How am I feeling?

I'll tell ya.

I feel like I've let them down.

Paul's gone home for a few days, he'll be discussing what he's going to do with his parents.

In all likeess he'll go back to Lichfield.

And while I'm angry at him for wasting another opportunity to move his life forward in a positive direction, I feel like I've let them down.

I'm not sure what more I could have done.

But nevertheless.

I can't shake the feeling.

So, how are you feeling?

I cut and pasted the below from the blog of a fellow blogger (on this site) and I'm beetroot with shame that I do not remember which one as I was browsing at the time.

I pasted it onto an email and forwarded it to a french colleague of mine who then responded.

This is the intial blog..(and it if it's your please tell me so I can credit you!)

On my little jaunt across France, I couldnt help but notice a few things. I like the French, but there are one or two culture differences that are quite hard to get past sometimes.
I'm about to tar an entire nation with the same brush - this is of course totally unfair and I'm certain there are lots of exceptions to the rule, but hey, this is my blog and I'm sure we Rosbif come if for a fair amount of stick ourselves, so I dont feel too bad..
1. Driving style. This is shared with the Germans as well. It involves either drving up fast behind you on the Autoroute and sitting just a few molecules away from your bumper with the indicator on until you can actually pull over, or, driving fast up behind you with no intention of slowing down, causing drivers to move off the road altogether in some cases in fear of their lives.
I dont think its malicious. I'll discuss this in a minute

2. Manners. This is such an odd one. We brits do have a thing or 9 to learn about manners in the service industry its true, but the French have a unique style all of their own. The French language is flowery and polite, so people cant help being polite when they are being just normal. Bonjour - so formal - "Good Day". In conversation and friendship - they can be warm and expressive, welcoming and wonderful.
But on the other side of Dr Jeckell is the total ambivalance of their fellow human beings. Parking a car. They'll just park it where they see fit. Pushing into a queue. What queue?? Walking down a busy street - barging people out of they way. In a car - just pull onto the road infront of you.
As I mentioned before, I dont think this is done with malice - its a genuine, innate lack of consideration for othes. They just dont see it as a problem and as everyone does it to everyone else, so its accepted. trouble is, for me, who does give a shit, it really pisses me off.
3. Toilets. Oh my god. Someone call the UN. What is it with a supposedly first world, educated, high class society that still hasnt got past shit stained holes in the ground for toilets??
Motorway service stations. - holes in the ground
Town Centre toilets - shit smeared holes in the damn ground
Everywhere else - no flippin public toilets at all.
Why do the French have this fixation with squatting in public??? Whats wrong with Thomas Crapper's flushing system??
4. Road Signs. Can we please have the sign post BEFORE the road it is pointing down. Not hard to guess why this might be helpful really...
I think I'll stop before it spoils the memories of my holiday... :-)
Actually - I dont care half as much as it seems from the above rant - I'd still want to live there, but I would be taking my own toilet.And then we have my esteemed colleagues response.

I say 'colleague'..he actually works for me and obviousely has too much time on his hands, something which I will rectify.

On my little jaunt across England, I could not help but notice a few things. I like the English, but there are one or two culture differences that are quite hard to get past sometimes.

Actually - I dont care half as much as it seems from the above rant - I'd still want to live there, but I would take my own car, girlfriend and bathroom.

I thought it was funny.

All I want right now is my bed.

I wanna be laying in that big king size snuggled under the duvet with music playing, or listening to Johnathan Ross on Radio 2.

Radio 2.

Shit. How old am I?

In a perfect scenario I would have the naked body of a guy next to me, or wrapped around me.

His head on my chest or vice versa and we would just cuddle for a while before getting up, going shopping and lunch.

All that wonderfull bullshit that couples do.

But alas, dear Binky, I'm at work.

Duty Manager.

For the weekend and no chance of a lay in until next Friday.

I know, it breaks your heart, don't it?

I didn't envision this.

I really didn't.

I wanted it to be me and my brother having fun, hanging out, shooting the shit, guiding him into the right job, meeting his new and exciting friends and him finally move out into a flat of his own.

What I've got is...

What I've got is a guy who is content to stack shelves at Woolworths for 24 hrs a week, and he's supposed to be fucking graduate.

More on that later.

Paul came to Manchester after managing to get himself into 30k of debt - please don't ask me how because I don't even know.

He has nothing to show for it, thats for sure.

The week before he arrived he blew his last £180 going out with friends and literally turned up without so much as a penny.

Big Brother kitted out his room and gave him money to look for a job.

It wasn't a lot of cash but enough to travel in and out of town for 3 weeks, and in a town like Manchester getting a job should be relatively easy 'cause when your out of work and have to make a minimum of £380 a month to meet your loans, any job is a good job.

