from my perspective, then when he emerged from the other side of the café, and I looked for a third time, he had his back to me again, having turned to the right. Meh! Still, you can't win them all, and he was with (presumably) his dad, anyway, so it's perhaps as well that I didn't ogle him too obviously!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

All work and no play....but some cuties, to sweeten the pill

Even though I was in for my seventh late shift in a row today (I bloody hate lates, especially at weekends), I had to be up early this morning, because I need an early-ish night - I'm doubling back for earlies in the morning. Technically, we're not supposed to do it these days, as I think I've said before, but as with most things, the management can bend the rules to suit, even if us 'poor bloody infantry' can't. My shift today was very quiet, though, with most of the position I was covering being shut for the weekend for renewals and maintenance, so it was just a case of fielding an occasional phone call and keeping boredom at bay. I'll be doing a bit more work in the morning - I'm covering a different position - but it still shouldn't be too onerous, if everything goes according to plan.
Being a weekend, though, and sunny to boot, my 'cutie drought' which had been going on all week was finally broken on the way to work at lunchtime. Most notable was an absolute little darling on the train, who was much too young to do anything other than say 'Awww' about, which I duly did (silently, of course) - very pretty, and with the most gorgeous pale blue eyes, and funny, too, dancing around one of the posts in the door area while the train was waiting outside my (and his) destination station for its platform to clear, round and round until he said 'Ooohhh!' and wobbled a little bit, evidently having made himself rather dizzy. Too cute for words, almost.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A laugh out loud moment - and a sadder moment

I don't have too many moments of hilarity at work, but there was one this evening, towards the end of the shift. I'm not deliberately unsociable (usually) when I'm working, but I have got rather a large perfectionist streak, so I tend to concentrate pretty intensely, which perhaps makes me seem rather aloof at times. On this occasion, though, I did get involved in the banter a little more than usual, which led one of my colleagues, purely in jest, to comment that he'd managed to get a smile out of me. I responded in the same light-hearted vein, asking him why he didn't just come out and call me a miserable sod. He then came out with the riposte that elicited the laughter - 'You're not miserable, just misunderstood!' If only you knew, I couldn't help but think. When I'd stopped laughing, I mentioned my 'personal national anthem', although, to be fair, it's not exactly the best known song in the history of popular music, and didn't seem to spark much recognition.
Earlier on in the evening, when I was on my meal break, a somewhat better known song had a different effect, though. Our kitchen/mess room is a large room divided in two with two separate sets of facilities, one for my group of staff, and the other for the technicians (why two sets? - I've no idea, some accident of history, no doubt). I was the only person in 'our' end of the room, and it's just as well, because when Sit Down came on the radio that was playing in the technicians' area, I ended up in tears. And I'm not even sure exactly why. There's something about the lyrics, it seems, that gets to me. That power of music again, to speak directly to the emotions.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Saved from myself, again?

After my rather ranty, shouty session 24 hours ago, I've had a bit more time to reflect on the scenario that set it off. And I've concluded that I've probably been saved from, at least, making a fool of myself, and possibly worse. If I'm going to be 'outed', it should, if nothing else, be in pursuit of what I really want, rather than something which has never been 'me'.
I'm sticking to what I said about how the blog is going continue to to be, though - it's my place to be myself, and, with the greatest of respect to any current or future reader, if you find what you see here offensive in any way, there are untold numbers of other places in Blogland to visit. Cyberspace is big enough, I think - or hope, anyway - to accommodate everyone, and all their tastes and shades of opinion.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

I can't be anyone but me

I seem to have been alienating all and sundry of late. But, ultimately, if that's what will be, it will be. I really can't be anyone other than myself, and this blog is the only place where I can even remotely be that real self, even if I do have to hide behind a fucking pseudonym. I spend my whole 'real world' life pretending to be something I'm not. I am not, absolutely not, going to extend that pretence to this blog.
Oh, and by the way, this has nothing to do with the issue I got down about last weekend. That's been resolved.
/Rant off.


Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

It's amazing

Amazing, even to me, when I think sensibly about it. For the second time this year, I've constructed, on, literally, no evidence at all, all sorts of scenarios about how my life could be different. And when I find the non-existent evidence is purely illusory, or even delusional, I get downhearted. I can only conclude that I'm so unhappy with my life that anything seems to offer a better way, even something totally unrealistic. Even a mirage.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Deleted

I've recently published, and then deleted, a post in 'Cuckoos'. It was only one of my substandard poems, but I don't make a habit of deleting posts - I've only ever done it once before. On this occasion, though, I realised what I'd written could be misconstrued as being about a subject of recent days, which it wasn't, but to avoid any confusion, I've binned it. I doubt the world of English literature is remotely poorer as a result, in any case.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Nudged

It's odd how things can change, with a nudge from an unexpected direction. In the aftermath of my (latest) health scare the other day, I had a post brewing in my mind about the transience of life, and regrets about what I haven't done in the past, and things I probably won't get to do in the future. All the usual stuff, as far as I'm concerned. it could be said.
Then I saw this post, in a new blog I've come across in the past few days, which made me rethink what I was going to say. The first part of the quotation, about the past, is particularly apposite to me - I still cringe, sometimes, over things I said and did literally decades ago. And for what? All the regrets in the world are never, ever, going to change the past. And to throw in a quotation of my own, albeit taken totally out of its original context - 'He who controls the past, controls the future'. If I can come to terms with what has brought me to where I am now, I might just be able to find a congenial way forward. Stranger things have happened.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Another day....and then yet another day

It was supposed to be my day off tomorrow, but one of my colleagues is on the sick, so I've been asked to work. And, in my customarily diligent fashion, I've agreed. Actually, it's more poverty than any great sense of duty that won the day - after all, the whole point of my being ''up country' is to maximise my earnings, and if I'd been off tomorrow, I'd either have spent all day on the computer, or gone out and spent a ruck of money I can't afford, probably on licensed premises, so working the overtime is a win-win situation, really.
That apart, it's been a pretty unremarkable day, one of those that it's rather difficult to cobble together a blog post of any great interest about. I can't even talk about eye candy, because I haven't seen any - late shifts during school terms are a desert in that regard, because all the cuties are in school when I'm on my way to work, and all at home by the time I head back. Yet another of the joys of shift work!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

When you're in a hole, stop digging

It's been brought home to me this evening how stupid, and, especially, how selfish I've been in the past few days. I'm so ashamed of myself. And so sorry.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Scary stuff

Almost at the moment I clicked on the 'Publish Post' icon on my last post yesterday morning, something very disturbing happened. I felt a sharp pain above my left eye, and my vision blurred. I spent most of the the rest of the day with a splitting headache, despite swallowing numerous heavy-duty painkillers, and with the blurred vision coming and going. Being the diligent soul that I am (or is that mug) I still went to work, but it was a real struggle, before finally staggering back to my accommodation and heading for an early night. After 8 hours sleep (quite a lot by my standards), I've woken this morning feeling somewhat better, although a little of yesterday's symptoms are still in evidence.
After talking to one or two people, and although it's something which has never afflicted me before, it seems that I might have had a migraine. In a backhanded way, I hope that's the answer, and nothing more sinister - the sudden onset, and visual effects had me thinking of stroke, especially as that was identified as the most serious potential side-effect of my heart arrhythmia from the outset, but, fortunately, nothing else to suggest that more serious diagnosis has manifested itself. If there's any recurrence or deterioration, though, I'll be off to the doctor's post haste, even if I have to go back to Cornwall to facilitate that.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Clarification

