Tag Archives: Lesbian

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Horse

Not DM’ing with Tesoro today sucked bad.

I’m shocked that I didn’t log into Teams.

However, unless she does leave Turkey and flies back, I don’t want to gamble with my heart. And it’s like I always write, “Her ball, her court.”

The first phone date that I had tonight sucked.

And why the fuck don’t people read your profile?

“So, what scenario would you be in and how long would it take for example for you to consider being monogamous?”

“What do you think would change a relationship so it would be closed?”

And she asked another question in another way and I can’t remember it. I was already irritated.

The second conversation was polar opposite.

It was great.

She’s funny, outdoorsy and smart.

She retires from the military next month. She wants to text all month and then hike together soon. I like her. It’s nice to like someone. We laughed about U-Haul lesbians and how I am the opposite.

Love is abundant. The only finite resources are time, energy and attention.

I’m back at it.

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Certainty

I watched “The Tinder Swindler” last night–just in case.

Do you think that Netflix will eventually make a documentary from the app HER?!?

We all have our experiences, Tesoro, and I have always made way more money than partners. It yields my being generous, and after breakups, not supporting a partner long-term. That doesn’t have to work for you.

I get that you need money atm. I’ve had times like that too. However, that would have to be something that I would do live and in person if we were travelling together.

And, I don’t know you really. I’m not on any social media with you.

I’m wickedly attracted to your pictures, love talking to you on the phone, wish that wish that within three-months we’d have had more than one video call that had shitty signal, and would give anything to be in person with you.

I hear everything you’re saying, but I have to be honest with you. If you really care about me, then that care can’t just wait until we’re “in person.” Real care shows up when someone actually needs it, not when it’s convenient. Right now is when I need you, not someday in the future. I understand that you’ve been generous in past relationships and you don’t want to support someone long-term after a breakup. That’s fair, but what I’m asking for isn’t about taking advantage of you. It’s about showing me that your words and feelings are real.

You say that you’re attracted to me, that you love talking to me, and that you’d “give anything” to be in person. If that’s all true, then it shouldn’t take being physically together for you to show me you care or to stand by me when I’m struggling. Attraction and phone calls are nice, but actions are what make someone feel safe and valued.

I’m not asking for perfection, just some proof that you’re here for me now, not later. If you can’t or it’s difficult for you, it only means that you didn’t mean anything you said you can’t actually ever be there for me.. Because if we’re truly building something real, it has to start with trust, support, and showing up when it matters most and that’s exactly where we are now.

I get it. I’m sorry that money is the way that you trust me. Thanks for sharing all of the reasons why I’m not right for you. I appreciate everything that you wrote to me for 3-months. I wish everything for you. I know that you’ll find the person who you’re looking for. You’re gorgeous, funny, irreverent and smart.

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Delays

I have to put Tesoro in a new zone mentally. I am unsure if she has any intention of ever leaving Turkey.

I talked with her on the phone on the 15th and after we’d talked a bit I sighed and was whiny finally saying, “When are you coming home?”

She said, “In a few days.”

We DM’ed more towards the end of this week and I wrote, “When are you flying back?”

She wrote, “Soon, Baby.”

This week we didn’t video and I missed her voice call yesterday. She told me that production is done on equipment and she can’t get money transferred to Turkey.

I told her that if I was in her shoes I would get one of those 18-months interest free credit cards.

I’m a public servant mostly; although, I do some assessments which do pay into the social security system, and I really don’t know shit about energy, powerplants, oil / gas, private contracts, etc.

I know that I don’t have interest in:

  1. Blending finances
  2. Living rather than travelling with a romantic partner
  3. Giving my heart to someone who I’ve never touched

Soooooo… I’m not investing time in DMs to her unless she comes home and schedules IRL with me. I wrote to her that when / if she comes home, I want to have a date with her and begin seeing what we have.

I’m basically at my core a Physical Touch and Quality Time person.

I know, because it happened to me with my ex-wife, that it is possible to fall in love with a picture of someone.

I’m not in love with anyone atm.

For me, love that is full involves mind, body, and soul.

The touch and skin-to-skin contact is so important to me. I believe that we are hardwired for love and attachment.

Although, I’m a creature of words, I am still quite in love with sharing physical space.

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Cordial

Being all too familiar with avoidant attachment and also the dance of make-up and breakup, I’ve been friendly and careful with my ex-GF.

She recently said basically that I’m a liar via text.

She does this birthday party concept thing–well, her kid is 3, so she’s done it three times–wherein mostly adults paint a piece of art with acrylics in which there is a printed model that you can use and she has sketched the outline of the figure on canvases.

I’d only worked with watercolors, but did ok for a first time with acrylics for “La Petit Fleurs” this past spring.

I don’t know what the first year was. For her daughter’s second birthday all the pieces were “Plant of Life” by Georgia O’Keefe.

Originally, I thought that she’d painted it for me. She hadn’t. It was one of the ones that she had done during her daughter’s second birthday party. She didn’t bother to write anything on the back about me either. It wasn’t really a birthday present to me, but she wrapped it in Christmas paper and gave it to me for my birthday last year when we had a date a month after my birthday.

At the beginning of the month, after I had called her and she flipped her shit on the phone, and then I went over to her place the following night, she basically asked for it back.

She said that she’d take the O’Keefe back.

Me: “My birthday present?”

And then we had a conversation about it and I guess that she was just glad that I wasn’t throwing it away.

In the meantime for my birthday I had my basement steam cleaned and the entirety of my house cleaned professionally. There are some things that I want to go back over in every room but there is literally no hair anywhere. It’s never been like this since my ex-wife filled up my house with animals. I am going to run a 5k on Saturday and then come home and work in my house. I still need to throw things away and go back over the hood of my stove for example.

I was going through everything weekend before last and had a new present that my buddy from the Co-Ed Poly group had done for me–and wrote on the back for my birthday–and the color scheme fits my house so I put it on the wine cabinet where the O’Keefe had been. It looked like it belonged there. He’s done a commission of my son’s cat and also gave me a tile that I had my former sister-in-law’s partner lay into a table with sample tiles that a company gave me.

I wanted to get her back the “birthday present” so it would complete the wall in her group practice room. That’s where the paintings from her daughter’s 2nd and 3rd birthday party are hung. Recall that it wasn’t painted for me anyway. Also, that she said she’d take it back. She called me dishonest in text when I told her that I’d be returning it on Thursday.

I left her an audio saying that I think that we can build a good path to a friendship and not if we’re doing stuff via text. I told her it was weird.

I’m a lot of things. I’m not a liar.

In fact, my default setting is so direct that folks wish I’d do white lies.

There was a bunch of stuff that my son needed from her yesterday and I was meeting with a planner regarding my long term care stuff after work, so I had to dip yesterday. It was a good thing because my son and his GF spent 2-hours with her and needed that time. I’d have been a third wheel.

