i had a very lengthy piano lesson today with a man who told me within the first 5 minutes of meeting him that he often felt lonely. but when he read or heard about people who faced far more difficult situations, he felt appreciative. he talked a lot during the lesson. an awful lot. he talked about The 3 Stooges, not because he thought they were particularly funny, but he liked the simplicities of the stories in each episode.

he also told me he likes to watch the Andy Griffith Show. Especially because there was an episode or series of episodes or an entire season where Opie was required to practice piano for 2 hours each day.

my lesson lasted at least 30 minutes later than i would have liked because he wanted to know so many things about me. but i was really running late. i really was. and just as I was walking out the door, he asked me if I had ever read Aristotle’s Poetics. I think I read this, or was assigned to read it in high school. he talked for another few minutes about Aristotle and the masks for comedy and tragedy.

then he asked me if i could tell him my thoughts about the differences between comedy and tragedy. i asked him if he would mind if we talked about this next week because i really was running late. and i really was running very late. and then he apologized.

and that was how we left things.