Karmic-Dragonfly

Let's have a separate post to talk about the love interest on the trip. I'm still texting w/ him, and he has been in my thoughts a lot since I got back! I'm going to assign a letter for his name, so it doesn't get confusing. Let's call him "K"

Here's how it all went down --

The first day out, K and I met and interacted, but K was very guarded. I remember taking his photo at one of the Sete Cidades viewpoints, and he took mine in return. But even that very first day, I noticed something -- I laughed with him. One of my primary considerations with a romantic interest is sharing a sense of humor. If we don't laugh at each others' jokes, romance is not going to happen for me.

I believe it was the second evening of the trip when I texted a friend back home to say that every time I was around K, my heart glowed. And all the pictures I have of myself from the trip of me were ones he took.

As days went on, I found that K seemed to be flirting with me. He told me I was really funny. One day, I was talking about how I always created a spreadsheet to document the expenses of each trip. He seemed surprised that I would do that, and I heard him joke "Huh, you think you know a guy, and then you find out something like this! I really dodged a bullet!"

One night at the elevators, I was pushing the elevator button with both K and a friend standing behind me, and I heard him tell the friend that he and I were "sleeping together". This was news to me, of course, and I didn't have an answer. I just figured he was teasing my friend...so I just turned back and said over my shoulder "Done! If that's what you want, Done!" We all laughed and continued on.

As the days went by, I found that he and I were walking closer, sometimes slightly bumping into each other; at breakfast, touching backs or arms as we said good morning. He would sometimes describe a place as somewhere to go with a romantic partner, and then as an example would say "If you were my partner, we could totally visit here."

Our constant laughter and companionship did not go unnoticed by the group! K had the habit of wandering off to take photos, so at one stop where we had a pastry and espresso, the tour leader asked "Where's your buddy?" I sensed a bit of jealousy in the group, and truth be told, I really enjoyed their jealousy lol!

One morning at breakfast before the rest of the group arrived, I told K I had gotten very fond of him on this trip. I saw from his face that that he heard the comment, but he continued talking about something else.

By the end of the trip, I found myself always looking out for him as we walked around the cities -- where was he? Making sure he was still around. And often I would look up, and he would be looking at me, checking on me too.

One night, he came into my room to help me with the controls for my shower -- this was at the last hotel in Lisbon. Sounds like a really great opportunity, right? He helped me, and before I could turn around, he had run away out of the door! I felt like he sort of disappeared before I could turn around and say or do anything.

Some of you are now wondering why the hell we just didn't hop in bed together, right? Well, I'm a slow mover in the affairs of love, and evidently he is too, so we continued the flirting, talking, laughing, touching. And here's the deal - I did NOT want to just have a quick roll in the hay with K. I didn't want him to be "just" a holiday lover or just a good story about my trip to Portugal. I really meant it in a previous post that Cupid hit me hard this time with his arrows -- I caught feels for this guy really quickly.

The last day of the trip was fast approaching, and I had planned to talk to him the 2nd to the last evening. I can't remember what happened, but we didn't have time that evening either! I think that might have been the evening when we all met in the bar downstairs for drinks, so there wasn't any opportunity for me to have direct conversation with him.

Last Night

So the very last night after our last dinner, we arrived back at the hotel on our Uber, walked into the hotel lobby, and I immediately sat down on 1 of the couches. I saw K notice me do that, and he sat down on a DIFFERENT couch from me, lol. But then 2 of the other guys continued to stand there talking with us while K and I were seated on different couches.

After a while the 2 guys standing SAT DOWN on a 3rd couch! (Internally at this point, I'm rolling my eyes and calling them cock blockers lol....). When they sat down, I immediately got up and sat down on the couch directly beside K. Close to him. At that point, fuck it, I had stuff to say, and I was tired of waiting.

One of the other guys FINALLY went up to his room, but ONE stayed behind 🙄. After a bit, I started playing with K's fingers -- catching my pinky and ring finger underneath his. The other talking guy noticed. Eventually we all went upstairs to our rooms -- thank goodness the other talking guy's room was on a different floor.

