Irritating interlude

Well, to judge by K's Tumblr, the few hours she spent with me were marked only by regret in leaving where she'd just been and anticipation of where she was going next. Hardly surprising, then, that she didn't even want to see me for half an hour earlier when she was passing back through London. Nice to know you're valued.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The ultimate timewaster, revisited

I have, if I'm being honest, spent an inordinate proportion of my life playing computer games of one sort or another, going right back to my good old Sinclair ZX81 thirty or more years ago. If I have to nominate one game, or series of games, on which I've wasted the most time, though, there's just one candidate - the Sports Interactive series of football management simulations, Championship Manager/Football Manager, which I first came across in the early nineties, and of which I was, frankly, an addict for nearly twenty years. Ironically enough, it was my entry into blogging which finally dragged me away from the 'virtual dugout', if not exactly into more productive pastimes. After a three year hiatus from the game, though, I've bought the latest version, released yesterday, this afternoon, despite the fact that I can as already see much more of my diminishing stock of days disappearing as a result! Addiction is a terrible thing!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Been and gone

Well, I had my day and a half with K, and now she's off at her next port of call. It was, of course, lovely to see her, but there was a distinct feeling of 'out of sight, out of mind', in that she was supposed to text and let me know she'd arrived, but didn't bother until I prompted her, several hours after the event. She 'forgot', allegedly - yes, I know she's a teenager, and I'm a boring old fart, but, as I told her, it does reassure me if I know she's safe and sound. The joys of parenthood, part whatever.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Frustration, but awesomeness, too

One of those decidedly mixed days. I went to bed last night, along, no doubt with millions of others, wondering whether the meteorological Armageddon we'd been promised (threatened with?) for days was actually going to come to pass, only to wake up this morning with little to show for the apocalyptic prognostications - except that the train service in most of South East England was non-existent. There were various trees on the line and other damage, but I have little doubt that most of the reluctance to commit to running a service until everything imaginable had been checked and rechecked to a ludicrous degree was down to fear of ambulance-chasing lawyers, had an incident ensued.
My journey to town was circuitous, to say the least - I had to catch a slow and not very comfortable, albeit punctual, local bus to get myself into the Oystercard zone, but K's situation was worse. There were no trains at all from her friend's local station until teatime, so I still haven't met up with her, although that should be remedied in just over an hour, given a fair - or preferably no! - wind. My meanderings around London weren't entirely without bonuses, though - the start of half term, 'hurricanes' notwithstanding, seem to have brought the cuties out in droves, especially, it seems, blond guys. I think I've fallen in love - or lust! - about a dozen times today! I hope the rest of the week is as visually rewarding!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Another 'London local' experience

I'll be heading back to base pretty soon, after another afternoon/evening of fairly limited meandering and plenty of time in the pub. There are occasions when I feel, if not guilty, then at least concerned about my propensity to drink more than is realistically good for me, but, on the whole, including now, I really don't care that much. If I'm going to die, and I surely will, I'd rather die of something I enjoy.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

En passant

Well, I spent the princely total of an hour and a half with my daughter this afternoon, between meeting her at Paddington at 3:30 and dropping her off, and into the company of one of her cyberfriends, at a small station on the Hertfordshire/Cambridgeshire border at 5:00. I only went to her friend's local station because she hadn't previously met him in person, and just about the only rule my ex and I have ever insisted on as regards K's 'cyberlife' is that she shouldn't meet anyone in real life for the first time that she's only met online unless someone else is with her, preferably one of us. It all went smoothly, the young man (he's a year older than K) was who he purported to be, and was expecting me to be with K, as they'd discussed it in advance. My girl was quite happy with the arrangements, too - she's sensible enough to want to be careful of her own safety, which, ultimately, is what the exercise was about. I will see some more of her after the weekend - she's coming back to London on Sunday evening to meet up with me when I finish work, and staying with me until Tuesday, before going on to get together with some more friends, who she has met a number of times before, later in the week. Crumbs from her table, a little, for me, but I'll take what I can get for the moment. Because there's still a chance, maybe even more than a 50/50 chance, that she'll be living with me by this time next year. I certainly hope so.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Cutie hunting