Reading back the second part of the previous post, it has occurred to me that it could be construed as criticism of, or even an attack on the person referred to. I want to make it clear that that's not the case, in any way at all. When I say I've 'reached out', what I've said and done has been entirely of my own volition, not sought out in any way by the other party. No blame, at all, attaches to anyone other than me. I am what I am, and I know that reality is hard for many, f not most people to come to terms with. All I've looked to do in the posts that have alluded to this issue in recent days is to express my feelings. No-one owes me anything, least of all someone who has had more than enough problems of their own. If I did ask for anything for myself, it would simply be the acceptance that I had, and have, no hidden agenda - my care and concern is genuine, and altruistic, in the sense of wanting good for the person for the person's own sake, in no way for mine. And, although the only evidence for what I say are the bare words I've written, here and now, and over the past year and a half since I first encountered the person concerned here in cyberspace, what I say is true. I might be a lot of things, most of them not very admirable, but, in this context, I'm not a liar.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Up & down

Up country. Down in the mouth.
Back to work yesterday, and what turned out to be a messier shift than I might have expected given the position I was covering, but, then, I did tempt fate when I first arrived by commenting to one of my colleagues that I thought it was going to be a relatively gentle reintroduction to the world of work after my holiday. Still, I did manage to cope with what was thrown at me reasonably calmly and competently - my job is perhaps the only area of my life where I do actually, consistently, feel in control, the vast majority of the time, anyway.
Would that I could say the same about my personal life. Towards the end of my shift, after the crises had passed, and again this morning, the pain and disappointment of the previous few days reasserted themselves. It seems to be a recurrent theme, sadly, in my life, that when I care about someone and try my best to help, support, and generally be on their side, the outcome is me ending up hurt. It's me that's the common factor in these scenarios, so it must be me that's doing something wrong, trying too hard, being too honest, whatever. It's even more bitterly ironic, though, that in trying to reach out to, to give something to someone who's been so damaged by lies, I end up being rejected because I told the truth.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sammy vs eye candy

I often mention in my posts, as those of you brave or foolhardy enough to be regular readers will know, this or that boy I've seen as I go about my life, and how they've caught my eye and my attention. With very few exceptions, these are no more than fleeting glimpses, a few seconds, or at most minutes, of beauty and sweetness, on buses and trains, in shops or on the street. Very occasionally, someone will have a longer term impact on my life, the most notable example, certainly recently, and perhaps ever, being DBJ, the boy who lived near where I used to work, and who I sighed over for several years, probably even, in a totally one-sided way, and with no encouragement from him whatsoever, fell in love with. Even my feelings towards DBJ, though, are only an enhanced example of the basic principle, which I don't think is unique to me, as a boylover. 'Normal' men, in my experience, look at women in the same way, whether a 'Page 3' model or a 'headturner' in the street, might even have fantasies about engaging them sexually, but go no further. I presume gay men and lesbian women have similar experiences with the objects of their attraction. That's how it is with me in relation to cute boys. I look at them, admire their grace and beauty, and have no expectation or intention of there being anything more. In fact, as I've said before, I almost always go out of my way not to become entangled in even the most casual social interaction with boys, so that even the vaguest source of temptation isn't put in my way.
Because I'm realistic enough about myself to know, even in the unlikely event of my coming across a boy who might, perhaps after reading an online story, for example, feel he wanted to experiment with an older man, that such a hypothetical boy wouldn't choose me as his erastes - I'm old, fat and thoroughly unattractive, and there are thousands, millions of far more eligible candidates for his affections than me. That's not self-pity, simply realism. So, eye candy, and nothing more, it is, in any foreseeable circumstances. E, perhaps for another year or two, if he continues delivering our free papers, then he'll grow up and be gone, as far as my tastes go, to be replaced by the likes of the pair of 10/11-ish cuties I saw on the way to the station yesterday, who will then grow up in their turn. The dichotomous joy and pain of the boylover - boys, even the most special like DBJ, grow up, inexorably, but there are always others coming along to take their place, in the eyes, if not the heart. Being a boylover means embracing transience. And, in my case, accepting that, for all its status as the scariest word in my vocabulary, 'never' is by far the most likely outcome for me.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Back on the exile express

