Too much

A rather shorter than usual foray into town today - I'm back in 'domicile-ville', and it's not even dark yet. But, wow, the place was awash with cuties! They were all eclipsed in a moment, though, as I walked through Covent Garden, by the most amazingly, mind-meltingly, heartbreakingly beautiful boy I've seen in....well, possibly ever. He was too young - 9 or 10, at a guess - for anything other than looking at, but, oh, I could've looked for hours rather than the handful of seconds the convergence of our paths allowed. Far too much, really, for a mere boylover to cope with!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The power of fiction, yet again

I've been literally shaking for the past ten minutes, after beginning to read the latest chapter of an online story I've been following, only to find one of the main characters being killed off in a particularly nasty and unexpected way (accident rather than malice). I've thought, almost from the first, that this particular story had a 'heart of darkness', but I was expecting something else entirely. My first reaction, after immediately closing the tab I was reading the story in, was anger at the author, then distress at the character's fate. Now I've had time to think about it a little more rationally, though, I guess it's no different to what I did when I wrote Valediction more than three years ago, and which badly upset at least one of my readers. Rather than being angry, I guess I should admire the author's ability to affect his readers' emotions in such a visceral way. I won't be reading the rest of the story, though.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Dinosaurs, brown eyes and assumptions

As dusk fell this afternoon, I was on a bus in a fairly upmarket area of West London, heading, as it turned out (it wasn't Plan A), for my 'London local'. A few stops after I'd boarded, the pair of seats in front of me were occupied by a youngish woman and a boy of 6 or 7. They may have been blood-related, but there wasn't a family resemblance, and she had what sounded like an Eastern European accent, so she may have been a nanny rather than a parent, especially given the affluent nature of the locality. He was rather cute, with reddish-brown curly hair, and, as I noticed as he turned around and knelt on his seat to play with the toys he had in hand, Triceratops and T-Rex models, big, lovely mid-brown eyes. I looked his way a few times as he played, benignly, I hoped, and he looked back, maybe wanting to interact in some way. But, of course, I didn't, afraid of what his carer might think if I'd spoken to him, assuming that she would think the worst. But maybe that, in itself, was an assumption, perhaps she might, given the totally public environment, have decided that it would have been perfectly safe for me to have talked to him about dinosaurs, or whatever. As I've said before, the paranoia engendered by the 'stranger danger' meme sometimes works both ways.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Meme

I've never really had much time for the 'meme' phenomenon, maybe because I don't find myself all that interesting, maybe because I don't want to inadvertently give too much away about my 'real' self, maybe both. The idea, though, found here, via here. of a meme about blogging itself has caught my interest. So, using the questions from the original, here goes:

What you like most about being a blogger?

Connecting with people who I wouldn't ever have met, aside from infinitesimal chance, in any other way, while having the opportunity to say what I think about issues of personal interest that would be, to say the least, difficult in my everyday life.

How many bloggers have you met?

Two. Both of whom I'm honoured to be able to call friends. Actually, I should probably say three, because my daughter has a Tumblr, and she, of course, is the most important person of all in what remains of my life.

Do you ever go back and read your old entries?

Fairly often, certainly in the case of my fiction blog, somewhat less so in this main, journal blog. Masturbatory as it may seem, I actually like reading some of my own stories, particularly the magnum opus (so far) that I wrote earlier this year.

Do you share your job skills here?

No - I try to keep my cyberlife and my 'real' life as separate as possible.

Have you changed your views about anything thanks to blogging?

I don't think any fundamentals have changed, but there are probably some issues I feel more strongly about now than I did three and a half years ago when I started. Perhaps the post I wrote earlier today might be illustrative.

Do your coworkers know about your blog?

It would, frankly, be a disaster if any of my colleagues read my blog, given its principal subject matter. I move in horribly homophobic circles at work, and that's before we even get started on the boylove side of things. If my 'wall of pseudonymity' was ever to be breached, I think my career would be over immediately.

What advice would you give for successful blogging?

Be yourself, and if you don't enjoy it, don't do it.

What is your opinion of aardvarks?

