Not listening....La La La

One aspect of my personality, my beliefs, that I'm definitely not closeted about is my atheism. I'm well aware that such a stance is considerably easier for me to sustain in the UK than it would be in many parts of the US, but I'm not shy about telling anyone of my non-belief, if it comes up in conversation. I've had one or two interesting conversations as a result, perhaps the most notable being with a chaplain attached to my industry, who walked into a place I was working at in the mid-1980s, and not only got a pretty forthright answer when he asked if I had connections to any churches in the area where I was working at the time, but was also very surprised to find that my reading matter (it was a one of those quiet one-man locations I've worked at over the years) was Heimskringla, the Icelandic history of the kings of Norway (in translation, needless to say, my talents, such as they are, don't extend to fluency in Icelandic), and even more surprised when I pointed out that my working in a relatively lowly role didn't condemn me to illiteracy.
My wife, on the other hand, is a Christian. We were both well aware of our ideological differences more or less from the outset of our relationship, and, until fairly recently, I'd been under the impression that it was one area where we'd agreed to disagree, the only serious difference of opinion we'd ever had on the subject being when I wanted to withdraw our daughter from religious education classes when she first started at primary school, as parents have the right to do in this country, not because I wanted my daughter to grow up as an atheist (she hasn't, incidentally), but because I objected to very young children being taught religious, predominantly Christian, tenets and Bible stories as facts rather than what I would describe as opinions or allegories, children of that age obviously not having the mental architecture in place to be taught in any sort of nuanced, 'shades of grey' fashion. Of late, though, perhaps for the last year or two, my wife seems to have decided that my views are unacceptable, but rather than discussing the issue, she just refuses to listen to anything I have to say on the subject, and won't even put forward any counter-arguments to lend support to her own case. It's just a closed-minded 'I'm right, you're not, end of story' kind of attitude. This evening has been a case in point. We'd received a Christmas card from one of her long-standing friends from her home town, which had an 'our recent news' kind of insert with it, amongst which was the news that her friend's family had started attending a different church, to which my wife expressed her surprise - she met her friend through church, and he'd been attending the same one for over twenty years. I asked her, lightheartedly enough, if it made a difference, because, to my mind, they all espoused the same mythology, but, rather than saying 'no, you're wrong, because of a), b) or c)' she walked off and started talking to our daughter about something completely unconnected. If I'd ever made any effort to 'convert' my wife to my way of thinking, and she'd found such an attempt unwelcome or offensive, I could better understand her attitude, but I'm quite happy for her (and anyone else) to believe whatever she wants, as long as I'm not expected to dance to the same tune. In the overall scheme of things, it's a minor issue, but still something of a disappointment.
Some more steam - metaphorical, at least - issued from unmentionable places during the day, as I finished my story for 'Nephelokokkygia'. I'd like to think it's got marginally more depth than simply being a 'masturbation fantasy', but I would say that, I guess. It's got one good character, at least. Cherchez le garçon. He's a cutie!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Not Safe For....well, anywhere, really

This post is probably going to fall into the 'far too much information' category, but, as ever, I'm going to shamelessly please myself and write it anyway. I've spent much of today getting myself pseudo-adolescently hot and bothered, because I've been writing a story for 'Nephelokokkygia' with yesterday's 'supermarket boy', or a totally fantasy fiction version of him, as a central character. The story, should I get round to finishing it, will end up as one of those self-indulgent things like Suadela, basically me just turning fantasies around the desires in my head into text, and inflicting them on the world, in a way that's assuredly 'NSFW' - or home, or anywhere much else.
At least my success in getting myself worked up has distracted me from my bad back suffering a relapse - I woke up this morning with my lower back feeling like it was made out of concrete, and it's taken most of the day to get it loosened up in any meaningful way. Physical deterioration - don't you just love it!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Fantasy Land

I went out relatively early for a Sunday morning, because my daughter had arranged to meet some of her friends in 'town' at 10:00, and I gave her a lift, before going on to do the shopping. The supermarket had only been open for 15 minutes or so when I got there, but was still busy. The eye candy quotient was low, though - or would have been, but for one individual. It was one of those 'all the boxes ticked' scenarios - he was about my daughter's age, 13, maybe 14, tallish but not too 'grown up', very light brown hair, not quite fair, nice face, good skin, and the most appealingly 'kissable' lips I've seen on a boy for many a long day. I must admit to having succumbed to some rather vivid fantasies about what I'd have liked to have done with the boy, and those luscious lips, given his willingness and consent. For all my attraction to boys of that age, I don't very often get as far as actively fantasising about specifics, so perhaps I'm feeling a bit needier than usual at the moment in the face of all the other pressures in my life.
There was a brief glimpse, too, of another more local object of desire at lunchtime, as I fleetingly saw the blond cutie who lives just behind us. And yes, it was through the infamous window, but he was only visible because he was at the window looking out and down when I happened to be in our kitchen, before I'm accused again of voyeurism. I'd have to be perched on our roof to be able to look directly into his room in a 'peeping Tom' kind of way, which would make me a little conspicuous, even if I had the wherewithal to get up there!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Trust

