Brexit, and boys

Mostly legal ones, too, for once - I saw two adolescent cuties after leaving work this evening, one outside 'worktown' station, who was borderline - he might have been 15, but certainly no younger - and another when I changed trains en route who was definitely legal, 17/18 at least. And that was after having seen Daniel at the pub last night, for the first time in weeks, brightening my evening by his saying it was nice to see me. As ever, I can't bring myself to believe that it's anything beyond 'professional politeness', but the daydreams won't quite go away. I did revert rather more to type at the station where my final change of trains took place, as an undoubtedly 'not legal' cutie, 12/13, tall, slender and very good looking, caught my eye for long moments before, as so often before, 'ghosting' out of my life forever.
Earlier in the day, the media, especially the fascist tabloid variety, were full of our (un)elected dictator May signing the letter invoking Article 50, beginning the formal process of the country leaving the EU. There were some particularly pathetic examples of xenophobic populism, from the Daily Mail's headline 'FREEDOM!' to Sky News (part of Murdoch's Wapping Lies conglomerate, of course) displaying a Brexit 'countdown clock' - 730 days and some hours when I happened to glimpse it momentarily in the rest room at work when I was on a break - at the bottom of their 'ticker' bar. I'd like to say that it isn't all a product of the British propensity for mindless racism and bigotry, but I'd be lying if I did.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Ghosts, Saints, daylight, darkness

I escaped from my latest half week of nights this morning, and I've spent most of what has been a rather nice early spring day taking advantage of the fact. The weekend, though, was a somewhat more difficult proposition, albeit not without some positives. I tripped over a quite breathtakingly beautiful boy on my way to work on Friday, 11/12, blond, high cheekbones, slightly more androgynous than would normally be to my taste, but desirable enough to overcome any such reservations. But, of course​, another 'ghost', flitting through my life for a bare fifteen minutes before disappearing onto a different platform at the station where we both changed trains. Gone forever.
Then Saturday morning, and my Sainters' first game of the AFL season, with high hopes of a successful year. Except it all went to shit. Being a St Kilda fan has always entailed embracing disappointment, but I can remember very few more disappointing, given the context, displays than Saturday's. It was only Round 1, so I guess I should tone down the melodrama, but it was pretty hard to swallow.
Brighter things, both literally and figuratively, 24 hours later, though, as the clocks went forward, and the light evenings returned. Nothing seems to abolish winter more thoroughly than it still being light close to 8:00 in the evening.
But the internal darkness still won't go away - more boys today, both on my travels, and more recently in the pub, with the usual inner turmoil, how can I live without them, but how could I live with myself if I succumbed to temptation. The maze without a solution, as ever.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Love is forever

So I just overheard an oldish Asian guy say in the pub. It is for me, that's a certainty. I've fallen in love, as I would define love (and I'm sure that definition would be different for everyone), maybe seven times in my life, with a four to three male to female majority. But what I've never done is to fall out of love, with any of them. Who knows what that says about my personality, but it is what it is.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

2K, but no celebration

I didn't think my 'milestone' post would come so soon, but I've just spent well over an hour listening to some of the most depressing nonsense I've been subjected to (outside work) for the best part of some time. There was a middle-aged Irish couple sitting on the next table to me in the pub, having a long and unavoidably audible mobile phone conversation with either a family member or friend, who is seemingly about to give birth to a child - who will be born addicted to methadone. The woman's advice to the prospective mother was to stay away from social services, and go to mass instead, and to pray for 'what ever you need' to Padre Pio, one of the most egregious charlatans to ever disgrace an organisation rightfully notorious for charlatanism. What conceivable chance has that unborn child got? None, that I can see. The sooner organised religion is consigned to the dustbin of history, far, far the better.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Tonight I'm gonna party like....

....well, not​ like anything, actually, because I've got to get up at 4:00 in the morning to go to work. But this is post number 1999 in this blog, so I couldn't resist the allusion.
I discovered​, or maybe better, rediscovered, something about my much earlier life last night. I was idly meandering through various linked items on Wikipedia about John Wyndham and his works, when I came across a reference to a radio serialisation of what became one of my favourite books of all time, The Chrysalids. I knew it was broadcast in the school summer holidays, because I'd managed to listen to it all despite it being on during the day, but I'd believed for many years that the school holidays concerned were those between my last year at primary school and my first at grammar school, i.e. when I was 11. It turned out, though, that the broadcasts were actually a year earlier, in August 1970. A trivial point, it could be said, except that there's another life event which will always be inextricably linked in my mind to my first experience of Wyndham's work - my first crush, and first - conscious, at least - heartbreak. The object of my nascent affections was my cousin - female, but very tomboyish, and almost exactly the same age as me, to within a few weeks - who stayed with us for several weeks that summer, prior to her family emigrating to Australia. I obviously knew she was leaving, but I didn't, of course, know that I would end up being so smitten by her. I haven't seen her since, although I did hear​ that she ended up as a P.E. teacher, which was no surprise at all, given her personality and interests as a girl. My first love, I guess you could say. I hope life has treated her more kindly than it has me.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Mired