They successfully occupy their ecological niche, and should be able to continue to do so without interference from invasive, parasitical species - such as Homo sapiens.

Do you publish everything you write ?

In the main blog, more or less everything - I've only ever deleted one post after publication, after finding I was completely wrong in what I'd written, and have only deleted a very small number, probably in single figures, at the draft stage. The fiction blog is a completely different scenario, though - I have literally dozens of stories at various (usually early) stages of incompleteness, most of which will probably never see the light of day.

If you could make ‘three rules’ for blogging, what would they be?

1) Tell the truth, at least as you see it.

2) If you've got nothing to say, say nothing.

3) If people are kind enough to visit and, particularly, to comment, have the courtesy to acknowledge/reply.

Do people help you write your blog?

My daughter has written one comment, in response to something nice someone said about an artwork of hers I posted, otherwise every word (apart, obviously, from quotes) is 'all my own work'.

Who are your blogger super-heroes?

In the sense of 'role models', no-one - I've always tried to make my blog my own - but in terms of people I've come to care about and wish the best for, there are a number, Mark, Jay, Randy, Tony, Rowan, Lauren, but, most of all, and, doubtless, to the surprise of no-one who's read my blog for any length of time, David.

Final question (if you dare!) :

Have you slept with any of your fellow bloggers?

No. A very unlikely scenario, to say the least.

****

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

I know I've said this before....

....but it keeps happening, and it annoys me intensely every time. I've just heard a news story on the radio about a Welsh rock musician who, according to the report, was convicted yesterday of 'being a paedophile'. No he fucking wasn't, because being a paedophile isn't illegal (although I have little doubt it would be made so if politicians could find a way of getting away with it), any more than thinking about robbing a bank or killing your boss is illegal. What he was convicted of was a result of acting on his sexuality, not its existence. That distinction made seem pedantic to many, but if the line between thoughts and actions is ever removed in a formal, legal way, then Orwell's 'thoughtcrime' based society would be here, with everyone - because who can honestly say that they've never even thought of doing something illegal, or 'immoral' - open to conviction at the whim of politicians and/or political expediency. Some might think it perfectly justified for those like me to be locked up just for who we are and what we think, and might very well vote accordingly, but when they themselves found they were being locked up for thinking of voting for the 'wrong' party, they would have no grounds for complaint, as far as I'm concerned. A cliché, yes, but it would be the beginning of a very slippery slope.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

He's still the one

DBJ, that is - yesterday, one bus stop into my day of wandering around town, I saw a boy, around 11, who was a 60-70% lookalike of my unrequited love, while today, my blog stats page revealed someone had viewed the post from last year where I published a photo of a boy who bore an even closer resemblance to 'the real thing'. I couldn't resist revisiting the post myself, spending, not for the first time, long moments gazing melancholically at the picture. It was never going to be, but I still can't stop myself from wishing that we could, somehow, have been together. Not in this life, I'm afraid.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A bit fragile

I've woken up feeling a bit 'morning-afterish' today, but, for once, not for a bad reason. I spent yesterday evening with my brother, who is up in the London area on a course, and we went out for a meal and, needless to say a few beers. A few too many, evidently, in my case! He's recently set up as a self-employed consultant in his area of expertise, after being made redundant in a 'management reshuffle' at his former company over the past summer, and his new venture seems to have taken off pretty well, with a goodly amount of fairly well-paid work heading his way already, including, ironically, working (albeit indirectly) for my benighted employer - he's off to their national HQ after his course finishes later today, for the rest of this week. Hopefully, the good start to his business will continue and expand, something that seems likely - another contract he's been working on will, in all probability, involve his spending a week in the US early next year, at a rather lucrative daily rate, and with travel and accommodation expenses paid on top. I wish him the best of luck, of course - he and my sister-in-law have helped me a great deal over the last 18 months or so, as my life disintegrated around me, help for which, as they know, I'm extremely grateful.
Well, now that I've had some toast and coffee, I'm feeling rather more human, so I'll be getting ready to head out and about for another day's meandering shortly - trying to avoid too much alcohol!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Darwinian day

