Best If Used On or Before?

I’m a little puzzled, which yes I grant you , is not an unusual state of mind, any regular here at Best Gay Blogs,  or over at The Seafront Diaries, will tell you I’m often that way!   In fact as life zips by the more and more puzzled I become!  It’s true,  life is mucking fuddling to say the very least!

But, right now, I’m pondering this – Do you think humans have a ‘Best Before’ date? You know like most food items have. Or perhaps it’s a more formal, more strict Use By date? After which it’s no longer safe to consume, it’s gone off, gone bad, become inedible and unusable.

I was pondering this yesterday during my day job, by which I really mean in the early hours of this morning and during my night job. For as regular readers will know, I am a creature of darkness, in that, I work nights, So really, the night job is the so called ‘proper’ job that pays the bills and the writing is the day and ‘fun’ job that pays peanuts, buts gives most enjoyment.

But, I’m beginning to stray from the point, what I mean, though seriously, do us human beings have such things, I mean certain dates where things are good, delightful and juicy and then a date of a period when they are no longer the sweet tasty product they once were, but still perfectly edible, before the inevitable toss out date when everything goes bad? Are we like a nice fresh banana, or a squeezed out old satsuma sitting at the bottom of the bowl?

It’s a wonder? Are we like food? I mean, I’m a great one of for checking the date on my food stuffs, I’ll even calculate my weekly menu based on what days my food goes passed it’s best before and before it’s use by’s. I stick to them, usually religiously, the obvious exceptions would be cheesecake and well cake in general, which can routinely be used well after it’s best before date, though usually how anyone can leave cake that long is beyond my reasonable understanding. Cake, like wine, has no left overs and is to be consumed within a day of purchase, that’s the law, Jason’s law! (Which may obviously directly contribute to why I’m the size I am!)

As I say, I was sitting at work, when I mentioned I felt a little bit of a tightness in the chest, a small ache or pain on the left side. I informed the gang and had a laugh and giggle about it, me joking that I was having a heart attack. I know I wasn’t, and yes, one shouldn’t joke about such things, and to be honest, it was probably a pulled muscle, or as D suggested wind or indigestion or other such silly frailty, which I am known to have. But, one of the girls, the lovely K, did look sternly at me and told me that, that I really should have gotten myself up to the hospital to be checked out, that a man, my age, is ripe for such things, it’s about this time that the onslaught of dilapidation should start!

You know what though, as harsh as her words may sound, although she said them with jest , care, and consideration, she is right, she’s bloody well right! I am now older, I am now heading to that age, that period of life, when things do go wrong, bits drop off, shrivel up, stop working and give out. I am, me thinks, perhaps reaching that Best Before date!

When you’re young, things like heart attacks, strokes, dementia, Alzheimer’s seem so far off, they happen to old people mostly, people in their middle age, which is years and years away. You always think you’re invincible, that such things are never going to happen. Then you get older, things start aching for no reason, things start going wrong, hair starts to turn grey, eyesight fades, memory develops holes, jean’s shrink without being washed, it takes longer to recover from a night out – longer than the night out itself!

So perhaps, we do, have a best before date, which, I think I’ve possibly hit, , but hey my old china, I’m a long way off my Use By date. So, whilst I may not be the youngest, juiciest fruit on the shelf, I’ve still got plenty of substance left to offer, I may be a little more bitter and sharper than I once was, but hey some people like that, right? but I’ve still got a great taste! Snap it up before the Use By date!

Jason blogs his heart out on The Seafront Diaries on an almost daily basis,  you can catch him there before his UBD  arrives and he’s thrown out with the rest of the dodgy old stock in the dumpster of life!

Fun Fair Memories!

Hey, it’s been a while,  I’ve been hectic with work over here in England.  We’ve just had an election,  which seemed to go on forever and ended in no single party getting overall control.   That really means, we’ve got this cobbled together coalition government that no-one voted for,  that’s all about compromise, negotiation and chatter.

