Tantalised

I viscerally dislike late shifts at weekends, and always have, so when anything happens to exacerbate the already vile enough scenario of being at work on a Saturday afternoon, it's particularly hard to take. And this afternoon was a prime example. Because one of my colleagues brought his youngest son into work. I've seen the little guy a couple of times before, but not for nearly a year, and, while he's still very much in the 'eye candy only' realm, he has begun to lose his 'little boy' looks as he heads towards puberty. And, to make matters worse still, those changes have made him more than a little reminiscent of Cammy - he's much the same age as my 'little friend', who I haven't seen since the demise of my old local at the end of February. I've thought of Cammy quite a lot of late, because for all the tenuousness of the connection between us, I really believe we could have been friends, and I genuinely mean friends, not some kind of 'grooming' situation, had we had the opportunity. Just Out Of Reach is a lesser known song by The Jesus & Mary Chain. Lesser known, but very apposite in this context.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Disappointment

I guess that it's self-evident that blogging has had more positives than negatives for me over the piece, because why else would I still be here, almost six and a half years on, if it was otherwise? There have been disappointments, though, mostly around people who have moved on, but, if I can be selfish, perhaps the biggest downside has been how poorly Nephelokokkygia has been received. I would never claim for a moment that I'm some sort of undiscovered 'great writer', and I'm well aware that some, maybe the majority, of my output portrays relationships that most might find 'beyond the pale', but, even so, the fact that the pageviews the blog receives are minimal, and that the last comment I received was over a year ago, is disheartening. People are, of course, at perfect liberty to read or not read, comment or not comment, as they see fit. Some kind of response, though, even if it's only to call me a worthless hack, would be preferable to the wall of apathy my 'creative' efforts seem to induce.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sadness

Sad news this morning - a friend of mine, of more than 20 years standing since he came to work in the same office as me in Manchester, has died of cancer. He was a few years older than me, but was only in his early sixties, far too young to go. I hadn't seen much of him in recent years, but he'll still be sorely missed.

Love & best wishes to all

Sammy B

Another member of the diaspora returns

I finally escaped from my latest week of nights (and sickness, in this instance) at 7:00 this morning, and, as usual, I haven't wasted my 'what remains of the day' day off by going to bed. I had an unputoffable mission to attend to, and dealt with that in the latter part of the morning, before meandering, probably even more aimlessly than normal, for a few hours into this afternoon. It wasn't unduly late, though, when I fetched up in my 'most regular, but not very local' Wetherspoons, only to be greeted by a familiar face behind the bar - a young lady who worked in my old local, initially waiting tables and washing up until she turned 18, before graduating to serving alcohol. I have to admit that I have rather a soft spot for her, not because she's especially attractive from my standpoint (although she isn't at all difficult to look at, even for a boylover like me), but simply because she's a thoroughly nice person, so to see her again, evidently back from uni for the summer, is certainly welcome.
Speaking of boys, though, there's another new member of staff I've seen for the first time while I've been writing this post. First impressions were that he was no more than 15, but he's served drinks, so he's undoubtedly of legal age, 18+. And very cute. Not that I have the slightest expectation of any interest in me, but from an eye candy perspective, I'm not complaining!
Oh, and speaking still further of boys, 'supercute blond teddy bear', my friend at work's son, has reached the grand old age of 10 today. Happy birthday, J, hope you're having a lovely time.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sick, and heartsick

Somebody, somewhere seems to have been absolutely determined that I shouldn't go to work last night. When this week's roster was originally published, I was shown as being on leave for one night, which I certainly hadn't applied for and didn't want. The error was quickly corrected, but, ironically, when I woke up late yesterday afternoon, I soon realised that I couldn't go to work, and rang in sick, basically because I was, for all practical purposes, deaf. My right ear had been clogged up and sore all week, but when its opposite number 'joined the party', that was the 'coup de grace'. I've evidently picked up some kind of infection, and have spent today liberally dosing myself with eardrops, which have begun to work, so I'll be back in harness tomorrow night.
The second part of my current malaise, though, is almost certainly incurable. This morning, I tangentially came across a story, new to me but not particularly recent, one all too familiar from my perspective, of a man sentenced to 35 years in jail for a loving, consensual, long-term relationship with a boy who happened to be under that arbitrary age of consent I rail against. 35 years. I doubt he'd have received such a sentence if he'd raped and murdered the boy, it's disproportionate beyond belief. Then, to turn my deep sadness at the couple's fate into something much more akin to depression, I saw, while I was out on a brief shopping trip at lunchtime, a beautiful boy of around the same age as the jailed man's YF, even if there were no other obvious similarities. The knowledge that even if such a boy wanted to have a relationship with me, the potential consequences for him if any such liaison came to light would render it impossible is soul-destroying. It's not exactly news, but knowing that 'society' doesn't just want to punish you, but wants to completely destroy your life and that of any boy who might be able to bring you happiness makes it so difficult to carry on sometimes.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A 'You know when you're old moment', and cuties

