Memory stick musings

I'm just getting on with writing up this blog over the weekend where I have been a bit low in spoons which happens at times with me and where I have things to prepare for on Tuesday for good measure.

Over the last week or so I've  been thinking a bit about the difference in where I am now and where I was at a good eight to ten years ago which may seem only like yesterday to me given how my brain is wired but actually is a significant amount of time.

This ignores the impact Covid had on me in 2020 and the long covide related conditions I am dealing with too.

For one thing, that was the post breakdown period with me where I hit the buffers trying to play a role I had been encouraged to by a lot of so-called disability experts who today I see as people who fundamentally were trying to deny the major part disabilities play in my life and to a large extent shape by denying the impact and in effect having me do slot into their idea of what a 'successful' disabled person was supposed to be - an achiever showing academic abilities despite disabilities rather than a person who is may well be capable but with significant functioning issues that require constant support.

The other stemming from the same place was they also denied how those limitations mean in terms of mental development, I was functioning several years younger having the overview, language and mindset of a more junior child at high school and several years further on at the same point but being expected to perform at an adult level.

This simply isn't and hasn't in a number of decade hasn't occurred because however good I may be at filling in some gaps, the larger ones remain and to an extent even the fact I do fill the minor gaps leaves me the more vulnerable because people focus on that 'achievement' rather than what I cannot cope with and why I struggle making my way through adult life and situations.

Another of the things around this period was discovering networks sometimes websites sometimes hubs and it was one these that caught my eye Monday when looking through a  memory stick with more of an eye to pictures of my old monitor and its screen saver, I spotted some screen prints done off it from a site I spent quite a bit time on.

Yahoo 360 for the youngsters, was a giant hub where lots of groups had spaces on, you could message and blog and your blogs were interactive, you had a update stream from what your friends were doing  and at the time I was looking around  littles and groups, talking with people, exploring that side of life which I enjoyed until it shut down around July 2009.

That lead to a blog being started *cough* to collate what old posts I originally had on Yahoo 360.
That was a part of my coping mechanism back then as I have been recently explaining a little to people about bringing life back into line with what actually works for me, what meets my actual needs not least the 'little' side of me cos not wishing to sound like a record it's not so much age play as being in an actual age regressed by anyone else's standards headspace without an off button.

One of the first more dedicated spaces I joined was a music related site having shadowed it for a couple of years around the time the Beatles Capitol Albums volume 2 box set came out in 2006 because of some issues that affected initial copies.

It looked at recordings from the "What's the best sounding edition of " and what do you listen with angle which suited me although some there would push you down lines that I didn't find so rewarding and with a times a blind pro older issue policy.

There was a subgroup of "Bones" that had more person rambling conversation on which after a incident got moved to a dedicated site and recently that's been pulled as many of the metaphorically speaking got into bed with Facebook which I never felt comfortable with not least for wanting to keep aspects of this side my life out of limelight of those who misunderstand it.

The other is I do feel more stronger in myself to pursue the life that makes more sense and especially to ensure I'm in those settings that respect my real needs  being prepared to engage with me on the level I'm at, helping me to do what I can for myself while while accepting my child-like vulnerabilities prepared to just step in as needed to deal with any situations I land in.

That's come about through the baby steps I took through that period exploring my needs and making appropriate connections to communities where I really belong.

For me then the 00's were where it all came together,

Rain and Forum rules

 

It may be summer according your calendar and mine but it certainly doesn't much feel like it does it?

That works its way into things like very limited opportunities to be outdoors playing with torrential rain and hailstones even to contend with rather than keeping hydriated and slapping on copious amounts of Factor 50.

Something that does tend to come up from time to time is the Forum rules around content especially as it applies to discussion around spanking.

The first thing to say is whatever you views are or any involvement with it yourself, no one is judged for any view or personal engagement with it by the moderation team or people on the site.

The second ought to go without saying which is we are talking only about legal adults and anything that may apply to parents, grand parents etc really belongs on parenting type sites as we've no business being involved in that debate.

We're a site of Adults who retain much of our boyhood essence and do talk about our pasts.

The main purpose of the restricted discussion can be put quite simply as our hosts have Terms of Service and they don't allow "adult content" nor anything that be seen as child abuse material.

Now while we can rightly say we're talking about our times and that in looking at this part of past childhoods it certainly wasn't sexual, because for some today in other kinks it very much is (and if that's their thing, fine) our hosts slot ANYTHING to do with it under that category.

Upon reporting we'd lose the site and I'd be banned from using them. Simples.