I’ve never been too much of a political animal,  but this year was a little different,  I did once or twice get on my soapbox and have my say as it were. Plus,  I was commissioned to write a few speeches for a politician who needed just a little extra help.   It took a lot of time up,  but,  was worth it,  in fact very much so.  It really odd writing something,  and then less than 24 hours from you writing it,  seeing a politician speaking your words, as if they came right out of his head!  Money wasn’t bad either!

Anyways,  My Best Gay Blogs friends,  it’s nice to be getting back to normality,  back to reality and the normal grind that is life.     Down here on the south coast of England the last few days have been warm,  on a couple of days around 32c that’s around 89f which is pretty swooffingly hot for these here parts.  You know,  you should come for a visit!

Because of the nice weather,  I’ve been spending a bit more time than usual outside,  well hey,  we’re not used to such sunshine in England,  gotta make the most of it while we can.    So  off I walked to the local big supermarket,  I kinda had a craving for cheesecake and fudge,  I know,  really bad for me,  not on the health food diet I’m supposed to be doing,  but……. I’m trying to think of a good reason to excuse my blatant lack of will power and determination,   but……nothings coming!

Along the way is a local local park,  which at the far end  was one of those visiting travelling  funfair’s in all it’s colourful glory.  I guess it wasn’t open yet, as there was no one around,  all the machines, rides, lights  and whatnot were off,  still and silent.  It’s kinda spooky like that,  but also kinda cool.

I am,  I have to confess,  a bit of a funfair man,  especially the travelling kind,  they hold a special fascination for me, a certain kind of love,  they always have an air of mystery about them.  Dare I say,  running the risk of ridicule,  but to me, they always seem to  instill a tiny, fleeting even,  but nonetheless, feeling of romance in my heart!

I know,  strange huh?  But,  the visiting funfair seems to force memories of childish excitement when the fair came to town when I was a nipper in the middle of the Surrey countryside,  into my mind.   It was big and bright and loud and exciting.  The people that worked there,  always seemed to have such interesting,  exciting,  nomadic lifestyles.  The travelling,  all year long,  a different location pretty much each and every week.  It conjured up exotic images to me a a child and teen.  And, yes I know,  it’s probably hardly romantic at all,  I dare say in fact it’s  probably a long,  lonely, stressful and maybe even empty existence, lacking in roots and a basic sense of belonging and  home.  But to me as a kid,  it was so….enchanting.

You know,  even after I’d spent all my pocket money, what little I’d got, plus the earnings from my paper round,   I’d hang about the place.  Wandering to and fro, between the rides and stalls.  I’d  enjoy the sights, the sounds, the music, and the smells,  my eyes bathing in all human life around me,  the senses alive.    Looking back,  with older, mature and sensible eyes, now,  I expect my fascination with the fair’s that came to town was simply the ideal of escapism.  I guess,  each time,  the spring and the fall season when they drove into the sleepy little Surrey town I called home,  in those brightly coloured wagons, they bought something new with them.  Something amazing,  they bought life,  they bought the outside with them.  And, when I say the outside,  I mean, the wider world,  the distant places, far off towns.    The fact that ”they’  came from the ‘outside’  was  proof that there was indeed an ‘outside’  that there was life away from the little town,  that perhaps,  maybe,  there were places that offered possible escape.

I suppose, I must have thought,  that there was always a chance,  slim though it may be,  that when they’d pack up  all those rides,  those side shows and the stalls, when the slot machines and games had all been  packed away, they would,  let me me tag along, they would,   take me with them.   That I too could escape life,  ride with the funfair and join in that life,  a life on the road from town to town, bringing joy and happiness everywhere we went.

OK,  so  forgive me for having a clichéd notion,  an all too common ideal, a traditional dream.  I can’t help it,  I did, I wanted to run away with the funfair,  and I would imagine that is why to this day, I feel a sense of longing and romance every time I see a funfair.   And whilst I may not ride all the rides,  or  sample all the stalls,  I still love to walk around the funfair,  savoring all the joys, the sights and dreams they bring.

