Tonight I enjoyed a long conversation and some good food (along with a little red wine) with someone I know from my local congregation who I know a little and who I share some intriguing common parallels with, and even though I am tired and it is very late, I thought it worthwhile to discuss a little bit the evening and my enjoyment of socializing with people, even if it means driving down roads that are under construction after midnight, which is not the most enjoyable thing to do when one is feeling sleepy. At any rate, driving was the least enjoyable part of the evening all around, given the horrific traffic I had to face on the way to my host’s apartment from Hillsboro to near Troutdale.

In all fairness, I probably would have arrived a bit sooner to dinner, so as not to make my host anxious of being stood up (I had turned off my cell phone, and since I don’t get voice messages, that makes it very hard for people to get in touch with me sometimes), but unfortunately I had one little errand to run before going to supper, and that was making a copy of music for myself so that I could give three nice copies of a piece of music for a vocal trio with piano accompaniment that I am working on with some of my friends. I hope they enjoy the music and that we can figure out our goals and the logistics for practice over the coming weeks and months. It can take a long time sometimes for music to become performance ready.

As it happens, music was a major part of the evening’s enjoyment, whether it was talking about music, listening to it, or doing a bit of singing. Since I enjoy music a great deal, even if my taste in music happens to often be a bit on the melancholy side, opportunities for unexpected musical pleasures are something that I find very pleasing. I will have to make myself familiar with a new youtube channel, apparently, called “Transatlantic Sessions.” The food was also a major part of the enjoyment, along with some very fascinating conversation that went into very honest and very personal territory. I suppose it’s hard for me to chat with hours with anyone without getting into personal territory, being the sort of person that I am, but it’s very satisfying to discuss matters with someone who is well-read and thoughtful and a person of deep feeling as well. That is a good combination of qualities that I always appreciate in others and seek to cultivate in myself also. All in all, even if it means that I will have yet another night of going to bed late in a week that has not been full of sleep, it was a good evening, and one that has provided a great deal of food for thought and reflection as well. That is always appreciated.