Rabbit Trails and the Odd Little Surprises in Life

I'm single. No big surprise there. And at my age, romance is pretty much out of the picture. There's no one reason for this - more like a bunch of little reasons that start with a busy schedule and lots of friends and ends with a jealousy of my solitude. I consider myself an introvert with ambivert tendencies - I honestly enjoy being alone a lot.

Yeah, fear might play a small part as well. To be honest, I never developed the thick skin for dating rejection that I have for writing rejections. I was reminded of the latter one this weekend. I worked with a friend on a de-cluttering effort (my living room), and I opened a box containing nothing BUT rejections. Dozens of envelopes instantly recognizable by the label with my name and address in MY handwriting. If you're a working writer, you've seen a few of these.

My friend is looking for a job, as are two others in my circle. One of the hardest parts of the process for them all is the rejection. No advice from my writer's thick skin helps them at all. I have to remind myself that this is all raw and new for them, as it is for many of the writers I work with. I've worked on that thick skin for 25 years.

Sorry...rejection rabbit trail. I do that. Anyone who talks to me for five minutes knows that I live by the rabbit trail. It's sometimes where the more interesting tidbits of life live.

It was, in fact, an odd little rabbit trail that led me to one of this weekend's little surprises. I love those. You'll just go along in life, thinking things are one way, and lo and behold, something jumps up and startles you.

I'm not in the romance game, true, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to attraction. Ever so often I'll be attracted by some male or another, usually an actor or musician who makes me cock my head to one side like the RCA pup, eyebrows raised. The Internet is particularly useful for such rabbit trails. I'll go off on one, do some research, store it away for future reference (usually for character building), and get on with life.

The latest rabbit trail has been going on for about a week (two weeks is usually the max for a good rt; anything longer gets another label entirely, usually followed by an intervention...). It's an actor who's been around for a long time, does some serious character work. I found the usual gossip trash, but then tripped over an obscure interview during which he mentioned being "blessed by the good Lord."

Odd coming from the typical Hollywood guy. So I rt'd a search on his name and the word "faith." Up popped an interview about his faith and his art on a religious radio program. He's Catholic. Apparently rather devout. It's not something ever, ever mentioned about him in the main press, but he apparently isn't worried about hiding it either.

I loved that. I work in an industry where most people carry their faith proudly as a label. This reminded me that for many folks, it's a more private thing, something not to be declared as much as lived.

Little surprises can be great joys. Has anyone, or anything, pleasantly surprised you lately?