Then of course,  at the end of the week,  or weekend,  they would be gone,  perhaps leaving a few memories and perhaps not. Maybe,  just  maybe, some tears, because I didn’t the parade passing by without me.  But, they would go, leaving all my dreams, down  among the litter.  The different kind of love I thought I’d found was nothing more than sawdust and glitter.  And, yes, typically,  we don’t cry out loud,  no  we keep it inside and learn how to hide those feelings!    Well,  OK  that last bit owes a little bit more to Carole Bayer Sager than me, and whilst it’s a funfair and not a circus,  the feelings are still  the same.  The much anticipated arrival, with all the excitement that brings.  The heady, vibrant, different pleasures of the fair itself, those sounds, lights, rides, innocent fun,  not to mention the dreams.  Yes,  dreams of people,  of possibilities!  Then it’s the turn of sadness to take over, the destruction, the emotionally crushing blow,  when the fair packs up,  leaves town,  leaving those dreams,  slowly disappearing into thin air as the dust settles.  Replaced with a notion, a thought, of what might have been,  or rather what could have been,  but wasn’t.

Although,  maybe,  just maybe,  in my cloudy mind,  the internal twirling of romantic emotion lends it’s self to the hazy memory,  deep in the darkness of my mind.  The memory  of a first kiss,  the very first, romantic touching, with another boy.  Oh yes,  a memory of long ago, of an innocent time,  a time of awakening.  It is, a memory of a teenager from a travelling fair whose tenderness, still warms me now.  Oh those fleeting moments,  those stolen kisses behind the whirling waltzer,  it’s lights blinking, it’s cars turning, it’s music blearing and  people nearby screaming and squealing with delight as the ride went faster and faster. Yet for me, all that blurred, melted away and time for a little while stood still.   It was, the moment, I felt for the very first time the lips of another person,  other than my best friend Jo, hitting mine.  It was my first time tasting another boys breath, lips, mouth and tongue, and feeling his body pull me in to an embrace.  His body pressed against mine, his hands, over my back,  it was an innocent time, and while I guess it lasted probably mere seconds in time back then, it’s also spanned a lifetime,  a life time  in memory.

He was older than me,  in his late teens,  he had dark hair, deep brown eyes,  rough manly hands, his shoulders broad and his arms muscled. He smelt of soap, wood smoke and candy  floss.  He traveled the country with the fair,  he was, stunning, he was exotic,  and I,  well  I drank in everything he offered in wide eyed wonder. He could have taken anything he wanted from me, and more besides, and I’d have gladly given it.

At the time,  I knew nothing and he,  he knew everything,  or at least that’s the way it seemed,  back then.    At that time, I was  intoxicated by the moment,  by everything, by the sensations,  as he awakened not only a sexual desire from within me,  but also a sexuality, a lust, a yarning, a realization and perhaps even a person.

If I close my eyes now,  really tight and force myself to think really hard,  I can almost see his face,  his eyes,  unchanged by the passing years,  and what’s more,  I can almost feel his lips pressing against mine, the first real kiss, my first kiss of passion, desire and lust.   Oh yes,  perhaps that’s why even today the sight of a traveling funfair still has the ability to evoke subtle stirrings of romance from within my heart.   Subtle, sweet, delicate,  but cherished.

Gosh,  is that the time already?  Thanks for reading and the lone of your eyes and mind for this short while.  I’ll try and entertain you again soon.

Don’t forget you can get a daily dose of my ramblings over on The Seafront Diaries.

It’s A Waist?

© 2010 Copyright Jason Shaw

Time Flies……

Hey hey hey,  can you blooming well believe this,  it’s June already?  I mean  really,  my Best Gay Blog friends, we are now in the month of June,  the 6th month of the year, and you know what that mean’s,  yep  half the year has almost already gone!   2010 is half over, half done, half completed and we’re all another half year nearer the grave!   Oh I am a cheery soul today!

© 2010 Copyright Jason Shaw

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