No longer as truthful as should be deserved, some names, places and events deliberately vague to protect identities that aren't mine

Tuesday 15 November 2011

A sign of things to come...

I packed up my suitcase and left the old farm
I promised my papa I'd come to no harm
And I went to the city where I was employed
In a firm of accountants as an office boy.

I fetched and I carried, I watched and I learned
And slowly but surely I rose through the firm.
But then I discovered my colleagues one day
Massaging the figures for personal gain
I said 'I'll not wallow in this house of shame'
I'll plough my own furrow, I'll go my own way.

Gravely I listened to Reverend McBride
Down at the mission house each Friday night.
Heaven's salvation for those who know best,
Hell and damnation for all of the rest.

Try as I might I could not understand
Why The Almighty's all-merciful hand
Should cast away those whose only mistake
Was never to know the Christian faith
The stars that we follow can lead us astray

I'll plough my own furrow, I'll go my own way

I fled from the capital's bourgeois malaise
And trekked through the wilderness for fourteen days
'Til I found the guerillas camped high in the hills
I asked Comrade Diaz whom I should kill.

I crept into town with a knife in my teeth
And entered the home of the Chief of Police
I stood at his bedside and raised up my blade
But then I looked to the crib where his little one lay
You murder tomorrow by killing today

I'll plough my own furrow, I'll go my own way...



The Divine Comedy - The Plough

Tuesday 8 November 2011

How'd I end up feeling so bad for such a little boy...

So I had another brilliant weekend.  Chris came to visit again.  We all went out on Thursday with americaboy and a load of my friends and partied the night away and we had a great time.  And Friday I dragged him to see the show at work as it was my last night, Saturday we went to my friend's birthday drinks and had the slightly too awkward but overly civil meeting with the ex, and Sunday we spent the day watching films at another friend's house.  I got to go to sleep next to him every night and I woke up to him hugging me every day.  He does this brilliant thing where when I hug him in my half asleep state he grabs my arm and pulls it in to make me hug him properly.  And he's half asleep whilst doing it.  It's completely adorable and I love it and totally worth the mild discomfort of trying to sleep spooned up with someone.

And today we've both been slightly screwed up.  This is because Sunday night we had the talk.  The 'what are we/where are we going' talk.  The one I was dreading but we both wanted and needed to have.  As is glaringly apparent to anyone who has spent 20 nanoseconds in our presence over the last 2 weeks, and most of the twittersphere who haven't, we really like each other, and there is clearly something going on there.  And I wrote last week that even then I wanted to ask the guy out all proper like, complete with a date that doesn't involve just going to heaven and everything.  But equally, I had my concerns, and I was also kind of enjoying the absence of any kind of label, and just going with it, you all know I'm very much a living for the moment kind of guy.

This boy is really innocent, and inexperienced, in a life kinda way.  I don't mean that as naiive, that has negative connotations I don't wish to bring into this; it's simply a case where he hasn't experienced a lot of what lots of us have - he chose not to go to uni so he missed that whole different kind of life that you get chucked into in your first year - so he hasn't had the chance to work out how he feels about things or been confronted with things that most of us have become immune to.  And that's one of the things I really like about him, yes everyone has baggage and issues and idiosyncrasies and all that, but this boy didn't come with all the expectations most people even at my relatively young age do.  And there was so much I could do for him, even simple things, like taking him to St Paul's at 11pm at night because he's never seen it before puts this amazing smile on his face, and it's nice to be able to do things like that for someone, to be the one who can show them things, to be the one to take care of them, and look out for them.  One of the reasons I broke up with ex Chris (I only specify him as ex because there are too many Chris' involved in this blog and I don't want you all to get mixed up) was because I hardly ever felt like I did anything for him, like he was reliant or dependant on me in any way, and I get a real kick out of being able to take care of people.  It's prob why I like broken boys so much, I'm broken, I'm really dependant on whoever I'm with, and so for some twisted fucked up reason that a psychiatrist would probably have a field day, I need someone who's just as overtly reliant on me, not necessarily in the same way, but there's definitely some sort of reverse-dependency issue going on there.

But at the end of the day, I needed to know where my boundaries were, and especially given he hasn't 'lived' that much, he needed to know what we were so he could begin to process the things that had happened between us over the last 2 weeks appropriately, so that conversation happened.