I'm on my second train of the evening, and will be for the next three hours or so, heading back to 'domicile-ville'. Oh joy abounding. It is, to an extent, a measure of how screwed up our lifestyle is at the moment - if my car was on the road, I wouldn't have had to leave home until 9:00 in the morning, but there's no immediate prospect, outside of a winning lottery ticket, of that situation changing any time soon. Complaining won't change it either, of course, so I suppose I should just wind my neck in and get on with it. After all, I'm only going to be away for a mere 12 days this time, rather than the month of my last sojourn in the Home Counties.
Obviously, given that I'm posting this, any fleeting thoughts of my beating a hasty retreat from Blogland after the disappointment of the past day and a half have quickly been banished. Ultimately, I'm blogging for my own reasons, so there was no self-evident motivation for giving up, or, indeed, for changing my policy of honesty, much as I might have been tempted to begin airbrushing my image so as to avoid alienating anyone else. The damage has been done, anyway.
So, in the spirit of that adherence to the truth, I'll just say that I was treated, in the first few minutes after leaving home en route to the man line station to begin my journey, to the sight of three - count them - absolutely delicious cuties, two of them assuredly too young, but still lovely to look at. A little recompense for both missing E the other day, and for my next chunk of life away from sunny Cornwall. Things are rarely completely negative, if I'm being honest.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Honesty is the best policy - except when it isn't

I've tried, in my time in Blogland, to be honest. And today, I've reaped the reward of that policy. Rejection. From a direction that has really knocked the stuffing out of me. It's totally my fault, of course. But it still hurts.
I need to think now about where I go, and whether I carry on. I can't take back what I've written, pretend it wasn't true, because that would be dishonest in itself. If I delete everything and never resurface in cyberspace again, there are enough people who know the truth. I guess that's the chance you take when you put yourself out there. Lies hurt, truth hurts. You can't win, it seems.

If you want me not to follow your blog, reply to my comment of today on the blog and tell me, and I'll stay away. Of all the people in cyberspace, you're absolutely the last one I want to upset. I really, really hope you don't think that when I said I cared, I was lying for some nefarious reason. I did, and do care. Very much.

Love & best wishes to all (and to one person in particular)
Sammy B

The end of days

Holidays, that is. Today is my last full free day - I'm not actually working until Sunday, but tomorrow will be arranged around the five hour journey back to Surrey - so I've been spending it, so far, doing very little, in all honesty. I even ended up asleep a couple of hours ago, albeit not for very long, which is pretty unusual for me during the day, certainly on non-working days (I do conk out after an early shift, every now and again). I'm not, at all, looking forward to going back to work, but, frankly, how many people do after a fortnight off? Not many I have dealings with, certainly.
To mark the end of my break, we're going out for a family meal this evening, unless anything unforeseen intervenes in the next couple of hours. It will only be to our local(ish) Tex-Mex diner place, in all probability, but it's something a little out of the ordinary, at least. A bit of escapism, probably somewhat alcohol fuelled in my case, before having to bow to reality and the need to try and keep the financial plates spinning a bit longer.
Thank you very much to Rowan for becoming my latest follower.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Memo to self - again

Read as often as necessary, until it gets through my thick skull.

No-one in Blogland owes you anything.

Any pageviews, and even more, comments you get are a privilege, not a right.

I apologise, unreservedly, for my self-centred nonsense. I wish I could promise it won't happen again, but I strongly suspect it will.
Oh, and by the way - remember that just because someone is important to you, it doesn't follow that you have any standing with them.

Love & best wishes to all

Sammy B

Not required on voyage

The voyage of life. I'm surplus to everyone's requirements, it seems - even mine. Yeah, I know self-pity is thoroughly unedifying. I wrote the fucking book.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Resonance

