The big city

'When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.' So said Dr Johnson, a couple of centuries or so ago. Well, I've been working in London for just over four years now (the anniversary fell in the middle of last week), and actually back living here for seven months, to add to my almost two years here in the 1980s, and while I perhaps wouldn't go as far as Johnson as a metropolitan afficionado, there are, for me, decidedly more pros than cons. There are days, though, days like today when the sun is shining, the city isn't too ridiculously busy and congested and I can sit on the top deck of various buses, watching the world flow by outside, that I come close, at least, to loving the place. Maybe I'll go back to Cornwall one day, maybe I'll leave the country completely and find somewhere the sun shines more or less every day, but, in the meantime, I could think of far, far worse places to be than 'the big city'.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Cutie time is cancelled....

....due to emotional fragility. I've deliberately avoided my usual after-school eye candy search, and come to the pub instead. Because, ultimately, what is 'cutie time', anyway? Nothing but me with my nose pressed to the toy shop window, gazing at what I want the most, but can never have. Life is shit enough as it is, without torturing myself further. '(Eye) candy is dandy, but liquor is....' more reliable.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Desolation

If you've heard this all before, and find it tedious, feel free to stop reading now. I haven't been in a good place for several days now, and it isn't getting any better. This time next week, I'll be embarking on almost two weeks off, using up the annual leave I haven't used earlier in the year, because I've had nothing to use it for. And that's still the same - in those two weeks, and a couple more later in the autumn, I've got nothing to do, nowhere to go, no-one to see. No point at all to my life, apart from keeping my daughter fed and sheltered until she's ready to go her own way, sooner rather than later. Last weekend, with my brother, the subject of 'bucket lists' came up in conversation. As I said at the time, there's only one item on mine, and it's 99%. at least, certain never to come to pass.

Nothing.

Nowhere.

No-one.

For always.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

She's done it again

From the brief view I had before I staggered off to bed this morning, anyway. It seems that K has acquired a new boyfriend, same age as her (and thus legal) - and he's cute! In some ways, maybe even cuter than the previous model to my eyes, because he looks a tad younger, maybe a year or two, than his chronological age, Not, of course, that I'd try to come between my girl and her beau, even in the vanishingly unlikely event that I was able to, but if, in due course, they 'move on' - well, I certainly wouldn't say no!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Not fit to be seen

One of K's schoolfriends is staying over tonight. I'm pleased, of course, that's she's made friends readily at her new school, and that she seems to have fitted in to the community without difficulty, Not that I would've expected otherwise, she's a nice person to know, and has vastly more 'people skills' than I do (albeit that's not much of an achievement, virtually everybody has more people skills than me). It seems, though, that I'm not even deemed worthy of even the briefest of introductions to her new friend - they've been sequestered in K's room since they arrived from school, almost two hours ago. Yeah, OK, teenagers, but is K that ashamed of me that even a few seconds of socialisation is beyond the pale?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Another day, another pill

And, as I've just found on getting up, another medical next week. As to the pills, though - since the weekend, I've been suffering from an unpleasantly itchy rash, which had reached the point where I really had trouble sleeping yesterday, problematic given that I'm on nights this week. So it was off to the doctors' this morning, where, without much delay, I was diagnosed with urticaria, and prescribed antihistamines as treatment. At least I slept better today, doubtless helped by the fact that one of the side effects of the pills is three to six hours of drowsiness.
When I did eventually resurface, an hour or so ago, it was to find a letter that had been delivered earlier 'inviting' me to a 'review medical' next Friday. It was too late to speak to my new boss today, so I'll call him in the morning and see if any light can be shed upon this development. I was under the impression I'd been passed fit for my job until 2018, so I'm interested, to say the least, as to why the goalposts appear to have been moved again.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

It should go better this time

Exactly 52 weeks ago, I was on a train to Manchester for a visit that degenerated into one of the worst days of my life. In a couple of hours time, I'll be heading off on another trip, but I'm not expecting it to be anything other than congenial this time. I'm off to my brother's, to take him and my sister-in-law  out for a meal to belatedly celebrate their fiftieth birthdays - my sister-in-law passed the milestone a month ago, my brother a fortnight later. I'm looking forward to what I'm sure will be an evening of good food and good company - and I don't feel I'm tempting fate in the slightest by saying so.

Love & best wishes
Sammy B

Too politically correct, obviously

I met up with some work colleagues in town this afternoon, for a drinkies session that had been mooted several weeks ago. It was advertised as a 'civilised drink', but that was always a little doubtful, given some of the participants. Somewhere along the line, a visit to a well-known topless bar had been pencilled in, and I'd made it known that I wasn't at all interested, but, even so, everyone seemed surprised that I actually meant what I'd said, when I refused to have anything to do with it. My objections have nothing to do with my orientation, but revolve around what I consider to be the demeaning effect of such places, to the customers as much as to the staff. I went elsewhere, assured that they wouldn't be there long, but, two and a half hours later, when I hadn't been invited to rejoin them, I gave up the ghost and headed towards home. Maybe someone will add two and two, and make five, but if so, that's their problem. Contrary to what some might think, I have principles, and I intend to stick to them.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Not what you expect....