As K and I walked down the hall to our rooms, I asked if we would stay in touch, and he said yes. I told him that was good news. We stopped at my door, and I leaned in and kissed him on the neck, at which point he completely folded into my embrace. We stood there in the hall for a while, holding each other, and then he separated, kissed me, and then ran away down the hall to his room! Huh...this was the 2nd time he seemed to run away 🤔. I was both elated and disappointed, if you get my drift.

Next morning

At breakfast the group as usual gathered downstairs, and K and I continued our habit of sitting beside each other and touching arms/backs. At one point, I mentioned I had not gotten much sleep! One of the other guys said "Well, you don't have to brag!" LOL -- they thought we were sleeping together...but sadly, we had only had the 1 kiss and embrace at that point (I guess 2 if you count my kiss to his neck).

We all went back upstairs to get ready to check out. As K and I waited for the elevator down, the group leader arrived. K and I went into the elevator, but the group leader decided to wait. Well, K and I were laughing and talking so much that we forgot to push the button. The doors opened again on the same floor, and the group leader just stared at us -- totally judging us because we were laughing and giggling. So we pushed the button to go downstairs.

K and a friend and I had flights in the same terminal, so we sat together. My flight was out first, so when I walked away to go to my flight, K hugged me and kissed me (which caught some attention from passersby).

So now here I am texting with him...still thinking about him...and he lives in a different country. Also wondering why he ran away a couple of times...

It was a really good trip...probably the best I have taken. But there are some pros and cons to planned trips like this one vs planning one yourself.

For this trip, a lot was included -- hotels, entrance fees to sites, some meals, etc. That is so different from planning a trip myself, where I have to find out times, get tickets, etc. The con of a planned trip though is the cost -- it was a costly trip! We stayed in 5 star hotels...something I would NEVER do for myself. The rooms were really nice, but I only stay in the room at night or during some planned rest times - so I normally only want a room that is clean and bug-free and an okay place to stay - nothing luxurious.

We ate so much. And drank quite a lot, and that is expected on holiday. The folks in the group have money than I do, so the meal costs were also quite excessive. Often the bill was split among everyone at the table, which is fine. But again, if I had planned my own trip, I would not be eating at a lot of Michelin starred restaurants!

All was good experience -- not complaining at all. Just for example, I spent more 1 night on one meal than I have EVER spent in life. I mean, wow.

The trip to the Azores and Madeira (both autonomous Portuguese regions), and then the cities of Porto and Lisbon on the mainland was a really excellent trip.

I'm still culling through images and processing my memories.

This was a group tour, and there were some really wonderful people on the trip, and I also felt warm feelings for several of the tour guides, van drivers, etc. This was already planned out, so the sites were beautiful and interesting.

This photo was one of the first sites we visited - the beautiful Sete Cidades (Seven Cities) in the Açores (Azores), named for a founding myth of 7 cities. The Azores was really beautiful -- lakes, cows, beautiful scenery. I'll post a separate entry about this location, but here's a taste.

Cupid struck hard and early!

No really, I mean it. He let loose big, strong arrows.

On the first day, I noticed one of the other guys in the group while we were at Sete Cidades, and he must have noticed me too. From then on, we would talk and laugh together, touching each other on the arms and back, often sitting together at meals or on the minivans.

The first kiss was on our last night...followed by a goodbye kiss at the airport the next day. So I guess I now really know the meaning of the Portuguese word saudades, because I am missing him today. As we text this morning, I can already tell texting is not a good substitute for laughing and talking.

Pride flag out for the month -

https://imgur.com/gallery/AEmOYQT

Very sweet --

I've written about this before over the years about how my first partner died in 1995.