When I went into the foyer of her practice and got my Blu-Ray player and all my DVDs and such there was a bag with one Hail Mary in it. She’d held onto that thing for 4-months. And they have to be refrigerated so I just composted it.

What a passive aggressive and bizarre thing to do.

I’ve made my decision.

I’m not seeing her at all this fall and winter.

It was a good thing that my son and his GF needed her yesterday, they moved the time, and I simply dropped off her daughter’s sand toys, the painting, and a joke chap stick from some of our exchanges this month.

I grabbed my Blu-Ray player and the videos. That Hail Mary made me laugh and then feel like shit.

I had given her a ring for her birthday this summer. She had been putting pressure on me that now I understand resulted in a change to her having infrequent sexual types of contact with me. That ring means that I will always make February, which is a hideous grief stricken month for her, and her birthday special as long as she lives here. I’m a great friend.

I don’t want to see her otherwise until some time has passed.

I’m not a fan of her behavior currently and don’t want to be around her energy.

I want to keep things simple, minimal and work on myself as I brave the world of dating true to me.

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Bday Weekend

Tesoro is working on a seemingly endless contract in Turkey. It’s trying and delaying the ripping off of our Band Aid for our chemistry test. I think in certain respects, she and I are both DM’ed out. We’ve written thousands of words to each other since August 5th. I matched with her at the end of June, and finally began to catch up with feelings that she’d been professing to me during the first part of the month. When I pick her up from the airport–whenever that occurs–so I can take her to her car–I’ll likely collapse against her. That will be nice because she’s 5’8″ and I can just tuck my head under her chin and get my arms around her for that first time. She looks like she smells really good and I want to run my fingers through her hair.

On Friday night, I went to karaoke with a few members of my bowling team, LA, one of my buddies from the Co-Ed Poly Discussion Group, Mini Boss, and a friend who named our bowling team. It was sooooo fun. One of them had a candle that fit a glass and lit it so I could make a wish. Everyone knows what I wished on my glass of water!

Saturday I volunteered clearing cottonwood branches all morning on a volunteer crew at a National Wildlife Refuge. These trees are almost invasive along some riverbeds. They tend to break a lot so they pose a wildfire danger if their branches which collect on the ground aren’t addressed. I loved the work; although, I got quite tired. Apparently, September 20th was a National Cleanup Day so the organization that I volunteered with gave all of us National Park Passes in addition to feeding us pizza. I love doing something that gives back to celebrate another year being alive.

Sunday I biked to the park and met one of my former work husbands. We walked a bunch and did a Farmer’s Market together and I bought him lunch there. I love this particular Farmer’s Market. And it was so good to catch up with him. Afterwards, as I have been doing for 3-years on Sundays, I lifted weights.

51 came and went. I feel solid. I’m looking forward to fall beginning tomorrow. This shall be the last summer entry for me, and what an eventful one it was!

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Single

I’m pretty into details. More than most people really.

I’ve been alive 51-years this week.

I have spent 17 married.

I have been single and not really dating anyone for about 4-years since I started having sexual intimacy at about 16 or 17.

I started seeing my best friend in high school in covert way. I think that eventually, my parents knew about it. They didn’t talk to me about it. They said, “Leave your door open.”

The same thing happened with my college roommate.

I wanted to be someone who could pass for what is societally believed to be an average person.

I married a buddy. It’s maybe for the best that he was unambitious and also an alcoholic. I would’ve been married to him for 27-years last month.

I have done best historically when I have had weekly intimate contact.

I also was ok living with my college GF for 3.5-years and until we bought a house, I was fine living with my ex-husband.

When he quit his job, didn’t work for 8-months and the trash was overflowing and I got home from work to make dinner, I fought actively with him. It’s a lot of work to keep up a house, and I was doing everything. Looking back, he was depressed.

I’m reasonably sure that I can retire from these three roles that I am doing in 4-years. I’ve done one for about 25 total, and the other work I started 10-years ago. My plan is to take 5 Master’s classes and get a different license altogether. Then, I think that I can have a few in person clients where I conduct assessments, and because of COVID, I have a good home office that I can use for clients who will Zoom. I want to travel and can’t quite live off my pension, so I’ll need to work. And, I am a really good therapist.

I’m single. I don’t have a GF and she’s doing some boundary probing at the moment which is a pattern with which I am all too familiar in 2 past relationships.

I had therapy last night and vetted what I was thinking and actions that I’m taking and planning. My therapist mused, “Are you positive that you want to be friends with her?” And I am! I just need her to respect my boundaries.

Having a love interest who is over six-thousand miles from you and has been there for nearly three-weeks sucks really bad.

I’ve been slowly seeing how she and I are looking for things that are similar.

I was going to begin solo vacations every summer when the pandemic hit.

I camped and completed a gnarly summit on a rope team in 2016; although, at the time, I was married.

I’m pretty independent and free spirited.

I get so lonely on weekends.

I’m not even interested in doing all the slog that it takes to respond to matches on the app at the moment.

I have this incredibly beautiful woman with whom I began corresponding at the end of June. Now, here we are, walking into love with no physical confirmation. It’s so painful. I have no clue when she’ll fly home, how many minutes I’ll get with her when that time happens, and the only known is that I will have to wait until October 9th or 10th to have sustained time with her.

I think after that, we’ll know what we have and I think that it’s going to affect the way that I’m seeking relationship.

I’ve been leading group with the topic of empathy. I’m practicing that with myself, with my ex, and with Tesoro.

What would you do in my shoes?

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Request

It’s not a limit, it’s not a boundary and it’s not a rule for me either. I asked Tesoro last night if we could have a video call today. She’s read it, and I haven’t heard anything this morning. It’s afternoon where she is in Turkey.

As we have talked more on the phone, we have laughed more and she is getting much more comfortable with me.

I’m becoming drawn to her physically and really can’t wait at to test that out.

It’s difficult for me because we matched at the end of June.

We’ve exchanged so many hundreds of Teams DMs. That all started on August 5th. And here we are 6-weeks later and so obviously intrigued about each other and hopeful that our in person chemistry will yield something beautiful.

So, given our intense and frequent interactions, I want another video call.

We write back and forth all the time. We seem compatible via phone and definitely have some paper matching.

I’m a Virgo.

She’s a Capricorn.

In our Sun Sign, we are both Earth Signs.

I’m a Tiger.

She’s a Horse.

Source: https://www.purewow.com/wellness/tiger-chinese-zodiac-compatibility#:~:text=Tiger%20and%20Horse%20are%20two,move%20forward%20side%20by%20side.

It’s interesting that I have just found ease when we talk. She’s super mellow, and I’m glad that be attracting these types of folks after my marriage.

We laugh and are able to just talk.

Today, I’d like to see her.

If it doesn’t happen, I have already told her during the weekend that I’ll be pulling back a little bit until we meet in person. I don’t want to overextend my heart for something that has no confirmation yet.

