Getting things done

Not necessarily hugely important things, but things, nonetheless. Today has been one of my 'sort of clear' days, as I prepare to start my latest week of night shifts tonight, so I've used the ten hours or so since I got up to do two loads of washing - it's very warm and sunny here today, so drying has been easy - been out grocery shopping, and topped up my daughter's school smart card so that she can buy her lunches this week, as she returned today after her study leave. And I've finished my latest story, which may, or may not, be the first in a series, depending on my ever-inconsistent levels of motivation. Not for the first time, it's a story that I suspect won't be to many people's taste, but if that's the case, sobeit. I like it, and its main characters. So there!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Weekend mixture

Quite an eventful weekend, by my not very impressive standards. There have obviously been huge events in the news, some very good, as per my last post, some utterly dreadful, but far more eloquent commentators than me have discussed those at length, so, as is my wont, I'm going to stick to the parochial.

I went to Essex on Friday to meet up with my friend, as planned, and it all went rather well - we had plenty of catching up to do, drank some beer and some more beer, and got along fine, even if I'd had my doubts in advance whether he might have had second thoughts about accepting the 'real me' after my coming out to him the last time we met. A lesson for me, I guess - don't expect the worst all the time! There was one downside to the get-together, though - I contrived to injure myself, in a really stupid way, despite being pretty much sober at the time. We were sitting on a long wooden bench-style seat and, after a while, it was my turn to head to the bar for a round of drinks. What I didn't realise, until I tried to stand up, was that my right leg had 'gone to sleep', presumably from the pressure of the edge of the bench on my sciatic nerve, and I stumbled awkwardly, managing to strain my calf muscle rather badly. As a result, I've spent the rest of the weekend hobbling about in a fair bit of discomfort, which isn't showing any immediate sign of going away. In the great scheme of things, it's an utter irrelevance, but I promised parochial!

Yesterday saw the Pride procession in Central London. I did think of going, but I'd already decided not to before my self-inflicted wound - I had doubts, quite frankly, about my motivations, that I might have tried to take advantage of the situation to try and get what I'm not allowed to have. K went, though, with a gay friend from school, before going on to spend the night with a different friend in South London. I haven't actually seen her yet today, but from the evidence of a few texts, and a brief conversation a little earlier, it all seems to have gone pretty well. I spent yesterday meandering around North and West London, before ending up in my local, and, with the variation of going to work for an early shift this morning, haven't done anything greatly different today. The 'eye candy quotient' really hasn't been too bad, but, as ever, it's never simple. For instance, I've seen 'little friend' three nights in a row, after three weeks when I hadn't seen him at all, but he's had his back to me each time, although I did get my customary smile from him last night (and gave him a discreet 'Hi', the first time I've actually spoken to him) when he walked past my table in search of ketchup. (Just had tonight's smile, right now, as he headed for the door!!) There's another little guy in here tonight, not more than 3, pretty, bubbly, and obviously very intelligent, who's said 'Hello' to me three times on his travels, following his dad to the bar, and the like. Not, of course, the remotest sexual attraction at his age, but would I just love to play the word and number games, or simply talk to him, the way K and I did when she was that age. Never going to happen, obviously. Life, don't talk to me about life, as Marvin the Paranoid Android memorably said!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Congratulations, USA

Yeah, I'm a Brit and it's none of my business, but I'm so pleased that the Supreme Court ruled in favour of marriage equality. And almost equally pleased that the religious right have had their bigotry shoved up their collective arse!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Homesickness

I've just noticed that my local now sells Cornish Orchards cider. I bloody hate seeing it behind a bar, because it's made about three miles from where we lived when we first moved to Cornwall. And it always makes me horribly homesick.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Proximity

My working week is done, so, probably utterly unsurprisingly to anyone who reads this blog with any regularity, I've headed to my local. The last link in a moderately convoluted route was the bus up from the nearest mainline station to here. The bus was busy, too, but I managed to find a niche towards the back of the top deck. And it proved to be a bit of serendipity, because a couple of stops later, a very cute boy got on and sat right in front of me, close enough for me to be able to have seen the little drops of sweat (it's very warm and humid here this afternoon) dripping from the bottom of his light brown hair and down onto the back of his neck. Close enough, too, for me to have leaned forward and kissed the single freckle on the back of his right hand when he moved it to fiddle with his hair - and, oh, what a temptation it was to do just that, only the certainty of his screaming blue murder, and the near certainty of my subsequent arrest, if I'd succumbed to the urge keeping me in check. The perennial frustration of the boylover in a world that reviles us - those that we wish to love and cherish so near, but always just out of reach.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Win some, lose some