I read a very sad story earlier today. About an elderly man returning to his home village for the funeral of his closest childhood friend, but a friend who he would have chosen to be his life partner, too. He finds out, through a letter written by his friend shortly before he died, that the friend felt the same way about him. They were driven apart by their own expectations of what the other would think about the truth, and by the prejudices of the people around them. The time of their separation in the story was the 1960's, but would it be that much different today? If two teenage boys had strong feelings for each other, would they have the confidence to allow those feelings out into the open, even between themselves alone, never mind to the world at large? It could happen, perhaps, more readily than 40 or 50 years ago, but I think it would still take a substantial amount of courage, even now.
I could see parallels in the story to my own history, needless to say, even though there wasn't anyone in my life when I was in my mid-teens that I would expect to discover as a 'lost opportunity' - the only boy I loved at that time was R, and he certainly wasn't interested in reciprocating my feelings, as subsequent events proved - I still feel it would have been almost impossible to express my feelings to anyone at that time, had there been anyone who I might have wanted to express them to.
The last paragraph of the story, with the surviving man putting two coins that had been symbols of their friendship into the grave, made me cry. Rather a lot. For their fictional loss, and maybe for how my life could have been, if I'd had the courage to embrace who I really was.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Totam tibi subdo me

Dulcissime. Would that I could give myself to you completely. I'd do it in a heartbeat. But instead, I'll probably never see you again, still less anything more.

But I still love you, just the same.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

When you're having an unhappy day....

....what you just don't need is bad luck. I've been very jittery today, largely having financial panic attacks, coupled with the impending end of my holiday, with its concomitant return to exile. Not a happy combination. Then, less than half an hour ago, a movement outside our front window caught my eye. I saw the top of a head of blond hair moving left to right, from the direction of next door, Someone delivering one of the selection of free papers we're regaled with here during the course of the week. I went to the window, but by that time the deliverer had moved onto the next house again, and I just saw his t-shirted and jeaned back walking down the drive, and then round the corner and out of sight. Two minutes later, my daughter came in, later than usual after choir practise at school, all excited, and asking whether we'd just had a paper delivered. Yes, we have. That was E delivering our paper. Who's E, you might ask. My daughter's former primary school classmate, who caused me to almost crash my car last summer by his sheer gorgeousness. We've got the most beautiful paper boy in the bloody town, and I missed seeing him. Aarrgghh doesn't even begin to cover it.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Tragedy

Tragedy. It's a word that's used a lot, often inappropriately, melodramatising a relatively mundane situation. Sometimes, though, you see things that are genuinely tragic. I've been watching a documentary about Carl Orff, best known as the composer of Carmina Burana, but one of the elements of his work that I didn't know about was his contribution to education through music. One of the contexts his work is used in, according to the programme, is special needs education, and there was quite a long segment about its use with a group of children with cerebral palsy in this country. One of the children was a pretty little boy with huge, beautiful eyes, but the knowledge that he could, through a mere accident of birth, never live a normal life upset me greatly. A tragedy. And nothing less.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Rambling on

I'm in one of those 'I want to write, but don't know what to write about' sort of moods. I think I'll just sit here and type, and meander, and see where I end up.
I've tripped over a couple of things in the past few days which have deepened my already considerable contempt for religion, and fundamentalist Christianity in particular. I've found, on a couple of blogs, the story of the 'Hell House', a theatrical production where American children are literally terrified into 'declaring for Jesus' by graphic depictions of death and damnation. If the only way the churches can recruit their next generation of dupes is by psychological child abuse, then, in my opinion, they should be outlawed altogether. Can you imagine the outcry if an atheist organisation used these kind of tactics? They'd be sued until the pips squeaked. And then today, I read the story of a same-sex couple who were beaten up, outside a church where they were attempting to attend a service, at the instigation of the pastor - who was the father of one of the young men concerned. God loves everyone - or not, as the case may be. God, of course, as a non-existent mythological character, had nothing to do with it - it was purely a case of deeply unpleasant and bigoted people, hiding, or trying to hide, behind their disreputable, hate-filled excuse for a religion.
Why, ultimately, do people see the need for religion in this day and age, in any case? To some extent, I can understand the need in primitive societies, where the causes of natural phenomena were unknown, but now that most of those phenomena have been proven to have perfectly rational, scientific explanations, and the remainder, I'm sure, will follow when appropriate research is carried out, why would people want to infantilise themselves and the universe around them by ignoring that scientific evidence and saying 'God did it'? Even more subjective elements of the world, like ethics, don't need religion to inform them, as far as I can see - what's wrong with just being altruistic, and doing the right thing towards other people for their own sake? We know what we need for our 'pursuit of happiness', so why not act in a way that allows other people to pursue their happiness, too?  To paraphrase Douglas Adams, 'Wouldn't it be great to be nice to people for a change?'. Nice to everyone, not just to those who fit the narrow criteria of whichever 'in-group' consider themselves to be more important than the others. Even if the fundies are right, what is more unpleasantly self-centred and dismissive than saying 'we will be saved, and you will be damned'? Where's the 'Christian charity' in that?
It's all physics, ultimately. Even the most bigoted thought in the most anti-scientific brain is the child of interactions at the atomic and subatomic level. Ironic, or what?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Synergy