Not Paul.

He'd blown the cash by the Thursday and was asking for more.

He looked through the Manchester Evening News that boasted 1100 jobs saying there was no jobs for him.

Yeah right, bud....'cause you can afford to be Mr Picky.

My parents came to see him and he told them he wanted to go home to Lichfield and after a brief arguement with my step mother she said no.

She said that he was 26 and it was time to stand on his own 2 feet.

Good for her, I thought.

Y'see, my Dad is in his sixties and she is in her forties. They've been married for 26 years and there have always been kids around.

So this is their time to enjoy each other.

And to me, thats cool.

I want my dad to enjoy his remaining years as much as he can, I want him to do everything he wants to do with the woman he loves.

And without the stress of his wife and son fighting all the time.

So Paul the Graduate (did I mention that?) got a job at Woolworths. Part time.Stacking shelves.

I told him that was great but now he should look for a full time job that is going to pay enough to cover his responsibilities and take his life forward.

That was six weeks ago.

Since then he has done nothing about it.

I questioned him about his degree. I asked if I could see his graduation photo.

He didn't have one, he never went.

Okay, then what grade was achieved? A 1-1? 2-1?

He didn't know.

Hmmmmmmm.Alarm bells began to ring.

That needs more investigation.

There's more like not contributing to the household expenses in anyway, but I'm sure at this stage you get the picture.

And now, I've had enough.

Time for me to pull the plug.

He can go back to Lichfield, he can do whatever the fuck he wants.

But he is not going to do it in my house and at my expense.

Fuck him.

Little prick.

It's around 1am on Saturday night and I'm behind the reception desk with one of the desk phones glued to my ear as a guest is exlaining how her whole weekend has been ruined because she didn't recieve fresh towels that day.

I mean.

Get a fucking grip.

Somewhere in the world children are dying.

I'm a very LUCKY MAN to be able to spend my Saturday nights in this fashion.

I have a pounding headache and I had popped some pills but THE DRUGS DON'T WORK.

As I listen to the diatribe my attention is caught by the painfully skinny guy in front of me with a mass of lank black hair hanging down over prominent cheekbones.

A big guy stands next to him.

Unfortunately not big sexy.

Just big.

Ignoring the phone that I am clearly holding he begins to talk.

''Do you have a pen so that Mr Ashcroft can sign an autograph for a fan?''

Without breaking my flow I apologise to the guest on the phone (again) and find a pen and pass it to the rock superstar standing before me.

He doesn't even look up.

He sign's an empty fag packet and hands the pen back.

He mumbles ''Thanks , man'' and heads back to the bar.

It was a BITTERSWEET moment only dulled by SYMPHONY of grievances being sung into my ear.

I know, I know, the puns are crap, but the story is true.

True! I tells Ya!

I could get past the HIV.

I could, I really could.

We had only chatted online, had 2 phonecalls and personally I would have waited a little longer to drop the bombshell.

But I guess were all different.

Like everybody else, talk of AID's scares me to the core of my being, I am of the AID's generation, it came out the same time I did.

Memories of my teens are intercut with that famous tv commercial, AID's was not just chiselled into a piece of granite it was also emblazoned on my mind.

We have been convivial acquaitencies but hopefully never bedfellow's.

As I said, he was cute and I could past the HIV status.

But I couldn't get past the belly dancing or the Vampire teeth.

You read it right.

Belly dancing.

Vampire teeth(Custom made).

I mean wtf???????

We were chatting on cam,I was hoping for a bit of cock and ass.

And what I got was a belly dance and an offer of the Vampire teeth being modelled.

Seeya.

Wouldn't want to be ya.

I miss my beard.

Is that weird?

At first I enjoyed feeling the cool breeze on my face, the post bearded area being hyper sensitive to the temperature.

Weird to feel that.

So it was a new senssation.

And although I have received a lot of positive comments at the hotel the reverse is true where the online bear community is concerned.

And anyway, it's not the person I want to be. Being clean shaven makes me look so.... straight.

For want of a better word.

The person I want to be has a nicely trimmed beard/gotee and a number one crop.

Maybe an earring.

Thats the destination, time to start the journey.

It was Saturday and it was intensely hot.

I came in from the garden for a brief respite and lay down on the sofa, clicking the tv on.

As usual I had the laptop next to me and was logged into BearWWW and EuroWoof.

I'm flicking the channels,not really focusing on anything in particular and the computer growled at me, signifying the arrival of a message.

It's a bear growl and yes it is lame.

Anyway..

The message was from one of the local queens.

A decent guy, a big guy with a broad yorkshire accent.

My answer to his enquiry of how I was the standard reply we all send;

Horny.