Only in a visual sense, I hasten to add, and, in that sense, rather successful, given that I was only engaged in the pursuit for a couple of hours. There were a goodly number of boys, almost all with family groups, needless to say, out and about in town as I meandered after an earlier than expected finish at work, and there were quite a few who were genuinely scrummy. The one who really caught my eye, though, was spotted walking past where I am now, Wetherspoons in 'stereotypical suburb', when I first got here around half an hour ago. The face was different (and not remotely as beautiful, although far from difficult to look at), but everything else, his height and build, his hair, and, most of all, his delightful grace of movement, was so reminiscent of DBJ three or four years ago. Never 'my' boy, of course, but still the ultimate, as far as I'm concerned.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Truism

I saw this in a comment on a blog post just now, described as a truism - 'to create an atheist requires a religious education'. As I've doubtless said before, that's certainly the case with me - I was exposed, in my formative years, to far more religion than the great majority of my peers, by dint of being a church chorister for five years, and, without wishing to sound conceited, being bright enough to actually think about what I was listening to twice each Sunday. Those thoughts led me, by the time my voice broke, at around 14, and I left singing behind me, to conclude that religious belief was a pile of irrational nonsense. Almost 40 years on, that conclusion still holds for me.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Downtime, or wasted time?

It could probably be convincingly argued that I've largely wasted my day off today - it was raining, again, early on, which didn't exactly inspire me to rush around getting ready to go anywhere, but I did finally get showered and so forth, before heading off to the hospital for yet another rat poison blood test, the only substantive thing that's happened so far today. After an hour of waiting around for the test, I came straight back to 'domicile-ville', and, more or less, straight to the pub, where I've been ever since. I'll be back to work in the morning, so I won't be here for too much longer - and my Kindle will run out of battery life in the fairly near future, too - so after a bit of shopping, it will be back to base again. 'Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death', as Mr Waters observed many moons (dark sides and all!) ago. The upside, though, is that I am, at least, relatively chilled, something unlikely to change too much, especially in the wake of the couple more pints I'm likely to imbibe before I leave here. I guess I could've done something more worthy, but downtime is sometimes its own reward.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Christmas for two in the big city

I was going to say 'in Surrey' until I realised that there was a loose end or two - while Christmas dinner will be in Surrey, geographically, at least, the accommodation, because it's the other side of the Thames, is in what used to be Middlesex, and as Middlesex hasn't had a formal existence since 1965, it's simply less complicated to cut through the rather pedantic nomenclature and just say 'London'! Anyway, before I get ridiculously bogged down, the upshot of this evening is that K is going to come up for Christmas, we're going to stay in a Thames-side hotel, albeit of the generic 'Lodge' type, and have Christmas dinner in my 'London local'. My girl finally committed herself to a decision - not the easiest thing to wring from her! - when I spoke to her at teatime, and I had everything booked and confirmed within the hour. I spoke to my ex as well. albeit a little later, and explained the arrangements. She got rather upset - sad upset, rather than angry upset - unfortunately, even though she knew what was in the offing, which wasn't my intention in the slightest, because, as I told her, I still care a great deal about her, but, ultimately, it was K's decision, and not one I'd put any pressure on her to make in my 'favour', as it were. If anything, I'd been trying to nudge her in her mother's direction, given my greater self-sufficiency, or insularity, or whatever you want to call it, but I have to admit I'm pleased with the way things have panned out. but not at all in any sense involving schadenfreude. Of course, there are things that could happen in the interim that could shoot it all down in flames anyway, particularly things with a Mancunian slant, but, given a fair wind, Christmas is certainly something I'm now looking forward to.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Nothing

Four weeks, almost to the minute, since I received the text message which looked, on first impressions, as though it signalled the collapse of what little remains of my life. But....nothing. I still have no idea what, if anything, is going to happen. I'd like to be able to relax, to go back to living normally, or what passes for normal in my situation, but that, I suspect, would be tempting fate a little too much. If his intention was to have me living on tenterhooks, he's succeeded, in spades.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Discharge, and a collateral benefit of a strike

I had a follow-up appointment with the thoracic consultant at my local hospital this morning, and, after a chest X-Ray and a chat with the doctor, I've been discharged, the official 'end' of my pneumonia and its after-affects, I guess. I'm going to be referred back to the cardiology people, though, largely because the chest doctor thinks I should stay on the rat poison because of my ongoing heart condition. Not if I can help it, I can assure you! Part two of today's medical thrills and spills came an hour or so ago, when I went to my GP's for a flu vaccination, which even I, with my reluctance to engage with health matters, think is a good idea, after the dramas of May and June. The absolute last thing I want is to run any risk of ending up in hospital again.
Much of England has been affected by a teachers' strike today - K has had a buckshee day off - including 'domicile-ville' and surrounding areas. The benefit, from my point of view, is that there have been more than a few cuties out and about, given that it's a reasonably nice day. There was one in particular, as I walked down to Wetherspoons a while ago, 14-ish (yes, I know that's still under the UK age of consent, but it wouldn't be in numerous other places), who I would quite happily have sold my (non-existent) soul for. And I don't think I was alone - a girl of around the same age with his group of friends appeared to be thinking along very similar lines, the way she was looking at him!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Missing muse, is that you?