My daughter has now seen my blog. It wasn't accidental, but it happened in a perfectly natural way. She came downstairs this morning while I had Blogger open, and, as usual, I alt-tabbed away to a 'safe' window. We were talking for a little while, and something I'd read in one of the blogs I follow came up in conversation. She asked a follow-up question, the answer to which I couldn't immediately recall, and the easiest way to retrieve the requisite piece of information was just to go to the blog concerned and look. And the easiest way to do that was to go to my blog, and click on the link in my blog list. So we did. Following on from that, I thought she'd be interested in the Theodoric quote from a couple of days ago, so we looked at that as well. In the aftermath, I've told her that she can read whatever she wants, that she can link to or from the blog if she wants, but, purely as a favour, I've asked her not to tell anyone else whose blog it is. It's entirely her decision, but, even at her young age, I trust her. That goes without saying, I guess, because if I didn't, I wouldn't have shared the blog, or the other things she knows about me. A quote I read somewhere ages ago said that a secret is only a secret if two know it, and one of them is dead, but that's the chance I've taken.
I've spent this afternoon dabbling at my Jamie sequel, or parallel-quel, or whatever you want to call it, and made a little progress. I've decided there's no way I can write it from a first-person child's perspective and make it sound in any way authentic, so third-person it will be - if it ever sees the light of cyberspace day, of course.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Fifteen minutes

"In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes."

Andy Warhol's most famous quotation, arguably. A comment on mass media, I guess, and oddly prescient, given the latterday obsession with reality TV and celebrity culture. What made me think of the quote was reading Rowan's post this evening about his first experience of performing in front of an audience, and enjoying it. Given that I don't 'do people' at all, the idea of me as a performer is not one that would spring too readily to mind, but, ironically, I've probably been seen by a larger audience than at least 99% of the world's population. Why? Because I have, or had, a capacity to answer general knowledge questions, and I've appeared as a contestant on two different TV quiz shows, one of them very high-profile in the UK, certainly at the time I was involved. I've been on TV nine times, in total, not counting repeats (I'm not aware of any, but in this multi-channel age, there's no way of knowing), and I've had my share of being recognised in the street, or in the supermarket. My 'fifteen minutes', I suppose. I didn't enjoy it, predictably. It felt like a violation, of sorts, an exposure to the eyes of the world that I would have been happier without. But, of course, having put myself 'out there' voluntarily, I can't complain. All in all, I'd rather be rich than famous. There's more Howard Hughes than Paris Hilton in my personalty - thankfully!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Another lurch towards the precipice

My wife rang me before heading home from work this afternoon, to prime me for bad news, as I correctly suspected. It looks like her job is in jeopardy again - her line manager is trying to paint a picture of substandard performance, but I get the feeling it's more to do with money. My wife retained her rate of pay when she transferred from her old employer in the summer, and that rate of pay is quite a bit higher than the new outfit would have offered for the post, so my take on it is that they're trying to elbow her out so they can get someone cheaper. Whatever the 'politics' of the situation are, if my wife loses her job, there's absolutely no way, even if I was to work seven days a week, every week (which I'm not allowed to do, anyway, under our working time regulations), and never came home at all, that I'd be able to make up the shortfall, especially given that, in the current economic climate, the chances of my wife getting another job at all, never mind at a comparable salary, aren't exactly promising. Once again, it makes me wonder whether the time is approaching to simply look for an exit strategy. It's hard to justify being away, doing something I don't want to do, if it's all going to the dogs anyway.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Who are the barbarians?

I came across this quotation earlier today, while watching a history documentary.

"We cannot command in matters of religion, because no one can be compelled to believe against his will."


Sounds fairly modern and progressive, doesn't it? A product of the Enlightenment, or even more recent than that, perhaps. In fact, it is attributed to a monarch who not only lived 1500 years ago, but whose people are widely considered to be barbarians - Theodoric, king of the Ostragoths (454-526, reigned 471-526). If a 'barbarian' from the so-called Dark Ages could espouse such a belief, why is it seemingly so difficult for so many people in the 21st Century, of many different faiths, to extend that courtesy to those who don't share their worldview?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B