Oddly enough over the years, I have never mourned him on the date when he died (in June) nor on the date of his birthday (October)....but the "Matt Sadness" hits me in February because that is when the dementia hit, and when he became unable to stay by himself, and when we had to move him out of town to live with his parents. When that happened, I could only see him on the weekends, so it was one of the saddest times of my life.

The sadness used to happen every single year. But it's been a few years now since I felt this way, but it happened tonight. Bittersweet memories. Sadness. Joy.

A karmic tie that binds for eternity.

Good news on the job front -- I'll be starting a new gig soon! So now I'll be spending the foreseeable future replenishing my savings! Sadly, this may have been the last time I could take time off to travel -- it's just an age thing, and I suspect that the next time I take time off will be to actually retire!

As usual for one of my "Sabbaticals", I'll do a summary to compare what it was like compared to previous times.

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Walking at the park yesterday, I saw this (presumably) newly emerged dragonfly sitting on the side of a tree. At first, I didn't even realize it was a dragonfly because the wings were folded in, and he was arching his tail sharply. As I watched, he exercised his wings, and started crawling all over the tree. Here is a pic of a brief test flight. He's out of focus, but you can see his legs dangling.


Damselfly silhouette --


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I've been reading a book called Roman Homosexuality. It's pretty dry, but I have an interest in things Roman, in Latin, and in LGBT subjects. I like to puzzle through the Latin on my own - realizing that I have forgotten most of my declensions and conjugations, and realizing that I have to look up a lot of the words.

You can see the author's translation in the picture below:


And here is my attempt. I was generally happy that my translation approximated the author's.

In the still of night, when a fair skinned boy was warmly hidden away, lying at my bosom,
My genitals were quiet, nor did my lazy old penis raise his head in a manly way.

I stumbled across the entire Dark Shadows series on the Tubi app, so I've been watching it. So dramatic, lol! So much spooky music, lol!

Dark Shadows was a soap opera, who's main character and anti-hero was a vampire named Barnabas Collins. It was filmed black and white (at least at first) because this was before the transition to color TV. It seems the show created quite the sensation at the time.

Growing up, I lived in a rural area where the bus ride to school was about an hour. I remember getting off the bus a little before 4pm after school and watching Dark Shadows on TV. I assume by the time I was watching it, that these were re-runs because the show ended in 1971. One of my sisters, who is about 2 years younger than me, remembers it also.

I remember being fascinated by the show. And it truly was a "soap opera," meaning it was serialized, and each episode only moved the story forward just a little bit. It's interesting to re-watch such short episodes -- they were only 30 minutes each, and considering about 10 minutes for ads, then each episode really was only about 20 minutes each.

Also interesting is that the shows were not filmed ahead of time -- what you saw was live broadcast, so sometimes (often), the actors screwed up their lines. In that case, they just repeated the line correctly, and the story continued. Watching it today, I can tell that sometimes the actors have actually forgotten their line, so they fumble around with some verbiage until they remember the actual line, lol.

Another point of interest for me personally is how many actors in the series were gay. I already knew that Jonathan Frid was a gay man, closeted because of the era. But I didn't realize so many of the other men were gay as well. Maybe that is why the show spoke to me!

Here are a few pictures I snapped on the TV --

Ever had a situation where a previous fling still makes contact now and then? And maybe you think that's not such a bad thing? And you think 'what if'? The former fling messaged tonight and mentioned how hot it all was (we know what 'it' is)....and well, there's nothing wrong with that!

Thinking about stuff...Mood...

Lunch with a friend today...birthday lunch last weekend with friends....brunch yesterday with a friend...Wine with friend this week....Vacation soon. Nice life. But thinking about, um, it...





Mood...


Mood...


Mood...

Fun having brunch with friends this past weekend...I really should do that more often -- brunch is almost always fun!

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On another note -- a friend today at lunch noted that it is kinda anal how many spreadsheets I keep. I told him -- just wait until I'm retired and have time to REALLY keep some spreadsheets, lol! It's gonna be amazing, lol!


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And another note -- great about the Australian marriage equality referendum!