It doesn't prevent you from saying in an introduction that you were - who wasn't back then? - but we don't go into describing the rituals with great quantities of prose such as the colour of your underwear and just were exactly they were at the first stroke.

A second reason even if I were to, involving some expense (and as I understand it current posts couldn't be imported) into a independent self hosted site is that experience at other sites has shown where you do permit greater discussion with pictures for good measure, it some comes to dominate such sites and that impacts discussion of the bigger portion of this life.

It doesn't take long before you get people joining just for that kind of talk and in effect your site becomes mainly a spanking site albeit with a twist.

The years since our conception in mid 2018 has shown there is a very real need for a discussion based site around being an adult little boy that talks about everything else such as hobbies, activities, past real lives and attire.

Those discussions are helping people come to terms with being an adult little boy, getting some of that carefree fun back, make sense of past experiences, making new-old memories even.

Those things are of far greater value than the seventh hundred spanking post whatever that person got from the experience and that's why the rules are what they are.

Record stores of the day

One advantage we had being in a city region was the variety and number of shops we had and in particular of record shops which were always a haunt on Saturday's and hols which was only bettered if one caught the train to the Black Country or Manchester which had the national chains such as HMV although we gained one in 1992.

I remember going to it on the first day of opening inside the then titled Potteries Shopping Centre, the first massive mall we had in the city centre opened in late 1988.

The real strength of this area for shopping was the independents and that certainly came into it given our six district centres plus one layout rather than that of one centre and surburbs cos its's less of a city and more of conurbation.

Thus in each district you had their own "local" record stores which for me meant Replay Records on Tunstall high street which had a large selection 12 inch and seven inch singles apart from albums and discount bins for anything that had peaked.

It didn't do much with other media such as cassettes unlike some although it did sell blank tapes for taping your own which I did a lot of .

We also had our own Woolworths which had a fair sized music section and was the first place I bought a record from before Replay opened and they had a top 75 7 inch single wall, rotating racks of pre-recorded tapes and budget albums followed by main racks for chart and selected back catalogue.

Chrissy's Market Store on Saturday's was a gem for having used records, heavily discounted import albums and singles an example of which was the mere £1.49 I paid for the 1978 Paul Stanley solo album as a sealed cut out where I'd of paid normally around a fiver for as a new domestic copy.

From time to time I would go into the City Centre and for a period I worked in it so it was a lunch time, before the bus comes in destination which in the mid 80's had around five large stores each with their own specialities such as Japanese imports, ticket sales or extensive quality used sections.

For much of 80's and 90's, Mike Lloyd Music Mega Store was the place to be because it had the biggest selection of compact discs, very extensive vinyl back catalogue, trade ins and sold tickets to local venues such as the Victoria Hall plus Bingley Hall, Stafford.

Many was the day I'd be in surrounded by students holding our Bluetones albums on vinyl in line while the upstairs held publications, discounted and used vinyl.

It was the first place locally to stock blank and pre-recorded MiniDiscs and had its own version of the Sony Music Nice Price paper catalogue printed with new mid price re-releases

As the bags your purchases went in stated there were branches too in Queen Street Wolverhampton and Newcastle although the city centre branch was the main one.

 

As befitted an area with two universities despite being sandwiched between Manchester in the North and Big Bad Brum the area was largely self sufficient with its own network of shops rivalling larger population areas.

Enlightenment

Well I did get away this weekend but in a lot ways the bigger thing wasn't to be found in the ultimate destination but more what was learned along the way.

Travel, especially by train can be subject to change and that change might be really quite rapid.

With me I had arrived in very good time and checked the overhead screens for the latest travel information as it was becoming apparent an earlier Manchester train was running rather late  and so it was with just under two minutes before our train was due as that train arrived that message you dread came over the Tannoys.

"Will passenger on platform 6 for the London Northwestern Service to Birmingham New Street please standby for an announcement".

Sure enough we we told our train now was coming in on Platform 11 and in the process of moving at speed I almost fell over and fell my case at which point an Afro-Carribean woman comes along and picks it up and says she'll help me.

So we form a partnership getting to this platform - me feeling progressive more like the child in this relationship of sorts and one missed direction we do get about about and I thanked her most purfusly.

Getting off at the other end a bit shaken up still, a white guy with strong Black Country accent sees I'm a bit shaken and not only offers to take my case for me down the stairs but sees me into station concourse

We often read of the worst of people and it can be easy to buy into it but certainly I felt I had met some of the best examples of humanity you could for in the most ordinary of situations.