I’m hoping that she can get home this week and it would be incredible if it was Friday for my birthday.

I have backup plans to sing with two members of my bowling team at karaoke if she doesn’t make it home.

And if she doesn’t schedule a video call today, I’m not doing anything rash.

It’s been so fun to have 7 pretty pictures of her, exchange all these messages, and talk to her a handful of times on the phone. Although the signal was horrible, I had to go outside and get under a tree and didn’t have on my glasses, I was grateful that we had a quick video chat a couple of weeks ago.

Honestly, having her to chat with has been helpful since all of my feelings since March with my ex-girlfriend who was always destined to be my friend. I had pent up those feelings as best as I could, and then began to date in May via the apps. Having Tesoro be unearthed via the app that I’m still on has been helpful all around.

I hope that we see each other in person soon.

A video chat would be helpful, so I’m putting out that request.

“Tesoro, I hope that we see each other on video today!”

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Nah

The CEO liked makeup-breakup.

My ex-wife moved out more times than likely the years that we were together. I’d have to count and don’t want to do so.

My ex-girlfriend is falling into their categories. I’m not honoring her bullshit “soft breakup.” We’re done romantically.

Her brand of poly is hierarchical and involves the same “afterthought” versus “taken for granted” in terms of “veto” versus “concerns.” Fuck that.

I’m going to be her friend. And she is fun to be around. I learned a ton about communication and conflict in relationship with her for our year together.

I have a beautiful woman who I can’t wait to meet that I’m excited about. We have exchanged so many pages of DMs and when she called me on Tuesday she had me laughing with her irreverence and it was such an easy conversation. I wish that she wasn’t, at present, in a time zone 9-hours different than mine; however, I am so excited to meet her and begin to explore what we seem to be building. She swears to me that she’s worth the wait. 🥺

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Soft breakup

I went to my GF’s house last night. She landed on that this was a “soft breakup.” First she tried to say that we were breaking up.

Me: “When you processed everything this morning and throughout the course of the day you’ve landed on that your daughter needs your nervous system regulated. You’re not regulated right now because of my shitty energy and you can’t have that seeping onto you as it affects your daughter. Let’s be clear. You’re breaking up with me. I want to still date you. I’m starting to date Tesoro.”

That wasn’t the beginning though.

I walked in with a can of La Croix and asked if I could sit down and asked if she had stickers on her shirt.

She nodded.

Her daughter has been sick and decorated her.

Then we were silent and it was awful.

We’re both shrinks.

We can be silent for days.

Eventually I said, “I’ve apologized for everything that I can apologize for. You sent the TikTok to be supportive. You say my work is ‘fun’ and ‘exciting’ when I’m stuck there for 12-14 hours for no logical reason because I have a good job that pays all of my bills. You can say that I’ve been an afterthought and never taken for granted. I am not a great communicator. I am working on it. I don’t know how to bring up shifting feelings with you. It’s scary. I’ve always been the monogamous one in my poly relationships until now.”

“Do you believe that?”

Me: “Yes. And I think that words are so emotive at times particularly when they’re not delivered in person. With the afterthought versus being taken for granted mismatch of usage, it’s potayto potaughto. I have to be fit in because you don’t have time and I get short texts that I’d rather not get at all because you have little time and a lot of people rely on your for emotional support while you’re solo parenting. You told me how gladly you’ll take your limited free time back.”

“That isn’t exactly what I meant. That wasn’t my intention. Also, I need to apologize to you. Except with a supervisor after my Dad died, I have never directed profanity at anyone. I cussed at you and was yelling at you.”

Me: “You don’t have to apologize for that.”

“I feel like I do.”

Me: “I accept your apology and wasn’t offended by it and thought that your yelling and cussing made a lot of sense.”

“I feel ashamed that happened around my daughter. I am supposed to model being in control and resolving things.”

Me: “We are people and parents. You have shown her that sometimes losing one’s temper happens, and that we can do better. People talk through things after they’re angry. You modeled that her tantrums are also ‘normal.’ That helps kids ultimately to show them how human we really are.”

She was angry that I didn’t text goodnight or good morning. I said that I was upset and worried that she was going to breakup with me. Later I said that she could’ve texted either thing too. I didn’t want my messages to her to go on unread as it makes me feel like shit. I told her that I was worried that she would thumbs up my texts or not respond for hours. I don’t want to feel anxious.

I did, midway through, go down to my car to get her birthday present for my birthday to her (That’s a tradition that she does.), the game, the journal that I’ve been writing in daily for her and her daughter, my set of her keys, and the book that we were to use for weekly questions for each other every week during 2026. The only thing that was passive aggressive that she said is, “Play this game with Tesoro. I bought it for you.” It was shrink wrapped. I declined.

I stayed for two hours.

I told her that if her daughter doesn’t ask for me in a month that I will get her the splashpad and bike with the handle riding bar that is now affixed to the back. She wanted me to take those to her ex-husband. I’m a person and told her “No way.”

It was obvious as we talked that her daughter won’t ask for me. She loves me 1-1 and doesn’t like me dating her Mom because it divides her mother’s attention and makes her jealous so she asks me to leave. Having that acknowledged was a breath of fresh air and helped me sleep like a baby last night.

I have to talk to my son.

We’re supposed to go over there together when her daughter is sleeping to play a game (us three) together on the 25th. I want to do that. And then, just like with my ex-husband and ex-wife, I want to happily support the relationship that he wants to have with her going forward. Kids don’t break up with their parent’s significants. I think that we’ll meet her youngest brother when we play that game together, so it will be four adults. Her brother bought a plane ticket for his birthday which was Thursday. I didn’t know that he was a Virgo. She said that he’s her favorite person in the world. I told her that she simply likes mutable signs and their changeability. Her ex-husband and my former metamour is a Pisces and her best friend is a Gemini. We’ll see what my son’s preference is for the 25th.

Then she’s gone to Chicago. Then I’m gone for a long weekend three-days after she gets back with Tesoro.

She asked if our friendship can be monthly hangouts. I’m amendable. She’s so fun to talk to and has kind, sweet energy in person. We’ll see each other on October 20th. That leg of our conversation made her cry and again. She belabored the fact that I don’t know Tesoro and am dreaming about things that are not based off of reality.

Me: “What does that matter? I’m putting myself out there with dating as I have since May. We matched at the end of June, and I’ll finally meet her briefly on the 14th. It’s the ultimate ripping off of the Band-Aid. She calls my intensity real and raw. If she can tolerate it IRL, we’ll begin our journey together. And, I still hold that I wanted to stay in relationship with you and date you both.”

She calls this period a “soft breakup.” She wants me to basically get my energy together so we can resume what we had. Her ball, her court.

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Gallows

For someone who has never fought with a romantic partner, last night was off the chain.

Not that it’s new to me.

Women and even my ex-husband a couple of times when he’d been drinking cuss at me and flip out.