....on a number 2 bus at 6:00 in the morning, even in Central London, but there he was. No ambiguity about legality, he was probably in his early twenties - and drop dead gorgeous, even to my boyloving eyes. As I've said more than once, I've got no discernible 'gaydar', but I'd be very surprised, given his attire and demeanour, if he was straight. Once I'd got my breath back, though, my mood collapsed into a miasma of pitiful inadequacy, the knowledge that someone like him would never be accessible to a fat old mess like me. And probably never would have been, even when I was his age, but, once more, I cursed my stupidity and cowardice for not even having tried to be myself back then, instead cravenly attempting to be what those around me expected. There's a scene in the film Papillon where the main character dreams of being charged and found guilty of 'a wasted life'. That's me, to a T.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

About as close to....

....a warm glow as I ever get. The last hour or so has been spent on YouTube, sampling such delights as Lagartija Nick by Bauhaus, Never Understand by The Jesus & Mary Chain, and a selection of Extreme Noise Terror tracks, while eating gelateria style ice cream (half price at Sainsburys!). But most creamy of all, a video of clips from Omen III - The Final Conflict. which featured, more than once, the most gorgeous boy to have appeared in any film, ever, as far as I'm concerned - Barnaby Holm as Peter Reynolds. And, as often - and I mean often! - as I've seen the film, I spotted something I'd never noticed before. Anyone who's seen the film will probably remember the hunt scene, but I didn't realise that Peter winked at Damien and gave him the cutest of wry smiles before the hunt proper began. Talk about dripping with homoeroticism! If it was physically possible, I'd quite simply have been left as a gooey puddle on the living room carpet! Wonderful!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Be yourself, please!

Typical teenboy (13/14 apiece)  conversation in the seats behind me on a bus this afternoon - boy A accuses boy B of being gay, boy B strenuously denies the accusation, it goes to and fro for a while, then boy A gets off the bus, followed by boy B one stop later. Boy B was, if nothing else, slightly androgynous looking (and pretty damned cute), but nothing about his demeanour suggested that there was any foundation to the other boy's jibes. What went through my head, though, was the thought that 'if you are gay, whatever else you do, be yourself'. Don't, for fuck's sake, end up like me, ruining your life (amongst others) by trying to pretend to be something you're not.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Struggling for words

I realise that I may be thought to be giving the lie to the post title by writing what I'm writing, but finding things to say is proving to be a bit of a problem at the moment. There have been some news stories that have caught my eye, and I've had a few minor hiccups in my life that, if I was in a different frame of mind, I might have written about, but, overall, nothing has happened, or is happening, that is sufficiently motivational in terms of my sharing it with the world. I get these dips sometimes, question the reasons why I'm blogging at all, but usually come through and pick up the threads, somehow. This phase will, most likely, be the same, but maybe it won't. Time, as ever, will tell.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

City life, again

Our corner of London has been completely snarled up this morning - there had apparently been a big accident on the M1, leading to the road being closed from just north of us to its southern end. And, sod's law being what it is, this morning was when we needed to head to our local tube station to renew K's bus pass, so she could get to school. Getting into the town centre wasn't too bad, but getting out again on the route to K's school was a nightmare, and I know first hand, because I'd decided to take the same bus to do some shopping at the big supermarket just down the road from the school. A journey that, even in the rush hour, shouldn't have taken more than about 20 minutes ended up taking almost an hour, leaving K fifteen minutes late for school. She wasn't alone though, because seven or eight other pupils got off the bus at her stop, so she would have had corroborating evidence of the reason for her lateness, if any was required. I'd rung the school, albeit only getting a voicemail service, while we stuck in the traffic, in any case, so I'll be thoroughly irritated if K ends up facing any kind of disciplinary issue.
Irritation of a different kind overtook me on the way back from work last night. At the point where I transfer from train to bus, what appeared to be an extended family, of Asian extraction, was standing outside a restaurant, presumably leaving after a meal. Despite their heritage, they were speaking English, and, as I passed, a woman of grandmotherly age, directed a comment, nothing short of ridicule, towards two other members of the party. The pair concerned were two little boys, neither of whom could have been more than four years old. Their 'crime'? They were holding hands, and she was quite frankly laughing at them. Hardly surprisingly, the boys just looked confused, obviously having no idea what they were supposed to have done wrong. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - as far as I'm concerned, homophobia, and bigotry in general, is learned, not innate.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Lurching