Well, actually, the title is rather an exaggeration, but, in the course of my meanderings on what is the first of sixteen days off I'm lucky enough to be embarking upon (using up the leave I couldn't use earlier in the year because of my health issues), I went through Downe, the village where Darwin lived and worked, and past his home, Down House, which is open to the public, albeit not today. The village itself is a bit of an anomaly, if a nice one - it's an almost stereotypical Kentish rural place, with its pub, shop and church, narrowish lanes leading to it, fields and chalkland scenery all around, but it's actually in the London Borough of Bromley, and in the Oystercard zone. Apart from the pleasant surroundings, the village led me to think about Darwin, and his legacy - I can't think of any other individual who has done more to illustrate that the biblical view of the world, its origins and composition, is completely wrong and nonsensical. I'm well aware that there are many who would disagree, but I'm convinced that the scientific evidence is on my side.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The good, and the bad and ugly

Two posts from the same blog, both made yesterday (as it is now), which I read within around ten minutes of each other. The first, which really made me smile (and which K liked a lot, too, when I rang her and pointed her in its direction), the second which immediately deflated my upbeat mood. Christopher Hitchens, who I didn't really know much about until his life was almost over, wrote a book called How Religion Poisons Everything. A difficult premise to argue against, in my opinion.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Antisocial

What a waste of time and money. Half the people, at least, who were supposed to be going didn't turn up, including the only one of my colleagues who I genuinely would like to socialise with, the pub, which I'd been past numerous times, but had never patronised before, wasn't 'my scene', and was expensive, to boot. At least I didn't out myself, largely because I started on the periphery, and then moved even further away from whatever centre there was to the evening, mostly my fault, of course, because I didn't make any more effort to engage with those there than they made to engage with me. It's pretty hard to out yourself when no-one's talking to you, needless to say. There is a 'Christmas do' during my forthcoming time off, with what will probably be a rather different group of people, but whether I'll go is pretty doubtful at the moment. Not, on the whole, the best night out of my life.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Social

I'm doing something this evening, unless unforeseen circumstances intervene, that I haven't done since I've been in my present job - I'm going to a social event with a goodly number of my work colleagues, namely the 'leaving do' for one of our shift managers, who's moved to a 9 to 5 job in a different part of the organisation, albeit still in London. Such outings are few and far between - it's pretty difficult to get shift workers together, almost by definition - and I've missed those that have happened in the past either because I've been working, or because, in my previous life, I've been in Cornwall when they've taken place. Tonight, though, I should finish work at 7:30, all being well, and the event is taking place in a pub outside a station just a couple of stops from 'worktown', so there's no reason for me not to go. Except that, while I haven't had the (ultimately all too justified) premonitions of disaster that preceded my visit to Manchester a few weeks back, there are still a few potential banana skins involved. Mostly in the sense that at least one, and maybe more, of our collection of outspoken bigots will be there, and, given the disinhibitory nature of alcohol, I might just be inclined to bite back at the sort of racist, xenophobic, misogynistic and, especially, homophobic bullshit I spend my working days surrounded by. And outing myself in the process, which could make my subsequent working life more than a little problematic. I'm not going with the intention of 'looking for a fight', even a verbal one, but I've spent so much time over the past three years or so silently seething about the stupid, ignorant and downright antediluvian attitudes of certain of my colleagues, and everyone has their threshold of tolerance. Time will tell whether mine gets breached this evening.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Priorities?

....the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism.

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever.

