Stealing my soul for the night.

Tonight I got off work earlier than normal for a Friday night and I was a little concerned about actually finding something cool to do with all the available time for once.  I quite enjoy the opportunity for spontaneity whenever it arises under most normal circumstances but I have to admit I have had little practice doing so for longer than I'd care to admit.  I was quite happy to have a roommate in need of the same thing almost immediately after I arrived home from work.

He was invited to go to an open-mic night at a local coffee shop to watch some live music and extended the invitation my way.  I thought it was a sweet idea and quickly got my things together to join the fun.  It was definitely the right choice to make.

It started a little slowly since the first guy singing his songs was only so-so.  I'm not sad for his ho-hum level of quality as I totally recognize the range of variance in music performance(especially live) and am more appreciative of his efforts in even just being there doing his thing.  He's certainly doing more than me in any case.

Each successive act, however, became more and more enjoyable up until the pinnacle of the evenings musical grandeur.  I never caught her name but she was seemingly the host of the whole night's activities since she was the one to introduce each act.  The real treat came as a biproduct of the fact that some of the intended acts apparently were not going to make it for their respective performances.  She, being the good host that she was, decided to fill up some of the space with a set of her own music.

Wow!  She was one of the best live performances I have seen in quite a while and definitely the best coffee shop performer I have seen as far back as I can remember.  She had a quality far beyond even the better of most coffee shop/local gig performances I think I have ever seen.  A truly professional musician with a beautiful sound.  Quite inspiring to me as well.

It has been so long since I have seen a girl perform quite like this that I have to admit she claimed a bit of my affections in her musical performance.  It was only in the moment, but it had me drawn out in a way I don't think has happened in many years.  It even made me make a bumblingly foolish statement in my attempt to compliment her after the show. "Keep it up!" I said with a cheesy thumbs up.  Ugh... It still makes me feel like a seventh-grader just thinking about it.  Good thing I'll probably never see her again.  I don't feel like I need any more practice extracting my foot from my mouth.

Anyway... It was a good night.  Way better than I could have expected.