I follow, and sometimes comment on Alex and Tony's blog (My Gay Little Brother). I had a reply to the last comment I made from Tony, to the effect that I could (should?) 'hit the erase button' and start my life afresh. Oddly enough, it's a concept I've been mulling over of my own volition in recent weeks - just scrap my life and start again. There are distinct attractions to such an idea, but any temptation to actually doing it is trumped by the 'elephant in the room' - there isn't just me to consider. My life, and the stage of it that I've reached, is inextricably linked to the lives of my wife and daughter, and I'm not so selfish - at least, I don't think I am - that I could just walk away from my responsibilities. After all, it's not as if anything that makes my life such a frustration at times is any fault of theirs - I decided to dissemble and follow a path of less resistance, to suppress my 'real' self, chose to be 'safe' rather than taking a risk that might have led to either fulfilment or disaster (or both) by playing a part that society expected me to play. In other words, I've made my bed, so complaining about laying in it is nothing more than futile self-indulgence.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Saturday, 13 November 2010
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Ever get the feeling it's not going to be your week?
It's been one of those for me, so far this week. Nothing disastrous has happened, just a succession of irritants that have conspired to make it all rather heavy going.
On Monday, it all went fairly well until I was driving down to my brother's in the evening, when I got embroiled in a horrendous traffic jam in the aftermath of an accident on the motorway, ending up arriving well over an hour later than planned, meaning that my brother had to wait up for me again, making me feel like a total imposition on him. I also found out on Monday night that I'd left my medication at home in Cornwall, which led to a complicated manoeuvre on Tuesday and into Wednesday to retrieve it - I had to change my shift and undertake another long journey, albeit one that didn't cost me anything financially, but which sapped my dwindling stores of energy once again. Then, just as I was about to arrive back at work yesterday lunchtime, my knee, which had been holding up pretty well since Monday, decided to have another outage, which continues as I write. At the risk of wishing my life away, I'll be glad when tomorrow evening comes and I finally get back home for some R & R!
There was one major piece of good news to leaven the mix a little - my daughter has now got a place (promoted from first reserve) on her school trip to Finland in the New Year, the trip being part of a languages project her school have been involved in. She's understandably pleased and excited at the prospect of going, and will no doubt be counting the days pretty soon!
Since I've been working up in London, there seems to have been a distinct dearth of cuties in the area, but that was redressed a little on Tuesday afternoon, when I walked up to the local shopping area while I was on my meal break. There was a very attractive blond boy in front of me in the queue in the bakery, and although I only had a fleeting look at him, mostly in profile, it was still a bright moment in a not very prepossessing week. Be grateful for small mercies, I guess!
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
On Monday, it all went fairly well until I was driving down to my brother's in the evening, when I got embroiled in a horrendous traffic jam in the aftermath of an accident on the motorway, ending up arriving well over an hour later than planned, meaning that my brother had to wait up for me again, making me feel like a total imposition on him. I also found out on Monday night that I'd left my medication at home in Cornwall, which led to a complicated manoeuvre on Tuesday and into Wednesday to retrieve it - I had to change my shift and undertake another long journey, albeit one that didn't cost me anything financially, but which sapped my dwindling stores of energy once again. Then, just as I was about to arrive back at work yesterday lunchtime, my knee, which had been holding up pretty well since Monday, decided to have another outage, which continues as I write. At the risk of wishing my life away, I'll be glad when tomorrow evening comes and I finally get back home for some R & R!
There was one major piece of good news to leaven the mix a little - my daughter has now got a place (promoted from first reserve) on her school trip to Finland in the New Year, the trip being part of a languages project her school have been involved in. She's understandably pleased and excited at the prospect of going, and will no doubt be counting the days pretty soon!
Since I've been working up in London, there seems to have been a distinct dearth of cuties in the area, but that was redressed a little on Tuesday afternoon, when I walked up to the local shopping area while I was on my meal break. There was a very attractive blond boy in front of me in the queue in the bakery, and although I only had a fleeting look at him, mostly in profile, it was still a bright moment in a not very prepossessing week. Be grateful for small mercies, I guess!
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Sunday, 7 November 2010
Pretty good weekend, except....