It’s because I showed some other people that TikTok to see if it was mean. The consensus was that it was passive aggressive. She swears it was because she and I beat the odds.

I asked her how’s that?

I asked about the ultimatum. I said it was a veto.

I told her that she wants to offshore me for sex, which is dangerous and will result in STIs for me as women who are sleeping with tons of women are not exactly practicing safer sex. I told her that it was empty. She told me that I’m incongruent. I said that I could’ve had sex on Wednesday and I don’t want to. I’m wanting two GFs and she’s hierarchical.

I told her that she has stuck her own “For Rent” Sign on my heart and no one can be there. It’s rented. I said that didn’t honor that my heart moves on it’s own as does another woman’s heart.

We didn’t land on anything.

She would only own that my thinking that I am an afterthought could be true.

She said that she will gladly take her spare free time back.

I guess that my feeling taken for granted is my “story line.”

I guess that my feeling hurt by that TikTok is projection.

The other stuff that we talked about was related to her “encouraging” me regarding that my 12-14 hour work days that include an activity sometimes in which I can’t see clients, because my clients don’t have transportation, but I still have to log those hours doing nothing being “fun.” After she explained her perspective on my having good jobs, I understood that. I told her that I don’t need any advice about work and going forward we could talk about it and I don’t want to text about it.

In fact, I don’t like texting with her much anyway. I haven’t in a really long time. She is sooooooo great in person and presents kind and sweet. That phone fight last night was awful and it did lay groundwork for today. I’m leaving for her apartment in just under an hour. It doesn’t feel great and is scary. I’m not a wimp though.

We’d be together a year on Monday, so I wrote out the anniversary card that I’d bought. I wrote in the last sentences that like I promised with her ring, every February can be made special and surprising as well as her birthday as long as she lives here. I can keep that promise.

I put my birthday gift to her (Her tradition is giving loved ones presents on one’s own birthday.), a dice game that she bought which is unopened, the journal that I’ve written in for her and her daughter daily since 1/1/25 (9/5/25 is the last entry), and her 52 questions that we’d planned to use in 2026 in a brown bag. I’ll leave it in the car until she’s done talking to me. Then I’m 95% that I’ll run down to the car, hand it to her and give her her keys back.

Tonight is about listening with compassion. We hashed everything out. It’s about my marching orders how she wants us to be moving forward.

I’d still like to see her for many days for the month of February. I’d still like to celebrate her birthday in July. I’d still like to teach her daughter to ride a bike. And none of these outcomes are up to me.

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Ultimatum

I think that I may have been given a thinly veiled ultimatum on Tuesday.

“And I’m less interested in being 1 of 2 girlfriends. My stance on that has been unchanging.”

I know that I told her in May that was what I was looking for, and it seemed really difficult. Until now.

I know that my GF is most comfortable with my having a Friends with Benefits (FWB) or Sexual Friendship.

However, that is empty.

Additionally, there is something bizarre to assume that one can contain the heart.

Tesoro and I seem to be walking into love, and that is our experience.

Saturday could be very sad and trying with respect to hanging out with my girlfriend.

It’s one of those dates that doesn’t cost me a minimum of $200. I’m just going over to her apartment to be with her for a few hours on Saturday night. Her daughter will be sleeping. Originally, I wanted her to play with my hair and massage my calves. That text on Tuesday and her stony silence that barely broke on Wednesday late at night and yesterday seems like she could be amenable. We’ll see. I’ll write again on Sunday.

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Tesoro

I have a new love interest. We had been DM’ing on the app since mid-July, I think. I don’t know in reality because she deleted the app.

I have this weird, shallow thing. I don’t look at women with brown eyes.

I’ve been that way my whole life too. My very first GF (hs) had brown eyes. The little liar did too. Otherwise, my GFs have had green or blue eyes.

I had her on possible matches and when I swiped her, it said “It’s a match!”

Then she started DM’ing me a week later. We may have matched at the end of June, now that I’m thinking about it.

Anyway, her DM game was good. Very good. Her sweetness shone through and she paraphrases and summarizes my answers to her questions. It’s like she writes as an extension of her listening skills.

We moved off the app at the end of July and began talking the first days of August. We use Microsoft Teams which is a wonderful app because it can thread conversations for specific replies. We also have tried video chatting on it and typically use it to call. The latter is a great, because she’s currently in Istanbul working for two weeks. I couldn’t believe that she called me at 2:30 in the morning her time her very first night! (We talked almost an hour.)

She is beautiful. Tall, fit, long limbed, and has high, lean muscles on her calves and shoulders. Her long hair is always neatly styled, looks soft, and she wears subtle makeup and is always dressed sporty, but sexy in photos that she sends to me. She has full lips, white perfect teeth and a killer smile.

I wasn’t sure that she was real, so I didn’t even talk to my GF about her until after I’d mentioned her to my GF’s best friend who said, “She looks like a model!” It turned out that she is real, and now things are progressing.

I’ve asked her to change her flight back to our state to Sunday the 14th. I hope that she can. I have that whole day free and could do anything to help her with her jet lag and take her all over too. I really want to meet her and see how our vibe is IRL.

She has an accent. I assumed that she was Latina. Well, I was wrong! She’s Mediterranean. In fact, the detail is interesting:

It’s interesting for three reasons personally. My lineage on the paternal side is highlighted. Where she was born is marked (above).

Parts of my roots are close to where she was born. Secondly, I’ve been OBSESSED with Vesuvius since 5th grade. And I mean obsessed! I studied it, read about it, watched documentaries, and looked at artifacts, etc. That volcano is under 6-miles away from where she was born. The final thing is something that my GF taught me. Apparently when women are fertile they are biologically attracted to men who don’t look like them. That goes away after one is no longer fertile. I think that I have shifted to being attracted to women in my middle age who could be closely related to me. All of these details give me pause. It’s like a pattern. Brains love patterns.

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TikTok

I woke up on Tuesday morning having slept really well to a TikTok by James Sexton regarding lesbian divorces characterized by knock down drag out fighting and prior Domestic Violence experiences. My initial reaction was “WTF?”

Then I realized that my GF had sent it for a reason, so I obtained a white paper and found out that due to intersectionality–being female and having less financial power and sometimes more impact on ability to achieve stability alongside being a sexual minority causes pain. Pain has to go somewhere. Researchers assumed that this intersectionality puts pressure in the female couple dyad.

It made me feel awful.

My divorce wasn’t amiable. She always told me that we had no foundation, and that was true.

I loved her for years and my love wasn’t enough. We got married when my son was in 3rd grade.

My Mom shattered her shoulder weeks after we had wed and my parents were both already declining. My son went off the deep end in 6th grade after his father had a breakdown and moved states at the end of 5th grade. Everyone was crumbling around me and I had no way to be enough or help significantly anyone who needed me. Nothing could become proactive or stable. Decline was all around us.

