After yesterday, I suppose a thoroughly bland, almost blank day was just what the proverbial doctor ordered. Got up, went to work, came back, power nap, internet, food, more internet. That's it, really. There are many other things I no doubt could have done, although the chilly, wet weather of the middle part of today didn't really encourage much in the way of outdoor life, but I chose not to.
The reshuffle at my wife's workplace is in full swing, given the impending end of the financial year, with various people leaving. My wife would have been amongst them, but for a three-month contract extension to allow more time for her particular project to be reallocated, hence her stay of execution until the end of June. Quite what we're going to do after that remains to be seen, but I find it hard to envisage, at least in financial terms, that things are going to get anything but worse. Having said that, I do tend towards pessimism, so I might yet be proven wrong and we'll come up smelling of roses. I'm not holding my breath in expectation of such an outcome, though.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Stupid of me
Stupid, that is, even to have hoped something would work out vaguely to my advantage. I went down to see the accommodation this afternoon, all very nice and civilised - and almost double what I could afford to pay. Another kick in the teeth from life, just what I needed. I might just as well have stayed in my old job and taken my heart attack like a man - at least I would've seen DBJ every now and again.
I'm left feeling not so much depressed as dejected, apathetic, beaten down. No doubt it all sounds a bit melodramatic when all that's happened is my seeing a place I can't afford, but it just seems symptomatic of where my life is at. No-one can expect to have everything they want in life, that would just be greedy and selfish, but not to have anything of what you really want is all rather soul-destroying.
I don't know where I'm going to go from here - I don't even know if I want to carry on with the blog.
A cute boy in my arms for an hour, then curl up and let the tide wash me away - even that's an impossible daydream.
Thank you all for your patience in the face of my relentless self-pity.
Later.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
I'm left feeling not so much depressed as dejected, apathetic, beaten down. No doubt it all sounds a bit melodramatic when all that's happened is my seeing a place I can't afford, but it just seems symptomatic of where my life is at. No-one can expect to have everything they want in life, that would just be greedy and selfish, but not to have anything of what you really want is all rather soul-destroying.
I don't know where I'm going to go from here - I don't even know if I want to carry on with the blog.
A cute boy in my arms for an hour, then curl up and let the tide wash me away - even that's an impossible daydream.
Thank you all for your patience in the face of my relentless self-pity.
Later.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Monday, 28 March 2011
Serendipity, maybe
Back at work this morning, and, without wishing to count any proverbial chickens, I had an encounter which might turn out to be very beneficial. We had a visit during the shift, from a group of elderly ex-employees in the industry I work in. They're all residents of a retirement/care home, which used to be directly associated with the industry, but is now run by an independent charitable organisation. My manager was talking to the lady who had arranged the visit, and who works for the charity, close to where I was working, and I happened to hear her talking about a house which is in the grounds of the care home, some of whose rooms are rented out to people in the industry. Almost as a joke, I asked if she had any vacancies, and, to cut a long story short, I'm going over there tomorrow afternoon to have a look at the place. I've no idea whether the accommodation is available on a short-term or longer-term basis, or how much it might cost, but I'm certainly hoping it will be suitable, because it's within reasonable commuting distance of work - half an hour or so - by way of a direct train service. Pretty much what I've been looking for, so I'm keeping my fingers firmly crossed that there won't be any unforeseen pitfalls. Even if I'm only able to stay there for a few weeks or months, it would at least give me a base, and go some way towards mitigating the nomadic lifestyle I've been leading recently.
My daughter arrived safely in Finland - I had a text from her earlier, and my wife's had a phone call - and it seems, as expected, that she's enjoying herself, even if it is snowy and about 5 degrees below zero. The wintry stuff doesn't do anything for me, but each to their own!
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
My daughter arrived safely in Finland - I had a text from her earlier, and my wife's had a phone call - and it seems, as expected, that she's enjoying herself, even if it is snowy and about 5 degrees below zero. The wintry stuff doesn't do anything for me, but each to their own!
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Clocks and departures
While I didn't have to go into work today, it didn't mean that I had anything resembling a lie-in, because my daughter was due to leave early this morning for a school exchange trip to Finland, which, allied to the fact that British Summer Time started today, with the clocks going forward an hour, meant that I got a grand total of about four hours sleep overnight. Needless to say, my daughter didn't have any trouble getting up, the excitement of anticipation easily overcoming her usual weekend tendency to stay in bed until the streets are well and truly aired. The weather she's going to be met with at her destination is, to put it mildly, bracing - the temperature isn't forecast to get above freezing point all week. Best of luck, young lady!