Or maybe the moment is better characterised as a 'You know when your offspring has grown up' scenario. As I walked into our local town centre at 5:00 this morning, on my way to work, K and the friend she went on holiday with were heading up the hill to crash out in the wake of a birthday bash they went to last night. My girl was looking a little the worse for wear (which she told me this afternoon was down to the fact that she'd been asleep on the night bus), but at least she hadn't got herself into the sort of state that landed her in hospital last winter. Whatever, meeting in the street in those circumstances is definitely indicative of a 'changing of the generations' - I can't remember the last time I was out, socially, until dawn!
Although I was working this morning, I had been off for the previous couple of days, and the weekend has been notable for a veritable cavalcade of cuties. Boy of the weekend was a rather loud, to the point of being obnoxious, 12-ish fair-haired guy on Friday - obnoxious, maybe, but oh wow, was he cute! Interestingly, though, the most head-turning individuals of both yesterday and today have been girls, quite similar, in a number of ways, blonde, pubescent, or thereabouts, unmistakably female but with a distinct boyish tenor to their shape and form. It made me think, not for the first time, of one of my cousins, the first girl, with hindsight, that I ever fell in love with. She was very much along the same lines, no mistaking that she was a girl, but there was a lot of boyishness in her too, both in terms of looks and personality. Would my life have been different if she hadn't emigrated to Australia with her family when we were both 11? Who can say, but it certainly makes for an interesting 'what if?'.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

It's official

The UK has become a joke, albeit a decidedly sick one. Any nation that would appoint Boris Johnson as foreign secretary deserves nothing but derision. He's not fit to be the Minister of Silly Walks as far as I'm concerned, never mind the face of Britain's diplomacy and international relations. And if that wasn't bad enough, Andrea 'Thatcher-clone' Leadsom has been made environment secretary. Just what the environment and countryside needs, a 'greed is good' free market ideologue to rabidly deregulate and concrete everything over. Where's William Blake when you need him?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B 

Only one thing left

Between the political and societal shambles the country is in, the Great British Summer weather (i.e. pissing down with rain), the Damoclean sword about to slice through my skull and take away the few remaining dregs of my life, and even my 'shadowland' solace seemingly unavailable, there's only one alternative. Go and visit Xander. So I will.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B 

Meet the new boss

Same as the old boss, as Mr Townshend wrote. Except May is even worse than 'silver spoon boy' Cameron, with her authoritarianism and overt homophobia. Big Sister is watching you. Especially if you're not straight, white and fascistic.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Even more doomed

Further to yesterday's post, I found something online (written by an American, actually) which depressed my mood still further as regards this country's future leadership. May and Leadsom have both (apart from a couple of abstentions) voted against virtually every bill enhancing LGBT equality proposed in their parliamentary careers. Leadsom in particular, from my perspective, has said some worryingly theocratic things, too, most notably about marriage equality 'hurting the feelings of Christians'. As I said in the wake of the EU referendum, not a good time to be anything other than straight and white.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B 

We're doomed

As my friend at work said this morning, at the end of a discussion about the Tory leadership contest. The fact that both candidates are female is irrelevant, it's the fact that we'll end up with a prime minister who is either a raging authoritarian or a wannabe Thatcher clone that, in the light of the Brexit fallout, is deeply disturbing.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B 

General apathy

How many divisions does he have, to (kind of) quote Stalin, for the first time in the history of this blog. K used the phrase to describe her state of mind yesterday, although she has gone off to the West Country today to catch up with a friend of hers (male, but platonic), but it could equally apply to me at the moment, especially as regards blogging. It's not that I couldn't find things to write about, it's that, of late, I can't be bothered. My blogosphere 'career' has had its peaks and troughs, and it's as likely that this is just one of the troughs as anything else, but the motivation to write is very weak currently. As I often seem to do in my lower times, though, I'm reading Alexandrine (yet) again. If anyone can inspire me, I guess it will be Xander, even if he is a figment of my imagination.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B 

Feeling the pressure

I had a moment this morning when I was really struggling, in a way I'm really not used to. I had what was, in effect, an anxiety attack, as I contemplated the pair of Damoclean swords I perceive as hanging over me. My arrhythmia certainly went into overdrive, if nothing else. Most of my problems are, of course, self-inflicted, but when it gets to the stage that you're terrified of the prospect of the doorbell or phone ringing, because of what that might portend, life really does become pretty difficult.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B 

A new visual arts star is born

K, who's still at her boyfriend's, texted me earlier on, telling me that her A-level photography work is good enough to have been submitted to a university exhibition, and will be on display there for at least three months. She's delighted, naturally enough, and rightly so. Let's hope the commissions start rolling in!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B