I didn't arrive at work this morning in a particularly downbeat mood, but circumstances seemed to conspire to depress me, to the extent that, during my mid-shift break, I was seriously considering walking out of the door, maybe forever. I ultimately resisted the temptation, but it wasn't easy. And, as on so many previous occasions, it wasn't the job itself that was the problem, but the people, or some of them, at least, that I'm condemned to work with. If there's a greater concentration of ignorance, bigotry, selfishness, greed and stupidity in one workplace than there is in mine, I'd walk a very long way to avoid seeing it. It's like swimming in a cesspool, and about as much fun. The sooner I can find a sensible way of extracting myself, the happier I'll be.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Cruel and unusual

One of those moments, three quarters of an hour ago. The BBC weather slot used a picture of a very well known Cornish landmark, half a mile or so from where I spent nearly ten years living, as a backdrop to their forecast. Here's what you won, but subsequently lost. Home. But not any more.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Freethought

Pedophilia remains a serious medical condition for which there is no cure. The only productive treatment involves smearing the patient’s genitals with honey and burying them up to their necks in a fire ant hill

I came across that delightful comment earlier today at a 'freethought' website, in response to a post about religiously based infant male circumcision (a practice I wholeheartedly revile - no boy should ever be circumcised for any reason other than medical necessity, as far as I'm concerned). Well, here's my twopennyworth, Mr Bigot. There's no 'cure' for paedophilia, any more than there's​ a cure for homosexuality, for instance, because it's not a fucking 'serious medical condition', it's a sexual orientation. And even if you actually believe it to be a medical condition, by what rationale would you consider torture to be an appropriate, still less 'productive', treatment? The disheartening thing is, though, that had I done what I originally had in mind, to leave a withering riposte at the website concerned, all I would've achieved would to have been 'shouted down', with the bigot and his inevitable supporters still considering themselves to hold the 'moral high ground'. And that's in a supposedly tolerant and rational forum. I know unequivocally that I'm wasting my time trying to convince anyone that people like me aren't irremediably evil, but when evil intent from the other side is virtually unanimously encouraged, it's all the more soul-destroying.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Not au revoir

The only constant in life is change, and that's nowhere more true than in cyberspace. People come and go, and all those of us still here can do is watch. When the final departure is of a person who came to 'blogland' at much the same time as me, though, and someone I've always been undisguisedly fond of, too, I can't help but feel a little heaviness of heart. His last blog, which was officially on hiatus, albeit a hiatus I never really believed was anything other than terminal, has now been deleted. All that's left to do is to hope that his future is happy and successful, and to say thank you for being allowed to share a small part of his life over the past seven years or so. Be happy, David. You deserve nothing less.

1045 10/3 edit: Yesterday's anonymous commenter (thank you) showed me that the premise upon which this post was written was wrong, and, in this instance, I'm pleased to be wrong. That, however, doesn't invalidate the last three sentences of the post. I said what I meant, and meant what I said.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

More truth from within

I had a longish dream today around friendships with boys. But the element of the dream which was truest to my actual situation was a boy, of the early teen-ish age I find most irresistible, albeit not obviously based on anyone in my real life, who seemed momentarily to be interested in me, too, but who ultimately walked away from the 'dream me' just quickly enough that I couldn't keep up with him. What I want the most always just out of reach. There's no escape from this life sentence, even in sleep.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A breath of spring

There are still a couple of weeks or so of 'official' winter left, but there have been the first hints of better things to come in recent days - it's been chilly today, but the previous couple of days both had moments of sunshine with some genuine warmth in it. The clocks go forward in a little under four weeks, too, which will bring the welcome boost of lighter evenings. Too bad that I've just headed into a run of extra night shifts - it should've been four, starting tonight, but ended up beginning 24 hours earlier than planned, when I was reluctantly talked into yet another, covering someone who needed a short notice night off. It'll all seem worthwhile on payday, I guess.
One little bonus literally just a few minutes ago, though - my first sight since the day after Boxing Day of a cutie whose grandparents live opposite the flat. Let's hope he visits often over the next few months!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The answer to your question is no

One of the games I fritter my time away with throws up adverts when my tablet is connected to the internet, and the tagline of one such asked whether I wanted to meet 'exotic women' online. I can barely think of anything I want less, quite frankly, but the question did set the 'daydream machine' in motion, thinking of how much better it would be - from my perspective, of course - if I could meet cute boys through such an 'app'. Not in this world, needless to say.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B