I've been suffering from what I described in conversation at the weekend as a 'Xander hangover', my seeming inability to write anything fictional, or, really, anything much at all since I finished Alexandrine almost six months ago. This morning, though, not only did I set out on a new story (and yes, I'm well aware that I've made these claims before and got nowhere near a completed product), but I also experienced something that hasn't happened for perhaps two years, a plot coming into my mind more or less fully formed, needing only the right words in the right order to hang onto the already existing substructure. I know the beginning, middle and end already, all I've got to do is to commit it to the screen in a coherent way. Fingers crossed!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A good day, thanks to a good friend

I had a long day out yesterday, but not meandering on my own around London as I'd anticipated. I received a text on Saturday evening from a friend I've neglected shamefully in recent months, asking if I was free yesterday and suggesting that we meet up. That, indeed, was what happened, in his home town, and it proved to be a thoroughly good afternoon of food, drink and conversation, even if some of the conversation was rather self-centred on my part, wrapped up as I still am, to a considerable degree, in my recent issues. I don't know what I've done to deserve such a degree of empathy and understanding, but I'm nonetheless wholeheartedly grateful.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Who knows what I was expecting?

But, predictably, I achieved nothing. I've been thinking, over the past couple of days, about whether I could possibly try to get involved in any sort of gay 'social scene' stuff, and had done a little bit of online research to that end. Having walked past a couple of apparently well-known gay bars in town at lunchtime - lunchtime, when they were almost empty! - and still not been able to rustle up the courage to go in, I think the answer to my rhetorical question is a resounding 'no'. It's like the gay group that meets, in seemingly very informal circumstances, in 'domicile-ville' once a month, barely fifteen minutes walk from where I live - I thought about trying that well over a year ago, but the idea of just walking in is terrifying in itself, never mind anything close to an exposition of the realities. I can just imagine how an 'introduce yourself' conversation that went along the lines of 'I've known I was gay since I was 12, but I've never fancied a man in my life' would go down. It's another of those irreconcilable dichotomies in my life - if I don't make the effort, I'm never going to meet anyone, even on a 'friends' level, but if I do put myself 'out there', I'm either going to have to lie, or hide, and I've done quite enough of that in my life, or expect bucketloads of opprobrium to rain down on me. The phrase 'no-win situation', at the risk of being accused of self-pity, seems to have been written with my life in mind.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Out is better than in, even in the rain

Into my second day off of four, and in the big city again (actually, in almost stereotypically suburban Suburbia at the moment). The weather, since late morning, has been vile, cold, wet and windy, a harbinger of the coming winter, no doubt, but, in current circumstances, I'd rather be out and about, even on a day like this, than contemplating my navel in my room. And, of course, it doesn't rain in the pub!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Reasons to be (slightly more) cheerful

I've just been speaking to K, and I certainly feel a little better than I did before the phone call. She's had a couple of A grades in important pre-exam tests, including her English Language mock, and she's also e-mailed the college she would most like to attend if she does move up here next summer, in a very preliminary way, although she hasn't had a reply yet (her e-mail was only sent yesterday, so there's no panic). We also talked about a plan which has gelled in my mind in the past couple of hours, and which certainly seems to be doable, namely for her to come up for Christmas, and for us to eat and drink exactly where I am now - in my 'London local'. There are rooms available in a 'lodge' style hotel ten minutes walk away, at an affordable price, and places still free for Christmas Day lunch here. The only thing I wouldn't want, though, is for my ex to be left on her own as a result, so I've asked K to have a chat with her mum before we get any further into the planning stage. If I'm being honest, though, I'd love to spend the festive season with my girl. We'll have to see how it pans out.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Losing the will

