The Big "If"

I had lunch with a music lover today. And not just any music lover, but one who read my blog profile with its endless list of bands I love and actually wrote me that I have perfect taste in music (meaning it mirrored his). Wow, people actually read my profile?

If this doesn't sound monumental, you're not reading between the lines. My music taste is all over the place and plenty of people who love Muse wouldn't be caught dead listening to Teenagers. So when someone is impressed with my eclectic taste and tells me so, I need to talk about it...and maybe see what such a rarity looks like.

We tried messaging about music, but as I told him, I'm much better at face to face conversation than typing. And that's how the plan was conceived; we'd meet for lunch to talk music and if we hit it off, we'd each have a new concert buddy. Of course that was a pretty big "if."

He let me pick and I chose Lamplighter because the food is always good and it's so well priced. After the bacchanalian eating and drinking of my weekend away, all I was craving was salad, so I got the Lamplighter (mixed greens, seasonal fruit, red onions, nuts and Gorgonzola) with chicken salad and the other music fan got the tuna melt.

My salad was delightful in every way with incredibly fresh greens, an abundance of nuts and strawberries and plenty of onion for this onion-lover and further enhanced by a chicken salad tasting of chicken and not overly mayonaised. He was impressed with both the tastiness and the value of his sandwich. Double score.

Lunch took a while because we had so much music to talk about (The Decemberists, Yeasayer, Midlake, Fanfarlo, Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes doesn't begin to cover it) and when we were done with the food, we continued the conversation while strolling the neighborhood. It was a perfect sunny fall afternoon for a music walk and talk.

I've met a few people because they read my blog and I always worry that somehow I'll disappoint in person; after all, I never know what impression a reader has formed of me based on my writing.

But in today's case, he'd already written that he thought I was awesome, so I had even further to fall than usual. That or I was a shoo-in; I couldn't decide which.

We both left with our handwritten lists of recommended music. If I was a disappointment musically, he was too polite to show it.

I just might have a new concert buddy. Epic score.