A couple of news stories I've come across in the past 24 hours seem to me to illustrate both that the priorities of modern society have become ridiculously skewed, and that the day when the Orwellian concept of 'thoughtcrime' (hence the Nineteen Eighty-four quotes) becomes reality has come much, much closer.
First of all, I saw on the front page of a national newspaper yesterday that the prime minister has 'directed' the intelligence services to 'investigate the 'dark net' of paedophiles'. The resources of GCHQ, supposedly one of country's major bastions of national security, are going to be utilised to deliver another 'stamp to the face' of the softest of soft political targets, 'these revolting people' as Cameron was quoted as saying. It's just cheap, cynical political point scoring, something the 'sheeple' can look at and be conned into thinking what a wonderful job the putrid collection of self-serving twats masquerading as our government are doing. But what the vast majority of the public won't have the wit to understand, of course, is that it's the thin end of a very large wedge - if 'filthy paedos' can be spied on, so can everyone else. And who sets the criteria for what's 'acceptable' to think or speak about? Those same self-serving politicians.
And then this morning, Northern Ireland's attorney general has suggested that there should be no further prosecutions, or even investigations, into killings related to 'The Troubles' in the province. If a senior law officer had suggested that a similar amnesty be invoked for 'historic sex offences', there would, with no doubt at all, be howls from all sides for him to be sacked, if not lynched. But for suggesting that many, many individuals should literally 'get away with murder'? All in a day's work, seemingly. Just when I think my contempt for politicians can't be any deeper, they prove me wrong.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Oh no, she's really done it this time!

My daughter, that is. She's acquired a new boyfriend - and he's very cute! And, at 16, he's even legal! Nightmare!!

2320 edit: And just having had a little look at his Tumblr (via K's), he might be bi as well! NIGHTMARE!!!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

10, 15, 17

10 - The average age, at a guess, of the boys who caught my attention while I was out and about yesterday. Even I think I should be (in)humanely destroyed.

15 - The age of consent our wonderful government won't even consider, because the current age of 16 'protects children'. How many 15 year old 'children' do you know?

17 - Happy birthday, David. I hope the place you're in now is working well for you. ((Hugs))

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Pros and cons

It's sometimes said that history is a cyclical process, and it seems that the 'history' of my blog falls into that category, in the sense that I periodically arrive at the point where I am now. Wondering whether to carry on, or not, whether the advantages of writing about my thoughts and feelings, of trying to get stuff out of my system, are outweighed by the disadvantages of, at best, brooding about my situation, or, at worst, wallowing in self-pity. The fact that I find myself, more often than not, writing about variations on the same theme, my attraction to boys and society's reaction to the subject, serves only to underline, in my eyes, the futility of the exercise. It doesn't change anything in my 'real life', I'm still alone, with no realistic prospect of any movement on that front, and even if I did, by some miracle, find a young person willing to engage with me, I'd still be forever looking over my shoulder, waiting for society's judgement and vengeance to fall. Maybe the impending end of my night shift week, with its relentless work-travel-sleep-eat-travel-work cycle, might allow my horizons to broaden a little, renew my impetus to write, but, then again, maybe it won't. Whither goest thou, Quinquagenarian? Very much an open question at the moment.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A place I don't want to go to

I'm on nights this week, a scenario which brings most of the rest of my life to a halt - by the time I've got back from work in the morning and had anything resembling a sufficient amount of sleep, it's pretty much time to start getting ready to go back out to work again. About the only other thing I seem to have time to do is to think. And those thoughts, at the moment, are sending me in a direction that has, maybe, been there all along, but about which I've long been in denial.
Before I first saw DBJ, in 2006, had anyone asked, and assuming I'd been in the mood to be truthful, I'd have said that my primary attraction was towards boys in their early teens, maybe 13 or 14. After that encounter, series of encounters, with the person I still consider to be the most beautiful boy I've ever seen, that 'age of attraction' probably went down by a year or two, and I found myself being drawn towards the earliest stages of pubescence, towards boys around 12, maybe 13. Of late, though, I've found that those most readily catching my eye are younger still, and that's where the title of this post kicks in. Because when you're looking at those who, by any reasonable definition, aren't pubescent at all, there's only really one valid conclusion. That word, the one I hate more than any other, really does apply to me. Paedophile. However much I try to convince myself I'd never act without informed consent, which boys of that age are never going to be equipped to give, the fact that the attraction is there at all is bad enough. And what's worse is that I've really got no idea how I would react if an opportunity arose. I can tell myself, and the world, whatever I like, but the fact remains that I can't give any guarantees that would mean anything at all in the face of temptation. All I can do is to hope that the fear of consequences, if nothing else, would be enough. Hope. All I have left. It's not much to rely on.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Anniversaries