I've commented before about how isolated my situation can make me feel. I know I'm far from being the only boylover in the world, but we're not exactly inclined to advertise our proclivities publicly, and so the possibilities for mutual support are limited. Something that's happened recently, though, has come like a handclasp through the ether, as well as giving me a feeling of doing something worthwhile, for once.
I've had a couple of communications from someone whose situation, while somewhat different, has parallels with mine. He told me that he was helped and encouraged by reading my blog, which in turn has helped me, in feeling that I've done something substantive for someone, even if he's in another country, and I only 'know' him as an initial. In the desert I inhabit as a closeted boylover, even something as nebulous as this is a welcome oasis.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The resurgence of Autumn

I've just been out for a short walk to our local pharmacy (up a bloody hill, this is Cornwall, after all! - at least it was downhill on the way back) to pick up my heart meds prescription, and it seems our rather lovely little Indian summer of the past 4 or 5 days is on the way out. The clouds have rolled in, and it's a good 10° C cooler than it was even two or three hours ago. Today was forecast to be the last warm day, anyway, but it would have been nice if we could at least have got to the end of daylight hours before the weather gave up on us. Oh well, only another five or six months until it starts picking up again.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Thoughtcrime?

The concept of 'thoughtcrime' is one of the many legacies of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, the idea that one is as guilty of a crime by merely thinking about it as by committing it. In the story, thoughtcrime was used by a self-sustaining oligarchy to maintain their position of power, by suppressing any possibility of political opposition, but it seems to me that it could be, and, indeed, is used in a nominally 'liberal democratic' society, such as those that those of us in 'the west' supposedly inhabit, to suppress or vilify those who hold opinions, or espouse lifestyles that the so-called 'majority' disapprove of. This isn't done, at least overtly, by the apparatus of surveillance and propaganda in force in the fictional scenario, with the implicit threat of torture and death to enforce conformity, it's somewhat more subtle than that, through opinions reinforced by way of the popular press and other media, portraying certain individuals and groups in terms of simplistic stereotypes, which can then be used to demonise such 'disapproved-of' elements.
Needless to say, my perspective as far as this discussion is concerned comes from my self-confessed status as a boylover - a hebephile, if you prefer a more 'academic' label, not a paedophile, either in the correct definitive sense of being exclusively attracted to prepubescents, or in the pejorative, tabloid press (mis)usage of the word - I prefer boylover, so without apology, that's the word I'm going to continue to use. My consideration of this topic comes from the reaction to my post of last Friday, where it seemed to me to be suggested that to find a 13 year old boy attractive, even with no intention of acting on that attraction, is 'wrong'. 'Wrong' in what way, and to whom? Is the boy 'violated' in some way by my viewing him as sexually attractive? I've never approached him, never spoken to him even in passing, although he lives within yards of me, so far as I'm aware he has never even been conscious of my looking at him, on the odd, fleeting occasions I've been able to do so. Despite that complete lack of interaction, has he been 'damaged' in some way by my desire? I can't imagine that he has been, but maybe someone has a different take on that. It seems to me that the attitude of 'wrongness' comes not from my actions, but from the disapproval of my very thoughts. As with most arguments, there are degrees of opinion - there are those, probably relatively few in number, but vociferous, who would quite happily ship the likes of me off to indefinite imprisonment, if not death, to 'protect' children from my desires, but even those who don't tend to that kind of extreme still find my attractions hateful. Not my actions, because I don't do anything, but my thoughts, my fantasies, my desires. All of which are merely in my head, a product of my brain. I sometimes use the comparison of someone who might read and enjoy a novel, or perhaps even more so, watch a film with violence and death as plot elements. Does the person reading or viewing such material become a murderer? Should they be locked up to 'protect' society from the potential that they might 'act out' their interests? I can't imagine anyone seriously advocating such a thing. So why the double standard? If I was to rape a boy (or anyone else), I could justifiably be called evil. I object to being thought of as evil when I haven't done, and wouldn't do, any such thing.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Normal service resumed