My ex-wife and I both have tendencies toward being reactive. It was a recipe for contention, but not physical violence. I’m glad that our marriage is over. I had filed once in 2019 and she had me reverse the filing. She filed in 2022 and became biromantic with men and is now married to a man and is living out of the country.

My GF and I went back and forth DMing in TikTok because she has it was “interesting” and “seemed to support” why my divorce was difficult from my ex-wife and not really from my ex-husband.

The whole thing was grossly oversimplified.

And I found it hurtful.

Last night we talked about it and she told me that she found it hurtful that I didn’t see how interesting it was and applied to my divorce. She said that we sometimes arrive at an impasse.

My GF is one of those women who is kind, caring and tends toward helping everyone out. I think that sometimes because she assumes positive intent, she doesn’t know how some of her assertions land.

I felt judged. I was hurt. I told her last night on our date that I want to feel safe, seen and secure. She said that she wanted that too. She was upset with me for not seeing why she sent me that particular TikTok.

I got up really early today. I didn’t sleep well because my new love interest who I was supposed to meet tomorrow had to fly abroad for work and will be gone two weeks. I misunderstood when her flight would get in and thought that it would be this morning in my time zone, but it will be late afternoon today. I shouldn’t have slept with my cell phone near me!

Because my GF and I had a date last night and were still talking about this difference of opinion, I went ahead and thought about the situation again. I still find it odd that she sent it to me and thought it would be helpful to me. Having conflict about TikTok is really weird.

I DM’ed:

“So, I watched it again and even through afterglow [dosage of psilocybin on Thursday night] it seems to say that lesbians have knock down drag out endings and high DV rates. Sorry, I don’t understand why you sent it to me. I’m just trying to be a good person and GF. I am also willing to slow down, monitor reactions that I have, and ask more questions for information. Making assumptions or jumping to conclusions [something that I have to continuously work on] doesn’t seem to result in abusive fights or domestic violence in my experience.”

So, she’s upset. And I’m less upset, but don’t see why that was the one that she chose to send to me.

Except for some animal videos, I don’t particularly like TikTok. If I can get my book designed, I will probably use it for my content, and it doesn’t seem to matter now because she hasn’t sent me anything on it since Tuesday at 1:06 am.

How can I reframe this problem? I don’t see my individual therapist for 12-days and would love feedback. It helps me to write and it also helps for people who read my entry to comment.

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Limit

I’m Solo Poly. There have been many times that we have discussed in groups that I belong to a rule, a limit and a boundary. People confuse them.

Rules are societal standards. You can’t yell “Fire” at the movies.

Rules in relationships are things like, “I cooked,” so you’ll clean the kitchen and start the dishwasher. They don’t typically apply to things that can’t be easily understood. Rules are almost perfectly black and white.

Boundaries are a lot more confusing. It’s like pushing on something that has been discussed and agreed to prior. It’s like saying, “I’ve asked you not to talk about money when we’re in social situations, and you did last night. I don’t want you to go back on the boundary that I’ve set for that topic.”

I’m setting a limit with _____. I haven’t done it yet, because she and I actively had some conflict.

We’d DM’ed most of the evening before when she and I rescheduled a video date and exchanged a few in the afternoon and then she went silent around 2:00 pm.

I sent a message that said, “5:00. Don’t fall asleep. Or go out to dinner. I can’t wait to see you on video.”

“I’ll try, darling.”

I video called at 5, 6, and 7.

In the morning, I sent an old school text. “I tried you 3x. I am not into a lack of specific communication. Feel free to come to _______ on 8/31 if you’d like to meet in person.”

Then I didn’t send anything.

And she freaked out.

Work was trying and busy the following day. We are missing two folks in assistant positions. It’s like a day treatment position for me. I also had to assess a threat that day. I had not a second and was teaching in person that night. I had to drive to campus. I left her a voice to text in the app when I noticed that she’d called and saw a couple of DMs.

_____ called 7 times in Teams. I just counted the number this morning while I am writing.

And we actively had conflict about it.

Saying that things come up is bullshit.

I have three full jobs. I also assess for a practice on occasion.

And she’s purportedly a “J” on Myers-Briggs!

I’ve told a colleague and my GF that she is either in witness protection or she has escaped an abusive ex-husband.

Regardless, that’s my limit. No more setting up video calls.

I always say that no one is born knowing how to treat you.

I have set a limit–mostly for myself–that I will call in the morning on 8/31 at a time that we come up with and won’t get in my car until she’s in hers. Then we can both drive three-hours into the mountains to meet in person.

Otherwise the limit, which I will voice, is that I don’t like avoidant behavior. See me in person on August 31st come hell or high water. Or that’s it for me hustling. I don’t chase.

If it doesn’t happen, “When you’re ready to come to the city that I live in, let me know ahead of time, and I’ll take you out to dinner.”

Of course I am hoping that I see her IRL on Sunday, August 31st. I am holding out this time. My GF said that I have some kind of thing for women who look like librarians.

Regardless, I’ve set a limit for myself.

What’s a rule? What’s a limit? What’s a boundary? How do you help love interests learn how to treat you?

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Magic

Dating apps are mostly torture. You have people that you see IRL and realize after three dates that they’re not likely friendship material.

The last woman that I had three dates with doesn’t stop talking. Not for a second. You have to interrupt her with simple attending behaviors.

I had a date with a woman who was love bombing to a giant degree and her car smelled of strong marijuana.

Then, I have had those ghosting and cancelling ones that never happen.

The latter are in the category that I shall dub “super fun.”

I started thinking that would be the way with this woman.

I can’t give her a name yet. And we have certainly had to work on our communication. But, it’s getting there and I will be so incredibly sad if we don’t have our video call on Monday. We have plans to be together for the 31st and I want to make those via the video call.

I want some magic. I want more than 3-4 hours in a row spent together in manner in which it can just organically flow. I want us to decide if we venture out of a hotel room when we wake up or if we don’t. I want to snuggle and talk.

First things first.

She had asked me after we had a phone call on the 5th of August and I was making her laugh if I was trying to steal her heart? I texted, “No!” and quoted the author again that it’s much better to walk into love. She told me it was working.

In the meantime, I want a lovely video call, and then a decently long date in person. For the pursuit of magic I am certainly willing to break my no kiss on the first date thing.

That’s been 14-years!

I don’t think that I mentioned that she lives in my state much nearer to to other states than to my city.

Now, I am left wondering if she and I have any potential magic.

Magic, like chemistry, is mutually fed. It has a rhythm and a cadence. I really want it. I’d like it to be with this woman.

What do you do when you’re in the holding pattern? Waiting for the moment is a test of patience.

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PRP

My GF has these super long range baby monitors. Last Monday she connected with the accountant on the main floor of her building–she has the only apartment in the building–and gave him the baby monitor, so if there was an emergency, he could get her daughter out of their apartment. We went to the orthopedic surgeon in my car early Monday morning.

I didn’t ask her to come with me. I was grateful that she did.