Today is my cousin's birthday. In the aftermath of the meltdown of our relationship six weeks ago, his first birthday in 32 years that I haven't considered him as my best friend. Tomorrow is the 22nd anniversary of the day I met my ex, and the first of our 'alternative anniversaries', as I used to call them, since our divorce was finalised. When the foundations of your life, in however self-inflicted a way, are pulled from beneath you, it does make you wonder why you carry on at all. It's a question I've been asking myself for more than a year and a half now. I still haven't found an answer. And, to judge by the contents of today's post, the financial vultures are beginning to circle again. The futility of it all is beginning to tell once more.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Saturday afternoon in West London

Here I am, in the pub, just for a change, a few miles from the hotel I've booked for tonight, thoroughly not looking forward to going back to work in the morning, and basically just killing time before I head for an early night. There has been a bit of eye candy, until literally a couple of minutes ago, two cuties who were part of a family lunch party - it seems to be one of their number's birthday - but they've just left. Unless anything unforeseen happens in the next couple of hours, it will simply be a case of a few more beers, maybe something to eat, and then look for a bus to the hotel. A bit of a wasted day, really.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sod the public

Two examples this evening, of organisations, one large, the other small, having no regard for their customers. My doctor's appointment was a shambles, well over an hour late, and, effectively, achieving nothing - and this was an appointment they requested me to make, rather than one I'd wanted. When I asked the receptionist, as the delay had reached three-quarters of an hour, what was going on, she asked me if I wanted to cancel. Had I known when I arrived at the surgery how late they were running, I probably would have cancelled, but when I asked her why nothing had been said, she claimed not to have known. Frankly, lovey, if you 'don't know' such a basic piece of information about the process you're supposed to be facilitating, you're in the wrong bloody job. On top of that, my scheduled return to work on Sunday morning was thrown into chaos by the local train operator choosing not to supply a bus service to replace the only train I can catch which would get me in on time, and which can't run because of pre-planned engineering work. The upshot is that I've had to book a hotel room for tomorrow night, at a price that will swallow something over a third of the money I'm going to earn for doing the shift at all. I can hardly restrain my joy. Still, at least it's not all entirely bleak - I'm now in 'domicile-ville' Wetherspoons, and Ben is working. Eye candy can't cure all, but it's better than nothing!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Never understand (reprise)

The things you see, we'd only disagree

You'll never understand that's what I want to be

Lines from a song I've mentioned on a few occasions, my 'personal national anthem', Never Understand by The Jesus & Mary Chain. It's come to mind again today, after a discussion I had with the community heart nurse, when she came to visit me for a prearranged appointment this morning. Another health professional who, no doubt with the best of intentions, wants me to stay on Warfarin, that vile rat poison, for ever and a day. The good intentions, though, are based on a fundamental misapprehension. Namely that I actually care whether I live or die.

You're never understanding

You never understand me, yeah

Love & best wishes to all

Sammy B

Reconnaissance, and unrealism

Despite some rather non-user friendly weather, I've been out and about in London again today as my time off continues, the day's main mission being to investigate some aspects of the North London/Hertfordshire border area where the college that K wants to attend is located. I saw the place itself, which proved to be where I'd thought, and looked into some public transport issues, in terms of what both of us would need to make the scenario workable, and into the rental housing market in the area. One major bonus from my perspective is that I now know I can get from the Northern Line underground platforms at Waterloo to street level - thinking about it now, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before in the blog, but I've got a phobia about using escalators, so quite a chunk of the Tube, especially in Central London, is off limits for me - albeit by scaling 115 steps (yes, I did count them, saddo as I am!), which would make the potential commute to work substantially easier and slightly quicker, if we were to end up living in the area concerned.
It was getting late by the time I arrived back in 'domicile-ville', so I decided to let indolence win, and go for a takeaway rather than cooking. As it happens, there's a reasonably good Chinese outside the station, so, by no means for the first time, that was my preferred port of call. They have a species of 'open kitchen', so that it's possible to see the chefs at work to some extent, which is where the reality failure kicked in. The youngest of the staff, who's probably around 18, but looks a little younger, and who I've seen once or twice before, is more than passably cute, and caught my eye again this evening. A couple of times, though, he seemed to look my way as much as I was looking at him, which, in my usual desperate style, set the fantasy machine in motion. It wasn't long before logic reasserted itself, fortunately - I can't conceive of any circumstances under which an attractive young man 35-odd years younger than me would ever be interested in the ogre that I am. A total non-starter.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Too close to the truth