An hour, ninety minutes ago, there was a serious rant writing itself in my head. Nearly all of it was self-pity, if I'm being honest, but at least there was some fight in me, some impetus to kick back against the world, those who would deny me any prospect of love and affection, of the kind that I feel is right for me. But, after an hour of sitting in traffic queues on the top deck of a London bus, all of that spirit has evaporated, the hopelessness and helplessness of my situation seems overwhelming once more. It's like being buried alive, with just enough air left to exist, but not enough to live. People often talk about 'the benefit of hindsight', but if I'd known, on the sunny Spring day in 1972 when I first remember myself being entranced by a beautiful boy, even though I didn't fully understand then what that entrancement meant, if I'd known how my life was going to be, I'd have gone straight home and slashed my wrists there and then.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Panic

I'm not sure how long I can carry on like this, succumbing to hammer bangs of panic in my head almost every time I'm insufficiently distracted by my doings. Maybe nothing will happen, but he could do what he threatened to do, to destroy my life, if he chose to. And it's the not knowing, not being able to say whether it's going to be nothing or everything, that's left me in this nightmarish morass of, frankly, fear. There's no-one to blame but myself for being in this situation, but it was a much younger, much more immature self that made those mistakes. No excuse, but simply an explanation - I was 20, 21, going on about 11. I couldn't cope with who I was, as he rightly said the other week, and he was caught in the crossfire. I just wanted someone to love me back, but I was asking something of him that he wasn't able to give. Would that I could reach back and change the past, but that's obviously impossible. And so my life is in his hands. The hands of someone who now hates me.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Nice to find a post....

....that you agree with unreservedly!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

This will probably get my blog nuked, but....

....I think it makes an important point.

Love & best wishes to all

Sammy B

Things

A year, fifteen months ago, there was quite a lot of discussion between my ex and I about what, if anything, I was going to take of the contents of our former family home. In the event, I took very little, losing, give or take, 95% of everything I owned, most notably hundreds and hundreds of books. I wasn't overly concerned at the time, and I'm not now, except in so far as K has been deprived of what could have been a pretty substantial library, but there are a few things I regret having left behind - my DVD of Another Country, all of my virtually complete set of Nabokov's novels, and my prize for having been a series winner on a TV quiz programme, well-known and popular in its time, amongst the most significant. I salvaged a few things, though, including the item that started this train of thought, a crystal wine glass, currently containing some Australian Chardonnay which was on special offer when I went shopping this afternoon, and which was originally one of a set of six given to us as an engagement present, although only two were left by the time of the split - symbolically, I guess, I took one and left one for my ex, even though she virtually never drinks wine and never has. It's a nice thing, not wildly expensive - I could probably find a replacement for a few pounds if I ever happen to break it - but it is, as they say, of 'sentimental value'. Ultimately, though, it's the 'people things' that are the greatest loss, far outweighing any material possessions, twenty-odd years of loving and caring, laughter and tears, sharing my life with another. When, as I was thinking on the way back from work earlier, I've lost my best friend, too, it's all pretty bleak. The greatest loss in that case is trust - we've always been there for each other, even if only at the end of a telephone - but, even if he got in touch and made peace overtures, something I've absolutely no expectation will actually happen, that bond, the sense of having someone who knows you will listen if they want to talk, and vice versa, is, in the wake of things that were said, and later texted, over that Mancunian weekend, gone forever. The love, despite everything, is still there on my part, but that doesn't change anything. All gone, smashed to pieces. Like most of my life.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

I'd say you had the manners of a pig....

....but, sadly, you haven't. I had a disagreement, ages ago, and not even a particularly serious one, with one of the bar staff in my 'London local', and, ever since, she's gone out of her way to be offensively rude every time I've had the misfortune to be served by her. Without wishing to sound like 'Outraged of Tunbridge Wells', don't these people realise who's paying their wages?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Max-ed out