And then he offered to pop over and suck me dry.

Which he did, fifteen minutes later.

He entered the house and dropped to his knee's, taking me in his mouth with minimal conversation.

I enjoyed the wave of relief as he licked up every drop, and then he left.

It didn't completely make up for the date I had to cancel that night, but it went a little way toward it.

R.I.P (sniff)

- well actually he went down the toilet to feed alligator that lives down there, but we can pretend can't we?

I'm enjoying coming home at the moment.

I come home , throw off the heavy suit, jump in the shower, letting the warm water wash away the day,throw on a pair of shorts and a shirt and head into the garden with a brewski and a stogie.

And I sit there, on my own, alone with my thoughts.

I watch the smoke rings dance into the sky as I meditate on everything.

I don't have any self realisations, I don't have any epiphanies.

It's just me.

And it's kinda nice, y'know?

I spend my working life surrounded by people with extreme personlities, I spend my journey to work in a bus full of strangers either talking to each other or reading a paper or listening to an ipod.

I share my house with my brother

So it's nice to come home.

And be an island.

In amongst all my bluster and bullshit I'm actually a very shy guy.

I won't bore you with the psychobabble.

After The Great Beard Trimming Disaster of 2006 I was a little nervous of showing my naked face in the hotel.

But it was cool.

I got some very complimentary remarks.

One of my colleagues, also a homo saw me from an upper level and called me on my dect phone;

''Are you trying to become a twink?''

''If I am, I've got a long way to go'' I said patting my belly.

A long, long way to go.

It wasn't meant to happen, I swear.

It was an accident.

I promise.

Jeez Louise, could I be anymore dramatic?

I'll start from the beginning.

For the last week or so, I've been cultivating a full beard as opposed to my usual gotee.

And it was coming along nicely until this evening.

I got home and ripped the beard trimmer from it's packing and without paying too much attention began to trim.

You can see where I'm going with this can't you?

Instead of a trim I got a real smooth shave.

So I concluded that a patch of pink skin in amidst the fur would look decidedly odd, I picked up the razor and went to work.

And for the first time in six years I saw my chin.

All of 'em.

And as chins go, they are not bad.

I'm gonna leave it smooth for a little while and see how it feels.

It might grow on me (sic)

Y'see Binky, I had wanted a cat.

But Paul is allergic to them so that idea was scrapped.

Anyway....

At 4.20 pm I was panicking a little.

On the inside anyway.

For once the weather held and the day was good.

The Barbie had been fired up an hour earlier and it had taken several charred buffalo wings before I managed to regulate the heat.

I love the barbie.

It was purchased on the spur of the moment at a cost of £120.00.

It's a big motherfucker, with three main gas jets and a sideburner for sauces etc. If it was a car it would be a top of the range Land Rover Discovery.

With all the optionals included.

I had began cooking but nobody had arrived.

They were late and I was afraid that nobody was coming and I would have to face the humiliation the next day at work.

But one by one they started to arrive and in the end their sixteen.

Sixteen of us all chowing down on ribs, wings burgers and dogs.

The alcohol was flowing and I alternated between wine and beer, a choice I know I would pay for the next day.

This was followed by several games of pictionary, the competiveness amongst all the players increasing with game after game.

But the best thing.

The thing that made my day.

Was the housewarming gift.

They knew about the allergy to cats and instead they bought a goldfish.

In a big goldfish bowl.

So I called him Shamoo, after his Floridian counterpart.

Welcome home, Shamoo.

If I have one flaw to my character (and I know I really have many but there isn't enough bandwith available from the whole of the web to discuss them here) it's my temper.

I'ma fairly even guy, I go through on a pretty even keel, but when my boat gets rocked, it's not a pretty sight.

Take today.

I won't go into the details of how and why, suffice it to say my buttons were pressed like and the Hulk made an appearance.

I don't shout, well maybe a little.

I just get incredibly very moody and my vocabulary is limited to ''whateva'' (I know highly original) and ''I don't care''.

Even I recognise the childishness of this behaviour.

On the flipside, it lasts for about ten minutes and then all is sunny in the kingdom.

And it's rare, it is certainly not an everyday thing.

But whenever it does happen, I am left with a feeling that I have let myself down, it puts a cloud over the rest of my day.

I wish, I really wish I could control it better.

But I don't know how.

Ikea was on the menu this weekend.

But not anymore.

I mean, what is the average suburban fag supposed to do if Ikea is not available for weekend worship?

Oh yeah.

Cock.

I'm gonna be chasing it this weekend.

With a vengence.

I want it, I need it.

A good old fashioned, no strings fuck your brains out fuck.

I care with who, but not where or when.

But I want it.