I'm off on Friday and Saturday this week, and, some weeks ago, I made provisional arrangements for both days. The plans were to meet up with a friend that I used to work with in Manchester, and last saw face to face nearly three years ago (how time flies when you're not necessarily having fun), on Friday, and then get together with my brother and sister-in-law the following day. As it's turned out during the day today, Friday has been confirmed, but Saturday has been scrapped - my brother managed to 'double-book' the weekend, and as the friends of his that they're seeing have made travel arrangements, I'm the one who's been 'dumped'. C'est la guerre! I'm sure I'll find something to do with myself, probably around buses, boys (on an eyes only basis, I'm sure) and beer, not for the first time. Whatever else, it will undoubtedly be better than being at work!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

'Helicopter parenting' gone mad

On my way back from work this afternoon, I was on a single-decker bus, along with maybe ten or a dozen other passengers, the driver, obviously, and a couple of CCTV cameras, which have become something close to ubiquitous on London buses. The bus pulled up at a stop where two intending passengers were waiting. A woman with a small child, the child being about eighteen months old and asleep in a buggy. The driver opened the middle doors of the bus, usually the exit, to allow the woman easier access to the wheelchair area, where buggies are usually accommodated. She, almost frantically, signalled him to open the front doors instead, which he eventually did. I couldn't hear what the driver asked the woman, but it must've been something along the lines of 'What's the problem?'. Her answer was so paranoiac as to be almost laughable. 'I don't want to leave him on his own, I've got to pay', i.e. while she walked four or five paces from the centre of the bus to touch in with her Oyster card, then walk back again. What could she possibly have imagined would happen to the child in those ten seconds, on a half full bus with everything recorded on CCTV? I really feel sorry for that little boy - if that's a representative example of her parenting style, he's going to grow up scared witless of his own shadow, thinking everyone and everything is out to harm him in some way. At least he slept through this whole pathetic little 'drama'.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Scaremongering

Or kicking a soft target for political advantage, or both. '750000 UK men want child sex', the Mail on Sunday's headline screamed this morning. Well, leaving aside my immediate reaction of 'so few?', born of my conviction that pubescent boys are the most beautiful, desirable creatures on Earth, a little deconstruction of the headline might be instructive. Not the slightest attempt to define 'men', 'want', 'child' or 'sex', in the context of the story, and, surprise, surprise, not the least evidence to support the provenance of the number quoted - which, incidentally, represents less than 3% of the adult male population of the country, even if the claim chanced to be correct. And the first sentence of the actual report tacitly admitting the wild speculation involved, '....up to 750000 may be attracted....(my emphasis)'. The implication of the report, of course, is that there is a veritable army of 'predators' slavering on every street corner, ready to drag any and every little boy or girl into a back alley and rape them, contrary to considerable actual evidence that around 90% of abuse is perpetrated by people already known to the child. And then, the underlying agenda appears, in the shape of a quote from some police functionary, that 'potential abusers' should be targeted 'before they have access to children'. The concentration camp takes a step closer. Maybe I should delete this post, but I've done that too often in comparable circumstances. If I transgress the law, then lock me up. If all I do is to say what I think, informed by who I am, I'd defend to my death, to paraphrase Voltaire, my right to say it.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

An unexpected bonus

Early yesterday evening, around 6:30, I found a text from K to the effect that she wasn't staying over at her friend's place in the West Country after all, but was on her way back to London. It sounds, hearing the full story from my girl when she got home, like a rather stereotypical piece of teenage disorganisation - K had said it was 'all arranged' before she left, but her friend had apparently forgotten about it, or, probably more likely, forgotten to tell her parents, so it fell through. The change of plan worked to my advantage, though, because I got to spend some quality time with K today - we went into town, had something to eat (burritos, K's latest 'food crush'!) and generally watched the world go by. The only slight downside was that the weather hasn't been all that prepossessing, grey and drizzly (and has degenerated even further now, into rather heavy rain), which depressed the eye candy quotient somewhat. There were some oases, though - a very cute 14-ish boy walked past us in Camden High Street, and when I turned to my girl and said 'sigh', she, without missing a beat replied 'same'. There is still a fragment of overlap in our interests, it seems!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The weekend starts here....

