As if idly chatting, he asked me some questions about myself and then said modestly that he was "too old to write anything decent".

他拉家常似的询问我一些情况，谦虚地称自己“老了，写不出什么东西了”。

youdao

There's also an engaging image of the rooftop bar at the Ravel Hotel in Long Island City, where, based on the sparse crowd, long shadows and two female servers in little black dresses chatting idly, the evening cocktail hour is just getting going.

WSJ: Open-Air Status Symbols

We had been chatting idly.

NPR: Watching a Memory Shift over Time