....it having to end, and my having spent most of it limping. I've had creaking knees, on and off, for a few years, but this weekend's problem is a new one - really sharp pains down the inside of my right knee (the medial ligament, I think, although I stand to be corrected), especially when walking down stairs. With the help of an elasticated knee support and some beefy painkillers, I've managed to function, but it wouldn't have been my ideal scenario for my weekend at home.
Leaving aside my aches and pains, though, it's all gone pretty well over the past couple of days. Nothing earth-shatteringly wonderful has happened, but we've managed to do some family stuff, including going out for a meal yesterday evening, which was nice given that it doesn't happen so often these days, as well as some quality chill-out time, always welcome in my somewhat fraught current lifestyle. There have been plenty of fireworks over the weekend as well, even this evening (I thought it was supposed to be the 5th of November we remembered, can these people not read a calendar!) - not really my cup of tea, but there is some chemical artistry there, even an old curmudgeon like me has to admit that!
As if to underline the generally positive mood of the moment, my weekend is coming to an end with a smile - DJ's latest post, with recordings of him jamming with his hockey buddy who plays drums, was thoroughly uplifting. Not to everyone's taste, I'm sure, but for an unreconstructed rocker like me, great stuff, and nice for me on a personal level to see the boy having a good time, given some of the stuff he's had to deal with over the last few months.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Leaving aside my aches and pains, though, it's all gone pretty well over the past couple of days. Nothing earth-shatteringly wonderful has happened, but we've managed to do some family stuff, including going out for a meal yesterday evening, which was nice given that it doesn't happen so often these days, as well as some quality chill-out time, always welcome in my somewhat fraught current lifestyle. There have been plenty of fireworks over the weekend as well, even this evening (I thought it was supposed to be the 5th of November we remembered, can these people not read a calendar!) - not really my cup of tea, but there is some chemical artistry there, even an old curmudgeon like me has to admit that!
As if to underline the generally positive mood of the moment, my weekend is coming to an end with a smile - DJ's latest post, with recordings of him jamming with his hockey buddy who plays drums, was thoroughly uplifting. Not to everyone's taste, I'm sure, but for an unreconstructed rocker like me, great stuff, and nice for me on a personal level to see the boy having a good time, given some of the stuff he's had to deal with over the last few months.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Friday, 5 November 2010
1000 miles....
....and then some. As I was making my way home this afternoon, after the last shift of my latest week in London, I worked out that by the time I got back to the house, I'd have driven almost 1100 miles this week, with the round trip from here and four round trips to my brother's where I've been staying again. This is a problem on several fronts - there's the immediate expense of all the fuel I've been using (£5.50 a gallon, or thereabouts, for diesel at the moment), the worry that if I keep piling the mileage on the car the way I'm doing at the moment, it's going to turn round and bite me by breaking down expensively, and the fact that I'm ending up feeling absolutely exhausted all the time, with all the travelling on top of the actual working hours that I'm doing. I suppose it's fair to say that I should've expected all of this when I decided to go for the job in the first place, so I've got few grounds for complaints.
It's all quietened down again now, but the earlier part of this evening was, in terms of sound at least, like sitting in the middle of a war zone, with all the bangs associated with Bonfire Night. It never ceases to amaze me how bloody loud fireworks are now compared with those I remember from my youth - I'm convinced some people manage to get hold of surplus artillery shells and set those off! Even this evening's unpromisingly damp weather hasn't put people off - I have to say that I can think of many better ways to spend an evening than standing in the rain watching my money going up in smoke, but each to their own.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
It's all quietened down again now, but the earlier part of this evening was, in terms of sound at least, like sitting in the middle of a war zone, with all the bangs associated with Bonfire Night. It never ceases to amaze me how bloody loud fireworks are now compared with those I remember from my youth - I'm convinced some people manage to get hold of surplus artillery shells and set those off! Even this evening's unpromisingly damp weather hasn't put people off - I have to say that I can think of many better ways to spend an evening than standing in the rain watching my money going up in smoke, but each to their own.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
It's all about context
It''s amazing the way that the 'where and how' of words that you use can affect the way they're understood by the person you're speaking to and can make such a difference to the reaction you get. Had he but had ears to hear, as it were, I told my brother this evening that I thought a 13 year old boy was 'cute' (he's a friend of my daughter's at her Saturday stage school, a friend that she'd very much like to make a boyfriend - and yes, he is cute!), and my brother didn't bat an eyelid, just because of the way I phrased what I said. Spin doctors are us, or what! I guess that's how politicians and some of their acolytes get away with some of the obfuscations, and even downright lies, that they do, by framing the statements in a way that sounds plausible, and has 'plausible deniability' if it all threatens to blow up in their faces at a later date.
