The latter part of last week saw an online friend of mine, L., meet my wife and I for the first time. L. was driving up to northern California for a convention and I had enjoyed communicating with her so much I invited her to stop at our house to spend the night. She agreed, and when she arrived, my wife and I knew we liked her. She was delightful; intelligent, interesting, charming, gracious. Given my experience of human nature, this probably means she's a lying con artist who's out to rip us off for anything she can take. Well, until that reveals itself, I'll choose to believe she's a friend and a "good soul." I only have so much mental energy to devote to paranoia, and right now it's all going into an area I'll take about shortly.

I enjoyed hosting L. Being able to take her out to dinner with my family, giving her a clean, comfortable, private place to sleep; taking care of her needs made me feel as though I were doing something valuable and necessary, something that was right to do. Even if she does turn out to be a scammer, I believe I did what was appropriate for me to do: Show her hospitality. It doesn't matter if she's a criminal or queen of Denmark; hospitality was a good gift I could give her freely. I enjoyed that.