I did catch up on a couple of extra hours later in the morning, though, so my exhaustion levels have been kept within reasonable bounds, for once, although, in the end, I found myself rushing about a bit to be ready to leave in time myself to catch my train to London this afternoon. It proved to be a bit of a tortuous journey, because the train was diverted because of engineering work, adding an hour to what is already a pretty substantial trip, followed by a convoluted itinerary on the Underground because of their weekend work, finally ending up back in the same East London place as I stayed in a couple of weeks ago at around 8:00 this evening. At least the clock change meant that most of the journey was made in daylight, which always helps, so far as I'm concerned.
One major aim for this week is to sort out a more permanent place to stay, given that I'm expecting to be starting on the full roster from next weekend. I've seen one or two places online which I think will be worth following up, and being on earlies this week should give me the opportunity to go and have a look at anywhere suitable (read affordable!) that's within sensible commuting distance of my workplace. One slightly offbeat option I spotted a couple of days ago was tempting - renting a room on a boat on the Thames, but the set-up seemed a bit too much on the commune-ish side for my taste, so I've decided not to pursue that one. I'm not the most sociable of souls, as I've said before, so there's little point in committing myself to somewhere I'd have to 'muck in', much as the idea of living on the river appeals to me. A single bedsit, where I can lock my door and shut out the world whenever I feel the need is much more my thing, I'm afraid.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
I did catch up on a couple of extra hours later in the morning, though, so my exhaustion levels have been kept within reasonable bounds, for once, although, in the end, I found myself rushing about a bit to be ready to leave in time myself to catch my train to London this afternoon. It proved to be a bit of a tortuous journey, because the train was diverted because of engineering work, adding an hour to what is already a pretty substantial trip, followed by a convoluted itinerary on the Underground because of their weekend work, finally ending up back in the same East London place as I stayed in a couple of weeks ago at around 8:00 this evening. At least the clock change meant that most of the journey was made in daylight, which always helps, so far as I'm concerned.
One major aim for this week is to sort out a more permanent place to stay, given that I'm expecting to be starting on the full roster from next weekend. I've seen one or two places online which I think will be worth following up, and being on earlies this week should give me the opportunity to go and have a look at anywhere suitable (read affordable!) that's within sensible commuting distance of my workplace. One slightly offbeat option I spotted a couple of days ago was tempting - renting a room on a boat on the Thames, but the set-up seemed a bit too much on the commune-ish side for my taste, so I've decided not to pursue that one. I'm not the most sociable of souls, as I've said before, so there's little point in committing myself to somewhere I'd have to 'muck in', much as the idea of living on the river appeals to me. A single bedsit, where I can lock my door and shut out the world whenever I feel the need is much more my thing, I'm afraid.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Saturday, 26 March 2011
Let's break a rule
One tenet I've tried to work to during my time in blogland, both in terms of writing in my own blogs, and commenting on others, is 'if you've got nothing to say, say nothing'. That's why I didn't post yesterday - there really wasn't anything much to say. Today hasn't been much more eventful, in all honesty - I did receive an unexpected phone call from work this morning, telling me not to bother going in tomorrow, because there's nothing for me to do, which means I won't need to travel now until tomorrow afternoon, effectively giving me a buckshee day off - and I've spent a little while, prior to starting this post, staring at a blank screen. I could have done what I did yesterday, and not bother to try, but I feel the urge to write something, so I'll meander and see where I end up.
I've been reading a blog lately, having seen a link to it on a blog I follow, called 'Born this Way', which I'm sure many are familiar with. It invites LGBT people to send in pictures of themselves as children, and to tell their stories illustrating the innate roots of their orientation. It's made me think about my own situation, and how far back my own predilections go. I wrote some months ago about the first boy I can remember being attracted to, when I was 12, even if at that time I didn't fully understand what that attraction meant, but my musing about the 'born this way' adage, has led me to earlier memories, and memories of one boy in particular. When I was around 8 or 9, my best friend was a considerably younger boy, just 5 or 6, called Jonathan. There was no sexual component to the relationship, not least because I was a total innocent at that age - sex just wasn't mentioned in my home - but, in hindsight, there was a distinct emotional tie involved. I remember one incident in particular, when having been invited to what must have been Jonathan's sixth birthday party, held one afternoon after school, I thought I'd missed my lift to his house, and had a dreadful, tearful meltdown outside school, far more intense than could reasonably be explained, even for a 9 year old, by the simple disappointment of not going to a party. Was I in love with him, in my childish way? It's certainly possible, and it's definitely fair to say that I didn't ever feel that way about a girl until I was in my late teens. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it does make me wonder how much of what makes me what I am is down to nature, and how much to nurture. I guess the truth lies at some intermediate point, as with most things.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