I did almost nothing yesterday - I was rostered a one-off night shift, which didn't start until 11:30, and simply couldn't be bothered to get ready to go anywhere during the day. This wasn't, entirely, a good move, and underlined the reasons why I've spent as little time as possible at 'base' in the past couple of weeks, because I spent far too much of the day brooding about 'worst-case scenarios', stressing myself out to the extent that my heart meds could barely keep my arrhythmia under control. I haven't made the same mistake today, though - I left work at 7:30 this morning, and I've been meandering since then, until I fetched up in my 'London local' about 45 minutes ago. And there have been some collateral benefits, most notably the eponymous Max - a bloody good name for a sheepdog, in my opinion, rather than for the cutest boy I've seen for a week or three! - who I saw not more than about 20 minutes after I'd left work, thought I'd seen the last of when he and his mother got off of the bus at its terminus, but who then miraculously reappeared on my next bus, as they got on at the stop after me, and ended up sitting immediately behind me, hence my getting to know his name. He was in the 'strictly eye candy' category - he was 11, give or take - but he certainly brightened my morning. So, the plan now is for a moderate amount of Staropramen, and then back to 'domicile-ville' for an early night - I'm back on earlies in the morning, for my sins. Another chapter in the 35 year endurance test called shift work. Such fun!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Prescience

Over the past couple of days, I've been re-reading, for the umpteenth time, The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, having found an online version I could read on my Kindle. It's been one of my favourite books since I heard a serialisation of it on the radio when I was 11, and certainly since I first read a copy I filched from the English storeroom at school at 14 (I always meant to put the book back after I'd read it, but it somehow never happened, and I kept the copy until it finally disintegrated, about 20 years later!), but I've always looked at it as a science fiction take on a post-apocalyptic world. This latest re-reading, though, has made me think about another layer of meaning in the story, namely the portrayal, and, it seems to me, condemnation by the author, of the ills of a society dominated by religious fundamentalism, patriarchy and outright theocracy. The sort of society that some, particularly in the US and some Islamic countries, seem to consider to be some sort of paragon. And worthy of being imposed on everyone else, by military force, if necessary.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A little evidence....

....towards the premise that I suspect most people who read my blog would find extremely doubtful, namely that I do actually have a sense of humour. I was literally in tears after reading this. K liked it, too - she's not her father's daughter for nothing.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Good news, bad news and no news

In no particular order - I went for a follow-up to my 'return to work' medical this morning, and the bad news is that I'm still deemed to be fit to do my job. FML! The 'no news' is on the Mancunian front - nothing has happened, for good or ill, so I'm still in the 'netherworld' I was talking about the other day. And the good news is, as I heard on the radio last night, that King Crimson are reforming - with yet another new lineup, surprise, surprise! - and may even be playing live in 2014. I can barely imagine a musical event, short of the miraculous resurrection of Syd Barrett, that I would be keener to attend. Knowing my luck, they'll undertake an extensive tour of Outer Mongolia - but, hey, what better reason to visit Outer Mongolia!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Angry

I haven't woken up this morning feeling much better disposed towards the world than I did yesterday. Maybe the only slight improvement is that I realise that I can't just lash out randomly and hurt innocent bystanders, which I might have done 12 or 14 hours ago, but the combination of the stress I'm under and the frustrations of my life, long and short term, has given rise to a pretty volatile mixture. Maybe what's left of my moral sense, and a fear of consequences, might keep the few shreds of my self-control that are left together. But maybe it won't.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Barbarism

If I got my hands on the father of this poor little darling screaming under religiously motivated torture, I'd cheerfully cut off his genitalia and shove it down his worthless throat.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Fool

Why have I spent so many years being so bloody stupid? No-one is ever going to accept that I'm anything other than a paedophile, so why carry on with the pointless exercise of morality? I might just as well please myself, find myself a boy, by fair means or foul, and get what I want, because I won't be judged any more harshly than I already am. If I'm going down in flames in any case, what difference will it make? I've wasted my whole fucking life trying to do the 'right' thing, and for what? To be rejected, hated, found worthless. Everyone has a threshold of tolerance. I think I've reached mine.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Stasis

I don't seem to have much to say at the moment, and I don't seem to have any more impulsion to action. Not for the first time, I'm going through the motions, going to work, coming back, going for another blood test at the hospital this afternoon, reading one of my draft stories last night, purporting, to myself at least, that I might get back into it again, pretending to be part of the human race, but feeling, deep down, that I'm going to fall into the abyss that opened up in front of me in that Manchester pub ten days or so ago. J still jumps into my mind on an all too regular basis - not in any salacious way, but simply in the sense of reliving those few short hours, that little oasis of delight that he represented, before the darkness that is the 'real' me, at least potentially, swallowed all the light he'd engendered, and left me in this - this what? I was going to say 'limbo', but that suggests that there might be a definite way out, be it good or bad. This is more like a quicksand of 'Never', inescapable, implacably dragging me down. No-one's fault but mine, of course. But still so difficult to deal with.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B