From one crisis to the next. Today's addition to the list is that my phone seems to be teetering on the brink of death - it was fine this morning, but now it keeps switching itself off, and won't restart to a point where I can actually do anything useful with it. It is more than three years old, and has spent probably 95%+ of that time switched on, so I've probably had my money's worth, but rushing into my local town centre to get a new phone wasn't anywhere on my provisional agenda for tomorrow. If it really is the end of my first smartphone's life, though, I won't have a choice, because, if for no other reason, I need to be able to keep in touch with K. Technology, love it or hate it, you can't live without it, apparently.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Arrow

Eight years and one week ago, give or take, I saw a certain person for the first time. I expected it to be what I've come to call a 'ghost' experience, that is, seeing someone attractive, even beautiful, fleetingly, with no realistic prospect of seeing them again. In that case, though, the outcome was much different. I not only saw the individual again, but saw them literally hundreds of times over the succeeding four years. Last night, on my way to work, almost 300 miles from the site of that 2006 encounter, but less than fifteen minutes walk from where I live now, I saw another person, who reminded me so much of the original as they were then, in another life, or so it seems. And it was like an arrow piercing my heart.
As I've said in more than a few dedications in Nephelokokkygia, and despite knowing my feelings could never have been reciprocated - for DBJ, with love, always.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Birthdays

As well as it being my brother's fiftieth today, as I mentioned earlier in the week - I'll call him later, given that my one-off night shift tonight means that I won't be able to celebrate with him - K has gone off on what you might call a reprise of her summer peregrinations, because her friend who lives in northern Scotland is 18 today, and K was invited by her friend's mum to attend a surprise party being thrown for the girl. So, another thousand mile round trip weekend for my girl - she left the flat at 5:45 this morning, and won't be back until about 5:45 tomorrow evening, more than a third of which will consist of her actually being in transit - to add to all the miles she travelled during her extended summer holiday. Whatever else K might be, she certainly isn't a homebody!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Introspeculation

Let's invent a new portmanteau, to describe what I spend all too much of my time doing. I freely admit to being an inveterate navel-gazer, as evidenced by much of this blog. But something new occurred to me today, meandering as I was at 'cutie time', and seeing a very pretty, but much, much too young little guy on a scooter in an upmarket part of South West London. When I was trying to convince myself that I was straight, most notably in my late teens and early twenties, the members of the opposite sex I 'fell for' were almost all in 'safe' categories, too young, too closely related, already attached - in other words, individuals that I would never have to actually engage with, never have to take the risks involved with attempting to develop a relationship. And maybe there's an element of that in my attraction to boys, especially younger boys - if they're inaccessible, if all I can do is  'look and sigh', I'll never expose myself to the potential hurt of rejection, of the aftermath of a failed relationship. But, equally, I'll never find fulfillment, either. I've never felt worthy of being loved, maybe my pursuit of an unattainable goal is, subconsciously, a coping mechanism. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, they say. But nothing ventured, nothing lost, either.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Meat, and meet

Today was the last day of K's extended summer holiday, and given her (renewed) preference for carnivory, I suggested that we go for a posh 'Full English' this morning, as a parting treat. So we duly found ourselves in a restaurant/deli in South London, where we'd been once before, indulging in loads of very, very nice meaty stuff, with a bit of tomato and mushroom on the side as a vague nod towards healthier options! K decided, perhaps in keeping with the tone set by breakfast, that she was going to go home and slob out for the rest of the day, while I headed further south and west to meet up with my brother, who was working in the area today. He couldn't drink, because he was driving, but it didn't stop us sharing a convivial couple of hours, amongst which we firmed up plans for me to take him and my sister-in-law out for a celebratory meal - both of their fiftieth birthdays have fallen within a two week window between the week before last, and the coming weekend - at a restaurant even posher than the place I was in this morning. Not cheap, but money well spent, as far as I'm concerned.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Fit

Not, needless to say, in any athletic sense, but in terms of being able to continue doing my job for another four years. I don't know if I'm pleased or not, really - the prospect of retiring disgracefully was quite alluring - but, on balance, it's probably for the best, given that I want K to get as far as she feels she needs to educationally, something that will doubtless take a fair amount of money, and, whatever else, good or bad, I might say about my job, it is well paid.
The other good thing about today's medical was that it got me out of a late shift, and there was a chance that I might have been able to meet up with my brother this afternoon, because he was working in Surrey. It didn't come to fruition in the end, because he finished a bit later than he'd anticipated, but I will see him tomorrow, unless anything unforeseen happens, because he's in South West London, and it's my day off. There certainly won't be any wild carousing going on, because he'll be driving, and I'm on earlies on Thursday, but it will be nice to get together, especially as it's his fiftieth birthday on Saturday, and I can't make his birthday bash because I'm working. Meeting up tomorrow will be a consolation prize, at least.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B