Naturally, it did not end in the super happy fantastic way as otherwise I'm sure you'd all be yelling at the both of us to shut up about it we'd be tweeting so much.  That's not to say it ended badly, just very much not satisfactorily for either of us I think.  For reasons outlined in my previous post, as much as I want the guy, and cute and amazing as he is, as happy as he makes me - as has been noted by several people - I don't think we should get together.  I want him to make friends, and I want him to make them as him, not as my boyfriend; I don't want to risk him losing people to talk to if anything bad ever happened between us.  I'm not good with monogamy, that's not to say I won't try, that's not to say he's not worth it (though as previously blogged about, to say someone is 'worth' it or not is not the way i think of it at all), but I know what I'm good at and what I'm bad at.  I have my whole in love with other people issues.  I have my fucked up mental crazy issues. There's lots of things this guy doesn't know about me, and obviously anyone I met 2 weeks ago isn't likely to know all my deep and dark secrets, and whilst I'd never keep it a secret from him if he asked, I suspect his brain might melt if I dumped everything onto him as freely as I do you lot, I have to be somewhat selective in what I chose to say and not say around the guy.  It's not that I'm not open with him, or not myself, I just can't properly relax around him.

We could give each other a lot, this boy came out of nowhere and he arrived at the time when I needed someone most, when I was most ready to give up on everything that goes along with this whole 'gay' thing, and he was just there, without judgement, and totally into me, brave and yet with so much he wanted to learn, that I could show him, happy to just sit, and hug, for hours on end.  For all he doesn't understand, for all the things he's been shocked with since meeting me, he's never once cast judgement.  I think that's amazing.  He doesn't agree with everything, he doesn't like everything, he doesn't understand everything, but he's never once been judgemental about it.  I've never met someone like that before.  He makes me really happy.  But for all the things we could give each other, I think there's some really fundamental things which say to me we just shouldn't get together.  That I'd rather have him as this really good friend that I kind of long for, than to go out with him and screw it all up.  I'm probably over analyzing all of this, and my friends will probably slap me round the face and yell at me to stop being such an idiot and just turn up on the boy's doorstep, kiss him, and ask if he'll be my boyfriend, and if that's really what I need to do, tell me.  Today I don't know what to do, or how I feel.  And from what he's been tweeting, I don't think he does either.

Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.

Tuesday 1 November 2011

Random things you should go look at:

Okay some random stuff I felt like sharing.

Firstly you should all go check out this new food blog, only one post so far but it's season and looks nom.  http://boatkitchen.blogspot.com/2011/10/tagliatelle-with-roasted-pumpkin-and.html

Second if you haven't seen the Grainger Games news story that occured recently, check out this link:
http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2011/10/how-an-unknown-games-retailer-committed-suicide-at-a-gaming-awards-event/
Followed by the links at the end of that posting, especially the difference between the apologies from the event organiser and grainger games themselves

Thirdly, this is one of the best pieces of design I've seen recently and I wish they'd make one that works in this country (though I have no idea if that's even feasible): http://www.nest.com/index.html
For those who can't be arsed to click through, it's a thermostat.  Simple enough device really, except this one is really clever.  You adjust it as normal, but it has some really complex heuristics algorithms that mean it can program itself based on your behaviours.  It can auto adjust the temperature up or down according to your daily rhythms, it can do it for the different days as your schedule changes, and it can tell the difference between a one off change in temperature, and one that's a change to its programming schedule.
Okay so far that doesn't sound amazing, but where it excels is it can learn your habits for an entire year, separating out the seasons, months, and weeks.  And yet it sets off just a single week of usage and self-adjusts onwards from there.  It's a small easy self-installable module.  It connects to wifi, allowing you to adjust settings from the web or smartphones whilst away.  It has holiday modes so your pipes don't freeze.  The wifi downloads the weather for your local area and matches that up against your temperature settings to see how cold or warm weather spikes affect your usage, and adjusts its programming accordingly.  It has sensors to detect occupancy of the house and switches the heating/ac off when everybody is at work.  It offers you extra tips to  achieve optimal energy and cost savings.  Basically this is one of those 'house of the future' style products.  It's small, unobtrusive, fantastically designed, packs a lot of kit, is fairly affordable for what it does, and has the potential to revolutionize people's lives in ways that are subtle but hugely effective; it is what good design should be.
As I say, I just wish they'd make one for the UK, I'd totally buy one!