Back to our customary ménage à trois, with the departure of my daughter's exchange partner this morning. It meant an early start for us all, because she had to be at the coach station by 8:00, but we duly delivered her on time, to meet up with the rest of her compatriots and head to London, en route to her northern homeland. She hasn't been an onerous guest, and hopefully she won't have found us onerous hosts. I wouldn't be surprised if my daughter stays in touch with her - reasonably effortless, in these days of e-mail and Facebook - but what might be more significant, on a day to day basis, could be the new friends my daughter has made amongst her schoolmates who have also been involved in the project. One girl in particular, who only lives 4 or 5 miles from us, on the same side of 'the bridge', I can envisage seeing rather more of in the future.
Perhaps I should have said ménage à quatre before, because the next job of the day was to retrieve the queen of the house from her temporary exile - M has a cat allergy, and we have a particularly allergenic cat, so she's been boarded for the past week. My wife and daughter, depressingly, were far more enthusiastic about the cat's return than they ever are when I come back from Surrey. I know my place!
Apart from a shopping trip, much of the rest of my day has been occupied by my writing a little story for 'Cuckoos'. The sort of story 98% of the population would want to see me strung up for, no doubt, but is this the face of a worried man?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Not going out

The best laid plans, and all that. The girls' outing to town overran substantially, so the evening out has been aborted. M doesn't want to go, because she's got to pack and be up early in the morning, so her last night here is now going to be marked by that well-known British tradition, the Chinese takeaway. My daughter, to give her credit, at least looked sheepish when they got back, but M doesn't seem to be that bothered. Teenager mode, no doubt, the delights I'll have to come with my daughter in the next few years. Still, I was no better, thirty-odd years ago, so far be it from me to complain. For that matter, I'm probably not that much better now!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A little taste of Cornwall

It's my daughter's exchange partner's last full day here today, and after the largely school /educational itinerary of earlier in the week, today is a free day, with the host families, or whatever the students decide they wanted to do. Although my daughter doesn't actually go to school in Cornwall, we do live here, so we offered M a chance to see a little bit more of our part of the world, so we've been out and about this morning, enjoying the nice weather. We went to Seaton, a small seaside village with a nice beach that has been a favourite of ours ever since we've lived in this part of the world, before going on to Liskeard, where it turned out to be St.Matthew's Fair weekend, which I'd forgotten about, so there were a few events going on in the town centre, albeit hardly on a massive scale. M also had a chance to try a 'proper' Cornish pasty, too, from a well thought of local bakery, by way of lunch, and seemed to enjoy it. After all, who could come to Cornwall without at least trying our local delicacy! The girls have gone off into 'town' this afternoon, to meet up with some of the other Finnish students and their partners, and do some girly shopping-ish things (no sexism intended here, I hasten to add, just noting what they've got planned), and then we'll go out for a meal this evening as a kind of send-off for M.
At the risk of ruffling feathers again, while I was evading walking on the sand at Seaton earlier, strolling along the pavement at the top of the beach instead, I was treated to a very nice dose of 'eye candy' - a super-cute boy doing back flips off of the low wall, landing on the sand on the seaward side. Lovely and athletic, and without apology, far too nice to not watch, for me, at least.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B