When we got to the orthopedic surgeon’s practice, we were in the Physical Therapy Clinic instead. We had to go to another building altogether.

It’s so good when you’re anticipating something to have someone there with you.

She and I found the building.

We talked a whole bunch and I was glad because my appointment didn’t begin until 8:35 and I was told to get there at 8:15 and we had arrived at 8.

We went back to an exam room and the nurse took a fat vial of blood out of my arm. My GF loved the color.

She said that she’d centrifuge my blood for 8-minutes.

The orthopedic surgeon came in after 5-minutes and I introduced him to ________. He went over my MRI mostly with her. I thought that was cool. She has nothing to do with my DNR and isn’t my emergency contact (ex. baby monitor in the first paragraph), but I liked the way it wasn’t a thing for him.

I just introduced her by saying, “This is ________.” That’s always what I say. I don’t think saying, “This is my girlfriend,” make sense. She is a person with her name. Regardless, I liked him just going with it and he didn’t know if she was my sister, spouse, intimate partner or friend.

The orthopedic surgeon measured my crummy range of motion (It’s been bad since I was 13.). Then he explained the process to both of us. The nurse came back in with a new vial and it looked like urine now.

He started talking to me about mountains. I told him why my favorite one was my favorite one. He said that he was going to numb the area and that was the worse part. It wasn’t though.

Then he said he was going to inject my knee. That felt so weird. It was really gross. The process lasted probably a minute or two for the injection part. I didn’t watch, but ________ did.

He asked me to extend and flex my knee a few times and we were done. We could go back to the apartment and pick up the baby monitor from the Accountant. She had a client so I had to leave quickly. I felt numb emotionally. I was glad that she was there to support.

That night we went to a community showing of a movie with her daughter and best friend. Her best friend said that my GF told her that I didn’t even flinch.

I still have quite a lot of pain. I don’t know if I can hike downhill. I did makeup cardio on Friday night.

I was so sore afterward and yesterday too. I’m not sure how much it’s worked to cushion the fact that I don’t have cartilage behind my left knee cap anymore after April 3rd. I’ll have to see.

Google Protein Rich Plasma (PRP) if you’ve never heard of it.

The experience has been emotionally triggering as it’s a reminder of my initial injury in 1988, and the fact that my knee is living on borrowed time. I don’t know how long it will be before I have to have partial knee replacement. In the meantime, I just want to see if I can hike downhill.

I weigh 142.6. It’s funny because women always guess me at 130 and then when I tell them what I weigh they always say the same thing. “Muscle weighs more than fat.”

I think that I want my first hike to be with a new love interest that I have. She and I have been exchanging lots of messages on Teams and talked briefly on the phone recently. Our next step is a video call on Teams. She’s 3-inches taller than me, so if I can’t get down when we hike, I can lean on her.

I have never been able to bend my left knee very much since I was 13

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Love Language

I’m not sure when these became all the rage… Maybe in the 2010s decade?

My ex-wife and I agreed that gifts are mostly dumb.

I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot lately as I’m rounding the corner on 11-months with my girlfriend too. Also, they’re on the middle portion of most women’s dating profiles.

Hands down, I am a Physical Touch person. I think that it’s how I receive all input.

As a brief aside that’s what has been so troubling about my blowing out all the cartilage behind my left knee cap. I can’t move like I want to and it’s very depressing. It’s odd too because I don’t talk to my members of my bowling or kickball teams anymore. Just slightly related to that is that both of those sports involve alcohol, so that is probably what they’re doing socially when they’re not playing.

I love having my hand held. I love an arm around me. I love all things related to sexual intimacy.

Secondary to that is that I need and crave Quality Time. And mine is a tall order. The time spent shouldn’t be casual and should rather be involving interaction, cooperation or some manner of incredible conversation wherein I am learning.

I know that I’m best at Acts of Service. I just think that’s being a Virgo. I can see the holes, quickly analyze them, and then fulfill the need. And, I don’t want those to be reciprocated. When I’m helping someone, I just know that it’s the right thing.

I do not like gifts.

I also don’t like Words of Affirmation. In fact, when someone is way into that as a love language expression, I recoil. They feel like disingenuous bullshit. Or, especially in the case of when my son does them, I know that he wants something from me. It’s usually money.

I am NOT a one-off person. When I love, I love HARD. I don’t want to put that on my dating profile though because I agree with my friend who’s an author that you should walk into love.

Hahaha. Can you tell that in 6-weeks I have a birthday?

What’s your love language for receiving? Is yours different than what you have for giving? Do you think that these are important to discuss with romantic partners?

I took this picture on my 50th birthday in The Met

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Dating

I have been out on three dates since I have been on the app. I had plans for six, and two were not happening. One because the girl was a tease and maybe side hustling for money and the other because I wasn’t positive if I’d be back in town on time and also got a flat tire. She asked someone else.

The other one was cancelled by a woman who has had the best DM game that I’ve read since May and we had an easy and fun conversation on the phone before we made date plans. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t super disappointed in her cancellation. I won’t text her because she said the time wasn’t right and she is presently maxed out socially, but I’ll hope that she texts me someday in the future.

Dating kind of sucks.

I am having my fourth date today. And it’s with a woman whom I’ve gone out with one time before.

We talked on the phone in May before I left for Lake Michigan. And it was hard to hang up. She can really talk. I mean that. I thought that it was maybe because she was nervous. Well, our date was like that too and I told my therapist last week that she asked me one question, and the question was defensive.

People feel some kind of way when you work in mental health.

She asked, “Do you ever have the ability to turn it off given that you provide mental health?”

I talked about what I had suggested for her son when she was talking about him and she qualified the question. She was making sure that when I meet people I don’t look for pathology.

I told her that people who don’t see their role in lack of compatibility with previous partners have red flags for me. I think understanding attachment is important. I also think that it takes two to fight and have conflict. Now that I’m not having stress of cohabiting, I can see that I’m able to resolve conflicts. I don’t have enough skills or desire to fix problems when you have to see the significant day in and day out. I’m glad that I know that about myself now.

Those things didn’t scare her off.

However, she really didn’t stop talking. They were long stories too–albeit all interesting–and sometimes I didn’t have to use attending behaviors or anything. She just talks.

So, I called it out. At the end of our date I said, “I hope that you learn some things about me when we get together in two weeks.”

My GF turned bright red when I told her that over our dinner last Saturday.

I said, “That’s mean? I meant it. She LEGIT asked me one question, and I don’t want to date someone if she doesn’t want to get to know me.”

My girlfriend said that she would be profoundly embarrassed and ashamed if I said that to her.

I told her, “You ask me questions all of the time. The first time we texted, you asked me all kinds of questions. You’re interested in me.”

My therapist thought that was a good question to see if she knew that she had dominated the conversation.

Regardless, I’m curious today if she and I have chemistry. That’s such a difficult thing. You have it or you don’t. I’m going to go to the gym now and then get ready for my date. We shall see.