Certainly too close to the truth to be laughed about, in my opinion. And, having grown up in a working-class environment being 'too clever for my own good', I should know.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Another small step closer, maybe

We had confirmation yesterday that the school/college that K wants to go to next year is in the process of recruiting a new Year 12 for September 2014, and we now have the information as to what my girl is going to have to do to apply, which, given that they're already interviewing candidates, she needs to do as soon as possible. For once, when I spoke to her an hour or so ago, she seems ready to overcome her usual procrastination - she isn't her father's daughter for nothing! - and get stuck in to get the application done. There are still numerous potential pitfalls to evade, but it certainly seems that the prospect of K being up here with me in nine months time is a little bit more likely. I certainly hope so.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

I know it shouldn't make a difference....

....but I always get more emotional if it's a cutie. I was aware of this story more than a week ago, but there was a follow-up on the local news when I was at my brother's yesterday evening. Last weekend, a 14 year old Sussex boy was swept out to sea and, presumably, drowned, last night's story being about the local lifeboat crew still searching for his body. They showed a picture of him, which I'd seen online a few days ago, and he was a very good-looking guy. Several times today, I found myself thinking about how terrifying and awful his end must have been, getting thoroughly upset in the process. I remember a similar scenario with a gay boy in the US a while ago who committed suicide after merciless bullying, and who was also very cute, in my eyes. Intellectually, I know that any life has equal value, and any premature loss of life is tragic, but my gut reaction of being more upset if I find the person concerned desirable is something I don't seem to be able to avoid. It makes me feel so shallow.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Hometown

Three-quarters of the way through a weekend in Kent, and I'm not quite sure how I feel. I'm grateful to my brother and his family for their hospitality, as ever, yesterday's brewery trip was interesting and entertaining, the seafront walk earlier this afternoon, in notably sunny and mild, if windy, weather for November was enjoyable, but there's still, it seems, something missing. Maybe it's being around three couples, my niece and nephew and their respective 'other halves' as well as my brother and sister-in-law, maybe it's being involved in family things, all of which isn't part of my life anymore. It all goes to underline my isolation, I guess, albeit isolation that's largely self-inflicted. Get used to it, I suppose, is the answer to that, because I can't see any way my situation is likely to change any time soon.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Domiciled

Unusually for when I'm not working, I haven't left 'domicile-ville' all day. I couldn't make my mind up about what, if anything, I wanted to do, and I wasn't all that happy with life in any case, so I just dossed around this morning, before finally dragging myself into the outside world at around 2:30, heading to the town centre for a couple of beers and some grocery shopping. The fact that I'm still in the pub nearly three hours later tells its own story, probably, although I haven't had all that much to drink - I've been reading, for the most part, bloggy stuff and an online version of The Catcher in the Rye I found the other day. I will be doing something more substantive tomorrow, albeit another alcohol-themed activity - I'm going on a brewery trip with my brother and his family, down in Kent, and staying over at his place tomorrow night, unless something unforeseen happens. A bit of human contact, at least, unlike today.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Alone again, naturally

The song was pretty dire, but its title encapsulates my position all too accurately. As I've said many times before, there's no-one to blame but myself, being what I am, wanting what I want, exacerbated by putting a small succession of people at the centre of my universe, my cousin, my ex, my daughter, only to find that they can't reciprocate. And nor, of course, should they. There's nothing in me that anyone in their right mind could find attractive, on any level. So I'm going to try, albeit belatedly, to foster realistic expectations. I deserve nothing, so if I expect nothing, as I said in reply to a comment on my last post, I can't be disappointed.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B