Wednesday 24 December 2008

...and if anything, then there's your sign of the times

Oh lordy, my life is such a busy and crazy beast. Today is a rare moment of isolation & peace. Don't get me wrong though, I wouldn't swap my current life for anything at all. N & I have had a few adventures that I'd like to reflect upon; The comedic farce that was our effort to go & see Coldplay, The blissed out spontaneity of our drop of a hat trip to Reading of all places & the obligatory tales of drunkeness from the work christmas party. Tales to be told another day though as I want to focus on something much more recent. 

Many years ago, I used to play a game called A Question of Scruples. My memory of it, nothing more than a mildly amusing round of moral dilemmas that could pass an hour or so quite pleasantly. Anyway when I saw it in a charity shop yesterday for the tidy some of £1.50 I suggested to N that it may be a hoot. She concurred & a few short hours later we set about a steady stream of vodka & started playing. I say playing but we didn't bother doing it properly (we're far too rock & roll for that!), we simply read the cards & put the various thorny issues to each other.

After a few questions it started becoming apparent that the game was pretty old, given away by talk of whether you'd give back the pound that friend had left on the sofa. A pound? How quaint.

 Now we had many a laugh & tried not to notice that we were playing a game clearly designed for 1980's Daily Mail readers to engage in with friends after dinner. To illustrate this allow me to give you a selection of the questions:

l        Your teenage son purchases a “hot” cassette player from a friend for £10. Do you allow him to keep it?

l        At a night-club, you notice a handsome young man dressed to the “nines”. Unfortunately, his shirt tail is hanging out. Do you tell him?

l        You're having a great annual party with friends. Your rather stuffy neighbours complain about the noise at 11.00pm. Do you quieten things down?

l        You notice a parked car with it's headlights on. Do you try to turn them off? (and how exactly would one go about that? Don't think I'd be very pleased to return to my motor to find the driver's seat covered in the glass that used to be my window, with a post-it on the steering wheel saying I turned your lights out for you. You're welcome.)

Anyway, all good clean fun and perhaps a gentle reminder of simpler times. Perhaps not. We soon were holding our sides in fits of open mouthed, wide eyed laughter. However, we were chortling  with incredulous horror at the fact that such a question could even be asked;

l        Your daughter tells you she is gay. Do you try to talk her out of it?

I know! Oh my god!! And there's more...

l        Your teenage daughter is dating a boy of another colour. Do you encourage her to date boys of her own race?

l        You are a homeowner. A social agency wants to establish a home for seven mentally handicapped adults next door. Do you sign a petition opposing this?

l        You are a high school head teacher. Will you hire a teacher you know is gay?

And my personal favourite;

l        You don't have seatbelts for all the toddlers you're driving to a puppet show. Do you leave your own children without belts?

Now whilst this all caused us much merriment, it also caused me to consider the time that I grew up in. A time where casual prejudice was commonplace &, even worse, accepted. I remember guffawing at a TV show called “Mind your language”, a terrible international slander-fest based upon a classroom of the most obvious racial stereotypes trying to learn English. A Fez wearing quick tempered Turk, a very butch German lady shot putting type, a sexy little French lady complete with red beret & of course a “goodness, gracious me” Indian character.  I was still in single figures age-wise by the way. It would quite simply not be broadcast today. Nor would the utterly reprehensible “love thy neighbour” where the “comedy” centered around the relationship between a man & the “nig-nog” (I kid you not!) who had moved in next door.

I also clearly remember my mum referring to black people as “darkies”. As for homosexuality, well all poofs were like John Inman (I'm Free!) or Dick Emery, limp wristed dandys. They were certainly not like normal people.

Now I realise I'm only scratching the surface of how those days were but that game & it's ridiculous questions brought something into sharp focus. That we've come a long way. I know that as a society we're far from perfect but how nice it is to get conformation (from the unlikeliest of sources!) that we are actually moving forward.

Anyway it's very nearly Xmas, so allow me to wish anyone & everyone a very merry Christmas.
Let's hope it's a good one!

Saturday 29 November 2008

Though we may be the last in the world, we feel like pioneers

Hello.

This is a new blog but I am hardly new to this. I traded under a different name for quite some time but in many ways, the character that composed that blog has died. Not literally of course. My former incarnation has pretty much ceased to be relevant in my current life, which has undergone some major changes since my previous blogging days. 
It's almost like I'm brand new!

So who am I & what am I about?
Well, I'm a late 30something bloke who loves life & the unpredictability of it all. I've come to relish the here & now having learned that absolutely nothing can be done about the past & very little, no matter how hard one may try, can seriously affect the future.
And I like to share, hence the need to re-immerse myself in Blogland.

Right now, I am as happy as I have ever been in life. And it's not like I've had a dull life with limited happiness before now. Oh no, I've certainly lived a bit & have many a tale to tell. And I've tasted extreme happiness many times but never quite as much as I do now.

There are, of course, some reasons for my current state of joy.
One of these is my constant; my 9 year old son T who is the apple of my eye & is a constant source of pleasure to me as I watch him grow & develop.  Though long estranged from his mother (thank crikey for that!) I see him an awful lot & consider myself to be a bloody good dad.
He certainly seems to think so.

Secondly, there is my work. For far too many years work was something that I had to do so as to earn a wage. I'd occasionally have good times (such as 3 months in France) & I met many a friend through it but more often than not it was dull, monotonous & plodding. 
Then some 18 months ago I took voluntary redundancy (too tempting after 12 years service) & found a career. I now work in a children's home for (mostly) teenagers with "challenging behaviour".I now actually look forward to going to work. Whereas my previous job was all about routine & was utterly predictable, now I quite literally have no idea what each day will bring. Sometimes I can be spending the day at Alton Towers going on all the rides with one of the kids & thinking "Wow, I'm actually getting paid to do this" or some days I will be called all the names under the sun, be physically attacked & covered in BBQ sauce. I also have found that I'm actually very good at what I do & have already been promoted in the relatively short time I've been doing the job. It's incredibly difficult to describe in a few short words what I get from this job but it has indeed changed my life. And on top of all that, on a snowy day in March, N walked into my life.

N was, for quite a while, my friend. We worked together & got to know each other & bonded over several cigarettes. Now N is my world. She is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. I can often be found silently awestruck as I try to figure out what I ever did that was so good that I could possibly deserve her. I have been "around the block" a bit, I have been in love before & I have felt joy. I have also had some absolutely fantastic sex in the past as well. Now though, as a song I will shortly write will attest, all those experiences seem average, at best. That's not to detract from all those who have gone before, it's just to illustrate just how insanely blissful I am these days. N is funny, smart, thrilling & more in tune with me than I ever thought it possible to be. And she loves me with the same ferocious passion that I feel for her. There is no imbalance. Sexually, we connect in a way that defies all my prior knowledge of sex. I believe we may have actually discovered a whole new kind of pleasure, we are pioneers.
It's all so very beautiful.
That N is stunningly gorgeous, 15 years my junior & in possession of a body to kill for, is a bonus of gargantuan proportions. Yet a bonus nonetheless. I would still adore her if she were average looking, 15 years my senior & not hot-bodied. She is my everything. I love her more than life itself.
And right now, I bloody love my life.

So I have returned to Blogland to share my joy & in time I'm sure I will share normal everyday stuff too. I have no pre-concieved ideas about how often I'll post or what I'll blog about, but I'm here and if you'd like to see how it all turns out, then you are most welcome to join me.