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Date

My current GF has a three-year-old. That means that this child is really her whole world. I hope that because she puts every ounce of herself into her child that will yield a securely attached person who can fit into the world.

That’s also meant that I make plans for all of our dates.

I’d like that to shift completely.

We went to an interesting talk on July 9th and out to dinner. I had fun. My GF paid for the babysitter and our dinners. The talk that we went to was related to her industry and she’d heard about it via someone she works with and a person she met at a work conference. I thanked her for the date plans and she laughed and said it wasn’t really a plan.

At the end of last year (12/31/24) she partially planned a date, and it included her best friend. She bought NYE concert tickets. I paid for parking, transportation, the babysitter and wound up tacking on dinner that night which I paid for as well. Her best friend showed up at the end of our dinner so we could transport together to the venue.

I think that last Saturday was the first full date that she planned and paid for over the course of our ten-month relationship.

She picked me up, we drove to another city, we took a stained glass class, we walked around an art fair and then had dinner together. She paid for the babysitter too.

We had a pretty tough conversation over dinner too. I feel like there were seeds planted that will continue to sprout going forward. However, the whole night yielded a net positive and we will likely have some more balanced experiences going forward. I really liked the date. I thanked her for it several times and it made me feel special.

Tonight we’re going to a theatrical rerelease of a film that I wasn’t able to see in the theater. It came out when I completed my undergraduate degree and was beginning my first round of graduate school. I’m not sure what time the babysitter will get to her, so I don’t know if we can get food before. My GF doesn’t do any carbohydrates for the most part and no sugar, so movie food isn’t an option. Worse case scenario is that we grab local burgers on the way home.

I’m a great date. I’m a great planner of dates too. I don’t take any time that I have with a beautiful woman for granted. I don’t believe in falling back on default responses or not engaging in meaningful experiences.

I hope that she knows that I want her to plan some dates for us.

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Psilocybin

I’ve been dosing psilocybin for 7-months. You can have the drug and use it in 7 states. It’s been being studied actively by the Food and Drug Administration since 2023.

I think that ever since the documentary about mushrooms became wildly popular, folks have been given pause regarding using it to change their brains. I’ve been taking non-psychoactive mushrooms since 2012. I was recommended a TED talk by an employee at a grocery store and wanted to strengthen my immune system overall.

I’ve not had an ounce of alcohol since 12/30/24. When I started micro dosing, I didn’t want anything to be interfering with my serotonin production. Thus, I quit drinking at the end of 2024. A couple of nights ago I was thinking about a glass of Red Zinfandel and my stomach felt like it was on fire. I don’t miss alcohol. I was definitely what you’d consider a consistent beer drinker prior to this year, and La Croix is a great substitute for it.

I suppose that I will occasionally drink again. I don’t want to right now. Maybe after February 1st 2026. I think that I’ll be an occasion-only person.

I smoked some pot for a few years. I had a horrific experience in a bathtub wherein I didn’t think that would my brain would ever rebound, so I’ve never touched it again. I know that despite the genetic modifications, it makes me beyond paranoid. I have no desire for it.

The same thing is true with cigarettes. My Mom had me take a drag off hers when I asked when I was 4 and I threw up on the floor, so I have never been a smoker.

I didn’t want to anxiously ruminate on things that happened at work or when the natural progression of friendships end. I started psilocybin.

I can tell you that I’m way less in my head than I’ve ever been. I can tell you that I don’t experience very much anxiety at all. I also have been able to grow with others having tough conversations wherein I need to be flexible and change.

I don’t know what generic psilocybin the FDA will approve. I don’t know what big pharma will package. I can tell you that each strain interacts with people differently, and I am reasonably confident the generic drug will be dilute, but will have some psychiatric benefit for most people. There are many different strains and geneticists study all species.

I think that I’ll have permanent lasting changes in my brain by the middle of next winter. I don’t see myself as needing to micro dose long term. I’ve been grateful for the impact that psilocybin has had in my life.

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Neighbors

I was walking home after a concert with the author last night and she asked me how my girlfriend and I are doing. I told her that we are doing well for the most part and that sometimes she gets emotional, which is unique for her, as she’s not particularly emotionally triggered by anything. She is a crier, and often has tears in her eyes, but is never angry and rarely irritated. We haven’t had a major disruption in the force because I’ve only kissed one woman who’s not even practical to date. However, things are brewing generally and we’ll see how it shifts.

The author and I were talking about this super young girl who was texting me pictures yesterday. I’ve been matched with her on the app since I got on the app. I’ve never met her.

She started that up about an hour before the author was to be at my house and I texted, “You’re a tease. If you want to go on a date at some point, let’s schedule.” I also told her later in the evening that I would block her if she doesn’t show on Friday.

Anyway, who knows what will happen with her on Friday? I mean it when I say that I’ll block her number. I’ll look at two pictures of her for awhile and then block her if she doesn’t show up. Purportedly, we’re having a negotiation conversation. That’s not anything that I’ve done before and the idea is appealing.

I was talking about this woman and a date that I had on Saturday and various other things when I heard, “Is that _____ ?” Oof. A neighbor. Listening to me talk about this young girl and my dating.

I also thought it was a different neighbor and introduced her to the author with the wrong name. After a bit, I realized that was the only thing that I was embarrassed about. I texted back and forth with her and she remarked about how funny the author is, and I sent her the author’s website. She basically said, “Good for you,” and wished me well. I only apologized for using the wrong name.

I guess that I don’t care who knows that I’m Solo Poly.

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Car

I had a really scary Chevette in 1991. My Dad was generally an intense and angry person and he didn’t want to work per se, but did. When he bought a newer car (new to him, as it was used) he gave me his Chevette, which he used previously for commuting to work and errands. There were holes in the floorboards which would shoot geysers up when torrential rain would gather on the streets. He hated driving and literally pushed holes into the bottom of his car.

Some asides about my Dad: I think that his preference would have been to live abroad (He did for many years, and his mother did some power play stuff to get him back to the states.) in a commune working collaboratively. He was also a Marxist and well-read and he believed in a specific philosophy of Marxism. He didn’t want to be married and certainly didn’t want to be a father. He did, however, give me his Chevette when I was 17 and my Mom wasn’t driving me to school any longer. I don’t have a car to give my son and because my brother is now gone, I can’t get help with navigating this experience with my son.

I have only used a Car Broker for cars that I’ve bought. There just doesn’t seem to be a quick turnaround with Brokers these days.

I’ve put a ton of parts into mine in the last three months. I’m going to drive it two more years and then I’m going to research and get something new. I don’t know that I am going electric. I had thought that they were more ecological because the batteries don’t need to be replaced, which isn’t true. I’ll spend some of the summer of 2027 researching cars before I get mine. I have only had 6 different cars across 50-years. I never drove my ex-husband’s cars and only drove the four that my ex-wife leased a handful of times across the nine-years that we were together. I don’t think that I’ll drive my son’s car either.