I've been reading a blog lately, having seen a link to it on a blog I follow, called 'Born this Way', which I'm sure many are familiar with. It invites LGBT people to send in pictures of themselves as children, and to tell their stories illustrating the innate roots of their orientation. It's made me think about my own situation, and how far back my own predilections go. I wrote some months ago about the first boy I can remember being attracted to, when I was 12, even if at that time I didn't fully understand what that attraction meant, but my musing about the 'born this way' adage, has led me to earlier memories, and memories of one boy in particular. When I was around 8 or 9, my best friend was a considerably younger boy, just 5 or 6, called Jonathan. There was no sexual component to the relationship, not least because I was a total innocent at that age - sex just wasn't mentioned in my home - but, in hindsight, there was a distinct emotional tie involved. I remember one incident in particular, when having been invited to what must have been Jonathan's sixth birthday party, held one afternoon after school, I thought I'd missed my lift to his house, and had a dreadful, tearful meltdown outside school, far more intense than could reasonably be explained, even for a 9 year old, by the simple disappointment of not going to a party. Was I in love with him, in my childish way? It's certainly possible, and it's definitely fair to say that I didn't ever feel that way about a girl until I was in my late teens. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it does make me wonder how much of what makes me what I am is down to nature, and how much to nurture. I guess the truth lies at some intermediate point, as with most things.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Thursday, 24 March 2011
End of the marathon....for now
It was with a sense of decided relief that I arrived back home at around 11:15 this morning, to bring my half-week of mega-commuting to an end. Predictably enough, it's left me feeling very tired and not 100% well - I've been full of sniffles again this week - but I have, at least, got a couple of days of R & R before it all starts again early on Sunday morning. One positive of my time on the train is that I managed to get the next chapter of Noctivagant posted on 'Cuckoos' this morning. I want to try and keep the momentum of my writing going, because, having released a few chapters, I wouldn't want to leave the story hanging there unfinished.
I had an interesting conversation with one of my colleagues about 2:00 this morning, the subject matter of which surprised me considerably, and not in an unpleasant way. The man in question is a ex-soldier, around five years younger than me, a pretty rough and ready kind of person with forthright, rightwing-ish views on quite a number of issues, and, superficially, not the sort you might associate with much in the way of tolerance. It transpires, however, that the elder of his two sons, who's in his early twenties, is gay, and, despite the young man apparently having expected all sorts of dire consequences, possibly up to and including physical violence, when he came out to his dad as a 16 year old, he was greeted instead with a hug and a kiss, and reassurance that he would always be his father's son. With all the dire stories of bullying, rejection and suicide that have been aired recently, it's really nice for once to hear of a happy ending, and from, with all due respect to my colleague, a fairly unlikely source.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
I had an interesting conversation with one of my colleagues about 2:00 this morning, the subject matter of which surprised me considerably, and not in an unpleasant way. The man in question is a ex-soldier, around five years younger than me, a pretty rough and ready kind of person with forthright, rightwing-ish views on quite a number of issues, and, superficially, not the sort you might associate with much in the way of tolerance. It transpires, however, that the elder of his two sons, who's in his early twenties, is gay, and, despite the young man apparently having expected all sorts of dire consequences, possibly up to and including physical violence, when he came out to his dad as a 16 year old, he was greeted instead with a hug and a kiss, and reassurance that he would always be his father's son. With all the dire stories of bullying, rejection and suicide that have been aired recently, it's really nice for once to hear of a happy ending, and from, with all due respect to my colleague, a fairly unlikely source.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
Work, travel, sleep, travel, work
That cycle is filling my entire time at the moment, certainly until I get back home, sometime mid-morning-ish tomorrow. At least I haven't got time to get bored, not that boredom is really something I ever have to deal with - not enough hours in the day is a far more common complaint. Maybe it's the dreaded chariots of time pursuing me, but I almost always feel that there would be more I could do, if I had the opportunity - to paraphrase 'Parkinson's Law', life seems to expand to fill the available time, and being bored simply isn't a productive use of what time there is.
I overheard a thoroughly bizarre conversation on the bus to the station this afternoon, between two college age lads (18/19-ish) sitting behind me, on the subject of whether Spiderman is gay. Leaving aside the obvious objection that he's a fictional character, what difference does it make either way? If you were in some kind of mortal peril, would the first question you'd ask your friendly local superhero be about his sexual orientation? After a few minutes, at least one of the interlocutors seemed to realise the absurdity of the discussion, when he said 'I don't believe we're having this conversation'. Frankly, neither did I.
Thanks very much to Jacob for becoming my latest follower. I hope, as with everyone kind enough to visit my blog, that you find something of interest.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
I overheard a thoroughly bizarre conversation on the bus to the station this afternoon, between two college age lads (18/19-ish) sitting behind me, on the subject of whether Spiderman is gay. Leaving aside the obvious objection that he's a fictional character, what difference does it make either way? If you were in some kind of mortal peril, would the first question you'd ask your friendly local superhero be about his sexual orientation? After a few minutes, at least one of the interlocutors seemed to realise the absurdity of the discussion, when he said 'I don't believe we're having this conversation'. Frankly, neither did I.
Thanks very much to Jacob for becoming my latest follower. I hope, as with everyone kind enough to visit my blog, that you find something of interest.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
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