Loners

Bookmarked it and only now had time to review.

One interesting thing I've always found: many performers are mistaken for extroverts when they really are the opposite. How many times have you heard an actor say they find it easier to play another character onstage or on screen than to hold a personal conversation, especially with a stranger? My personality has a good dose of both, but I can tell you the first time I stepped on stage it was instant joy. Not because I craved approval, though applause is addictive. It was like finding my true home at last. Maybe I'm a closet control freak. It's incredibly satisfying to capture an audience and draw them along the way you want them to go. After it's over I don't want to be around anyone.

Although that should be written in the past tense. Where I retired for financial reasons only in RedNeckLand, there's so little in the way of avenues for artistic outlet that cliques jealously guard their own little bit of spotlight, even against others born and raised here, with family trees dating back a hundred years or more. When I went over one evening to listen in on bell choir practice in another room, to see whether they played well enough I'd even want to offer my services, the pastor rushed over and with a panicked look on his face warned me that those people had been playing together all their lives and might not want anyone else in the group. I told him very quietly that that's exactly what's wrong with this town. I've never seen a place so xenophobic and vicious even to their own.