We test drove two cars yesterday and now I have to go back to the lot by 2:00 or so. I’ve researched exactly what the car is worth. The nice thing about it is that the one that he prefers hasn’t been in any accidents. However, it did spend a few years in Minnesota, so I’m going to have my son take it to a mechanic who owns a muffler and radiator shop to look under it. If there is rust, we won’t keep it. We have 90-days to return it.

Now it’s time to pay closer to what the value for the car is actually, which is super unpleasant.

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Women

I had a nice date with Mountain Girl and the turn off was marijuana. I totally get that it’s legal, but it grosses me out. It’s too adjacent to smoking cigarettes. She also lives really far away and I don’t want to hustle. I got in her Volvo two Saturdays ago and it smelled like pot smoke. We had fun, and she clearly likes me. I just don’t think that this is the situation that I’m pursuing.

I had a cancellation for a walking date and changed it to a phone date with different woman. I know that it’s all intermittent reinforcement and am hoping that something will materialize in the next month.

  1. Travel partner
  2. Mostly sober
  3. Physical intimacy
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HER

After getting banned from Tinder, I made a HER account and almost had difficulty managing it for awhile. Now, it’s simple. If you’re not verified, I don’t message you. If you’re between 25-39 I assume that you only want sex or a sugar mama. Pretty straightforward.

Enter the mountain girl.

But, first let me tell you what I had learned and utilized.

I had a rhythm. If you were real, I either waited until you messaged me or vice versa and then I scheduled a phone call. Sometimes it wasn’t getting to latter because plenty of women either freak out when you’re Solo Poly or when they really see that you are, after more DMs, they stop writing to you.

That’s all good.

I’m not looking for a standard cohabiting escalator partner.

I won’t change my mind.

I just want at least one other GFs and will continue to be open to the correct comet situations.

The mountain girl hails from Dallas and has also lived in Connecticut and travelled all over the east coast. She moved here with her partner and ran a pizzeria for awhile. They’ve been divorced a year. She’s mostly retired and has all her own money. She has a boyfriend and is a relationship anarchist. She builds her relationships individually with each person including her friends. This blog entry is a good overview of things that I believe about myself and what terms are typically in relationship anarchy.

We had great DMs and then wound up talking just under 50-minutes. She went on a weekend vacation with her BF and was texting me. That would’ve really irritated me, so that would be something that she and I would talk about prior, if we reach that level and stage.

I’m going to be in the mountains all weekend for a polyamory event.

The mountain girl and I spoke on the phone twice yesterday and I told her if it’s flex this weekend with having folks come to pick me up and not stay for a bit that I’d love to have some in person time with her. I texted the author and she said that I’m not chained to the house so of course I can meet up with her.

I can’t wait to see if we also have in person chemistry. She’s normally 4-hours away from me, and I tend to think that it’s nice to miss someone. I’m excited to see what is what. I’m also excited for my event this weekend.

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Fifth

My flight took off an hour and a half late, so I wasn’t settled into my hotel until almost 4 in the morning in downtown Chicago. I also forgot to hang the Do Not Disturb tag so I didn’t get to sleep until noon. I was granted a 1:00 pm check out although the Blues Festival was taking place; however, I had the scary banging knock from housekeeping at 9:30. 😦 After hitting Billy’s Bagels, I went to the Dearborn Station Park and ate a Chicago Turkey bagel. It was sooooo good.

I didn’t know until I was in Manhattan at the end of last summer that you have to download prior and should probably also print maps in large cities, because Google can’t give walking directions when there are too many tall buildings around. I went to the library downtown and the clerk printed directions for me for walking to the Art Institute of Chicago.

I was so happy that Frida Kahlo’s Paris show was there. You were able to read her love letters to Nick Muray. I feel a kinship with her. She was critically injured and then plagued by pain, she was clearly polyamorous, and she didn’t want to cohabit. I also love her art and didn’t know that she did a Paris show or why that and her trip to Europe occurred.

I drove to Rockford because I wanted to see the Anderson Japanese Gardens. They’d been featured in a blog entry of a blogger who I follow. I didn’t know that Rockford was so walkable and that the Edgewater subdivision had such diverse architecture. I took a night walk and counted 3 fireflies.

The following morning I walked to the gardens and they were wonderful. I started my many days of relaxation and contemplation.

Then I drove to Kenosha. Lake Michigan is gorgeous. And the only drawback was that smoke is pooling from Canadian wildfires and it was hazy, but I was glad to be there.

The following morning I went to the public museum, donated money because it’s free, and voted for my favorite transparent water colors. The museum hosts a contest of these every year and I was there for the 49th annual contest. They look so realistic and your eyes play tricks on you as you’re convinced that many are photos and not watercolors. I also rode the electric streetcar and learned about their 4th of July festival.

Then it was time for me to drive to Indiana. It started to rain so there was a break in the smoke when I got there. I was staying at the best AirBnB that I’ve ever been in. I also got to see Indiana forest sunsets due to a short smoke break.

The next day I explored Indiana Dunes National Park. I can’t say enough about how beautiful this park is and what a great way it offers to explore Lake Michigan.

I began my stubborn and limitless belief leg of my vacation thereby hiking miles and miles on a knee with severe osteoarthritis, chondromalacia, no cartilage behind the knee cap, and bone marrow edema above the knee. I don’t care either. It was so worth all the pain and swelling.

The full moon rose after the gorgeous sunset.

Those two days were incredible. This park doesn’t seem to get much traffic or because I vacation in early June, I don’t see folks. I was alone on plenty of trails and was able to reflect and just be. I enjoyed exploring the marshlands too and hiking above them as well.

I left that incredible area and accommodation. Wow. That was paradise in that area of Indiana and the room that I had was comfy, quiet, clean and so modern.

Next, I drove to Southwest Michigan. I had a tiny room. But, the Inn was historic and had a private beach.

Both mornings, I took my coffee on the giant porch in a rocking chair looking at Lake Michigan. I didn’t take my phone with me and spent 2-hours outside. I would reverse the ritual at night and one night took the 135 steps down to the beach to watch the sunset. This Inn is just incredible. I met a woman who is also a Professor and she told me that I should come to this Inn in September. She was very worldly, speaks and writes fluently in French, and has been on beaches all over the world, but told me that Lake Michigan is the best one. I kind of agreed with her given some moments.

The next morning I went back to Indiana Dunes National Park and saw the farm there and hiked a bit, but it was far too smoky again so I decided to go back to Chicago.

A quick tip for folks is that there is some free parking available near University Village on street. I ate wonderful deep dish pizza and salad and then walked the river. Chicago is nice. My girlfriend is from the suburbs and wants to show me around someday. I had a great time back there before I flew back home.

Do you travel solo? Why or why not? Where are you going to travel to before you are unable to walk?