I managed to get through my assessment successfully this morning at work, which means I'll be able to move on to something more interesting and challenging from tomorrow. My training process is going to be slowed down somewhat by the fact that I need to 'use or lose' two weeks' worth of leave by the end of the calendar year, and I have no intention of losing it - it's just a matter of picking which weeks would be most advantageous. The way things are shaping up, I might actually get a decent break over Christmas, possibly as much as 11 or 12 days, which will only be the second time in my whole career that I would have managed to do so, if it comes to fruition, although I won't be counting my chickens until I've got some sort of written confirmation. We can but hope!
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
I managed to get through my assessment successfully this morning at work, which means I'll be able to move on to something more interesting and challenging from tomorrow. My training process is going to be slowed down somewhat by the fact that I need to 'use or lose' two weeks' worth of leave by the end of the calendar year, and I have no intention of losing it - it's just a matter of picking which weeks would be most advantageous. The way things are shaping up, I might actually get a decent break over Christmas, possibly as much as 11 or 12 days, which will only be the second time in my whole career that I would have managed to do so, if it comes to fruition, although I won't be counting my chickens until I've got some sort of written confirmation. We can but hope!
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
The light at the end of the tunnel....
....is an oncoming train. Having made my nightly phone call home, it seems that we're getting ever nearer the edge of the precipice. My wife's job has never been all that secure, because she works for a cash-strapped charity, and the project that she runs is funded from the social services budget, a nice soft target for the endless rounds of cuts that our government has decided is the only solution to the national predicament. In a nutshell, and despite my wife's protestations that nothing has been finalised yet, it seems likely that her job will go in June next year. A month or so after I effectively burned my bridges as far as working near home is concerned, that's not exactly the news I wanted to hear. Irrespective of how much I can potentially earn in my new job, there's no way I can get anywhere near to replacing my wife's earnings, so it looks very much like we're going to end up in a worse financial position than before I committed myself to my nomadic lifestyle. Presumably this is what the government means by 'making sacrifices' - uproot your family life to keep paying for the bankers' bonuses, then lose everything anyway. Then just to deliver the coup de grace to my mood, my wife told me that our ailing bed seems to have finally given up the ghost - it's been living on borrowed time for months - so that will entail spending another chunk of money we haven't got. And on that happy note, it's off to bed for me to try and ensure that I'm reasonably compos mentis for work tomorrow morning, when I'm going to be facing the first big assessment in my new job, hopefully to pass me as competent for one of the five areas my workplace covers. The timing could have been better.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Monday, 1 November 2010
Endurance
Another long and long-distance day to start the week, up at a really ridiculous hour to drive up from home to work, and another drive down to my brother's this afternoon. I have had a bit of a 'power nap' since I've been here, though, so I'm a bit livelier than I might otherwise have been. It is a rather tiring lifestyle that I'm leading at the moment, and my brother and sister-in-law are somewhat worried on my behalf, so I've tried to reassure them that I don't think I'm going to do myself too much damage - I am blessed with reasonable reserves of stamina, so it should all be tolerable, as long as I don't try to do it for months on end.
A bit of a red-letter day yesterday - I finally managed, after all my struggles in recent weeks, to finish and post a new story for 'Cuckoos'. It's not the best thing I've ever written, by some distance, but it's a relief to know that the muse hasn't abandoned me completely. Hopefully the logjam has been broken, and I'll be able to go back to writing a bit more regularly. It's certainly something I want to do.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
A bit of a red-letter day yesterday - I finally managed, after all my struggles in recent weeks, to finish and post a new story for 'Cuckoos'. It's not the best thing I've ever written, by some distance, but it's a relief to know that the muse hasn't abandoned me completely. Hopefully the logjam has been broken, and I'll be able to go back to writing a bit more regularly. It's certainly something I want to do.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
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