....and pretty much ends here, as well. I did a one-off night shift last night, haven't been to bed today, then I'm off again tomorrow, but have to construct the day in such a way as to be able to get up sober at 4:30 on Sunday morning to go in for an early turn. What is this 'work-life balance' of which you speak?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

I'm in love

He was back, this evening. The first time I've seen him for nearly two months. Dylan. Beautiful, beautiful boy. Yeah, I know he's much too young, and I know nothing is ever going to happen, in any conceivable circumstances. But, oh, would that there was some parallel universe where I could take him and wrap him up in my love. For always.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Pastures old

Through a combination of the shifts I'm working this week, the fact that K's away and the closing times of various pubs, I've found myself on very familiar, but not recently familiar territory this evening. I'm in my former 'London local', the pub I used most regularly while I was living in 'domicile-ville', for the first time in something like 18 months. I'm even sitting at the same little two seat table, in the corner of the raised section at the back of the main bar, that I always used to colonise when it was available (no passing 'traffic', and with both entrances in view, excellent for cutie-spotting during the daytime 'family pub' hours, cuties like the real-world original of the 'Connor' character in Unwrapped). The place hasn't changed much, I'm pleased to say, still being one of the most authentic 'locals' in Wetherspoons' estate, having been a pub long before the chain took it over, as opposed to the shop/cinema/manor house et al conversions that are their mainstay. And I'm also drinking the beer that was my regular tipple here, but which my current local doesn't sell, and it really is significantly nicer, even if it is ten bob a pint dearer! Another illustration of the 'you get what you pay for' maxim, I guess!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Home alone-ing

It'll just be me at the flat for virtually the whole of the rest of this week. K has decided to use the penultimate week of her study leave to indulge in some peregrination - she left this morning to spend a couple of days with her mum, will call in at home for a few hours on Thursday afternoon, and then go on to the West Country to catch up with friends and pay a visit to her old school, before finally getting back, maybe on Saturday, but more likely Sunday. My girl is particularly looking forward to arriving at her former place of education with dyed hair, something their rather antediluvian school rules took a very dim view of, although, ironically, her current stopover on the tinting palette is a relatively conservative silvery blonde!
For my part, I've got a late and a night shift left to do, before I get at least two days off (I won't find out whether I'm working on Sunday until the day after tomorrow). I haven't seen the weather forecast for the weekend yet, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for something reasonable, because I think it's more than time for a major 'eye candy cruise'. I might not be able to touch, but a bit of sunshine would certainly enhance the ability to look!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Thumbing my nose at the world

In a way, at least. A few times, actually, in recent days, but it didn't occur to me as such until tonight. There I was, sitting in the middle of a public space (i.e. a pub), tapping away on my tablet, adding to my latest story. A story whose subject matter 100% minus me of the clientele would (at least pretended to) have found disgusting. Do I care? Not a bit. If I can hide in plain sight in their world that rejects who I am, why shouldn't I? There are precious few other consolations in my life, after all.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Four magpies

Yes, there they were earlier on, as I meandered my way, in three hours or so, from work to my local. 'Four for a boy', as at least one version of the old rhyme goes. And when I got to the pub, a cute boy was indeed there, curled up in a chair, playing games on a phone. It was only a tease by the aforementioned corvids, though - the place was unexpectedly busy, and the only available place I could sit was at the next table to the cutie - but with my back to him. Marvellous!
Maybe the superstition was fulfilled, though, in a way, because, a little later, after the boy and his family had left, I had something resembling a conversation with Daniel (the cute barman here, for those not familiar with my blog in recent times) for probably the first time. He's too 'grown-up looking' for my tastes these days, really, but there is still just a faint echo of the earlier boy, enough to pique thoughts of 'maybe'. Not that he's got any more apparent interest in me than he ever had, but if the vanishingly unlikely happened, and he was 'available' (as well as being soundly legal), I can't see myself saying 'no'.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

How? And why?

How do you tell a 12 year old boy he's beautiful without his totally freaking out? The politically correct answer is, of course, that you don't, because 12 year old boys are only supposed to be attractive to their peer group, if at all. But there have been two occasions today I might have told boys they were just that, beautiful, had I known a way to do it. The latter was the 'next door but one' cutie, who was out with friends in the communal garden again this evening, but the first was an even more visceral experience, a boy on a bus, not for the first time. He got on a few stops after me, and sat opposite. Not only was he very good looking, but there was something about him that had an immediate aphrodisiac effect, too, something that really doesn't happen very often. Nothing, of course, happened in either instance, but it might give those who want to snipe at me some more ammunition. I just wish those who do want to castigate me would do it here rather than on other people's blogs. I don't see why that should be any sort of an issue.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Stick or twist?

