On Sunday mornings I like to get up early and go for a bike ride near the river. Usually I go from Graça all the way to Parque das Nações and back. With good weather and little traffic, there are many people jogging, walking or riding their bicycles like me. Most cyclists are men, and men’s behavior is always curious: men in suits compare ties or cigars, men in saunas (decent ones!!) compare bellies, men at the gym compare biceps, men in cars compare horsepower, men riding their bicycles compare wheels. There’s always some kind of sparkle between men in tight cycling shorts. If it’s love or plain static electricity, that’s another question.

Lately I’ve heard a lot of discussions about summer love. It’s true that with hot temperatures, our sexual instincts are awaken and smaller clothes showing more flesh invite lust. It makes me wonder if cupid hides behind the sun shooting his arrows when we’re not looking. Of course that summer also means vacation and that’s when we have more time, less worries, therefore we’re more available to love.

I’m spending my summer in the city, most of it in Lisbon city and a week in New York City. What summer will bring to me I’ll take it and report it when I’m back. In the meantime my love and sex life will go on like a Sunday morning bike ride, not really on the prowl but always on the look.

What a concert! Words cannot express the river of emotions I felt!

So, as you might now, I came to Amsterdam to see my dear miss Jill Scott preform at the Paradiso concert hall. We got there and I was presented with this amazing hall, intimate and with a “homely” feeling to it, perfect for this kind of concert. The tension built as the time for the performace was coming up… I was standing center stage, with only a couple of people between me and Jill’s feet!!!

It was a perfect concert! Even better than the one I saw in Zürich back in November last year! She blinked at me (oh, I feel like a grupie!!!!) as the small group of us in the front sang the first verses of “Crown Royal on Ice” under her watchfull eye!! It was magical!

Unfortunately for you guys, I did not make a long clip as I did last time… but I needed to enjoy the concert without the distraction of the camera!!!!

Here it is… my edit on the clips of the concert:

Please comment on it, rate it, share it!

Here are some of the photos I took that day…

The Paradiso Concert Hall, right before the concert starts

The side of Paradiso, with Jill's backup singer standing there!

The stage at Paradiso, about 1 hour before the concert

My ticket to the concert

Jill Scott on stage

That’s it! It was one of those moments, oh so special, that will stay in my heart! Thank you Jill, again, for making me feel so good!

Peace and much love

What a rollercoster of emotions! Had a wonderful time in the bellissima Verona, city of Romeo & Juliet, lovely! The top was near the end, when I got a taste of “The Temple of Wellbeing”, a Spa treatment that is extremelly special and emotional! More on this sometime in the future!

Now in Amsterdam, once again, this time (amongst other things) to see “my” dear Jill Scott perform live at the Paradiso concert hall! I’m sure it will be as amazing as the time I saw her in Zürich!

Here are some of today’s highlights:

After the rain

...comes the rainbow

and an amazing sunset

Peace and much love

Here we go again! hehe!

Yesterday I got on a early morning flight to Milan, Italy. From there, by car, I got to a small town close to Verona and, even though I was terribly tired, I was taken out to dinner (delicious pizza) and to a lovely pool-side party!

I’m here for some training in an area that’s not my own, but good things will come out of this! (Plus, friday I’m spending the whole afternoon at the spa!).

Check out some of the photos:

View from the skies - photo taken on the flight from Lisbon to Milan

Arrival at the Milan Airport

On the Road from Milan to Verona (What a terrible terrible drive)

More news coming soon!

Peace and much love

All this mess of thoughts in my mind caused me to dream about babies everywhere last night. Fatherhood has always been something wondering in my mind and sometimes my biological clock rings louder, but I still think I’m not ready for that. This doesn’t mean that I’m not strongly for gay parenting. Society suffocates itself with labels and forgets we’re all just people. I say that before procreation we need a lot of «profornication». And that’s something that gay people do as well as straight people. Many straight couples «profornicate» their brains off and still can’t manage to procreate, such as gay people.

This week I read an article saying since the seventies, the definition of a couple changed dramatically. Mostly because we started teaching all about sex and forgot to teach about love. That’ what marriage is all about: Love! For your partner, for your children is you have any, for your pets, if you have any, for yourself now complete with your other half. Provocation or not, I pity those who still believe that marriage aims procreation, for either they have a bunch of children or they surely don’t do enough «profornication»!

No matter how concentrated you are, sometimes, when you are trying your best to put things in order, you seldom find stuff constantly misplaced. My Keepers guy, revealed himself to be more suitable for a T file as in Trash, an F file as in Forget or more an M file as in Missing. We had scheduled a date the next day, after lunch in a coffee house around my place. I had a meeting for lunch so we’d have coffee right after that. As my meeting got canceled the next morning, I texted him suggesting we could meet earlier. No reply. Later, I sent another one to confirm the coffee. Again, no reply. Later, with my computer on mute, I was late to read a message saying he’d been waiting for me for more than as hour at the coffee house. I called him immediately but the phone was disconnected. After quite a few tries, I finally managed to speak to him: his phone had been stolen at the gym and they had just called his apartment for the phone had been found. Sorry here, sorry there, he invited me for a movie to happen the next day. Later in the evening he even sent me a text message wishing me a good night such as he did the next day wishing me a good day. Later in the afternoon it was time for him to call. The phone rang 3 times and as I was about to answer the call was lost. I called him back but for the rest of the afternoon the phone was disconnected. That was the last from him.

When a guy is not that in to you, he’s not and that’s it. But when after three rings on you cell phone the guy goes silent, we go on wondering what ran him over? In my point of view, we got along so well in the first date, he even said so more than I did, that ending things like this is nothing but a crime. But as there’s no body, he’s just missing. For the time being, I’m missing him, for the time that will come the feelings will be like me and him: lost in communication.

Kings of Convenience “Winning a Battle, Losing the War”, from the album “Quiet is the New Loud”.

In a week when my life began its 180º turn it was surprisingly calm. Nevertheless, Graça is a neighborhood full of surprises. I think it’s because it’s so windy, this way things tend to never remain in the same place. This way, for the last two days I have been putting hundreds of papers in order, alphabetically, into three large files. So the next time I need any of those papers I’ll find them quickly, my life will be easier and no time will be lost. I am very organized and I like things to be that way. This is why I don’t need some guy to come into my life all of a sudden and invade my alphabetically organized feelings and shuffle them all over. We met casually, had a casual coffee followed by a wonderful walk while having a wonderfully insightful conversation. He took me to a Chinese supermarket and bought me some instant soup: «Eat it in a gloomy evening, like those women in Sex And The City do!». «I don’t feed my rainy evenings» - I replied - «I’ll eat it through Desperate Housewives!». He smiled his approval and we could feel the complicity was already installed. Alphabetically he’s attractive, angry, big, cultured, hunky, interesting, insurgent, older, has a nice voice and a whole room full of tennis shoes (so he told me). I have a whole shelf with my tennis shoes and an empty folder under the letter L. When we said goodbye he said: «Kid, you have good skin velocity, I like you!».

Skin Velocity… which folder should that go to? He’ll definitely go to K as in Keeper but I am looking forward to what I’ll find in next encounters.