Another possibly meaningless dilemma, but I've begun a new story which could go one of three ways. Most likely, it'll fall by the wayside like most of my others, but assuming I can take it forward, there's an Alexandrine type of dichotomy. My magnum opus was originally conceived as a short story, but grew well beyond its bounds, and this latest story might go the same way. I like the main characters, in much the same sense as I liked Xander and David, and I always find it easier to write about characters I like.

1645 edit: This should have been last night's post, but I fell asleep before I finished it.

Or it could just be a one-off short story, or, a fourth alternative I thought of at work this morning, it could be the first in a series of short stories featuring the main characters. That idea appeals to me quite a lot at the moment, but whether I'd have the application to make it happen is distinctly doubtful.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Shorter of breath....

....and one weekend closer to death, to paraphrase Mr Waters. Another weekend at work, on late shifts - I don't like lates at any time, but lates at weekends are incontrovertible proof of man's inhumanity to man, as far as I'm concerned. Beyond that, there really isn't much to report - K is using her study leave strictly for R & R, I'm in the throes of working 16 days out of 17 - Wednesday will be my one day off, and then only to transition from lates to earlies - I've been treated to a little eye candy, mostly of the touristy variety, while to-ing and fro-ing across London, but mostly it's been the same old, same old. I'd like to chuck it all in and retire disgracefully, but it ain't going to happen any time soon - the hamster wheel is inescapable, it seems.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Madness

I did something on the way to work this morning, that while it had, in the event, no consequences, was distinctly out of character for risk-averse me, and could have got me into a pile of unnecessary trouble if things had gone differently. I was waiting for a bus not very far from home, when a mother and son approached. He was very much a little boy, only 4 or 5, and of South Asian extraction, and, as he came nearer, it was glaringly obvious that he wasn't at all happy with life. He was trailing along beside the woman with his head down, while she was effectively ignoring him, her head buried in her phone. Just before he drew level with me, he looked up, and his big, dark eyes were so sad that my heart couldn't help but go out to him. I mouthed 'Cheer up' at him, and gave him a little smile. His eyes went down, then up again, still looking heartbreakingly unhappy, at which point the mad impulse kicked in - I blew him a kiss. He seemed completely nonplussed, looked away again, but, in the next minute, as he went on his way and out of sight, he must have looked back at me half a dozen times. Mum, of course, was completely oblivious, still totally focused on her phone, but I immediately realised that, had she seen the interaction, such as it was, she would've been screaming 'Paedo!' at the top of her voice. And it would've been such a ridiculous way to have been 'outed', he was much too young, even for my tastes, and not really that cute (with profound apologies to the little guy). I've always known I've had a self-destructive streak, but it doesn't usually surface quite so stupidly.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The answer is....

....nobody. The question was 'Who gives a shit about what I feel?' K walked away without answering, and if she doesn't care, I'm most certainly on my own. I don't care, as I've said often enough before, so why should anyone else? The whole fucking shooting match is a waste of time.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Still awake

Just about, anyway. I finished my last night shift of the week just before 7:00 this morning, and apart from an accidental 20 minutes in the armchair after breakfast, I've been awake all day, to add to the time since I got up at 2:45 yesterday afternoon. The bit in between my catnap and now has mostly been 'outing and abouting', meandering earlier on, then up to my local, where I even managed to persuade K to join me for our evening meal. And most of that 'bit in between' has been swarmed with cuties, yet again. In fact, that element of the day began on my way back from work - travelling between 7:00 and 9:00 on a schoolday morning can be just as 'eye candy friendly' as the equivalent time slot in the afternoon, as was the case today. Then there were the touristy cuties in town at lunchtime, but the whole company was eclipsed by a frankly gorgeous boy, 12/13, in the pub - I hadn't seen him before, but I most definitely hope I'll see him again. There were hints, more than a little, of DBJ about him, height, build, hairstyle (not colour, though). Would that I could've brought him home for cuddles....or whatever. No earthly chance, of course, but the daydream machine was irresistible.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B