Strange and Amazing

So, a week and a half ago, I got a phone call.

Not just any phone call. No, when the phone rang, I had four recording devices and a friend to run them sitting on the couch next to me. Taking a deep breath, I answered.

"Hi Kate," he said. "This is Eric."

"Eric" would be Eric Sheffer Stevens, who played Dr. Reid Oliver on As The World Turns, and my current favorite actor. And through a bizarre and can't-wrap-my-head-around-it series of events, I landed an interview with him for my blog.

Now, I'm not a reporter. I don't exactly have the platform for an interview with one of the hottest discoveries in daytime television in 2010. And it certainly isn't a logical choice for an interview venue. But with some nudging from a friend, I wrote up an interview request and sent it in anyway, figuring what did I have to lose? The worst he could do was say no, or just ignore it.

Instead, I got a yes, which pretty much blew my mind. Because now I had to COME UP WITH QUESTIONS. And actually HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH HIM. And, of course, keep it under wraps just in case it fell through.

But it didn't. Several weeks passed as schedules were compared and he finished up a project he'd been working on, but I finally got an email saying, how about tomorrow?

It was a great conversation, the results of which have been going up this week on my personal blog. We chatted about the creative process, why he'd say no to a part, what's next on the horizon for him. He even answered questions my kids had begged me to ask.

All in all, he's a great, down-to-earth, really nice guy. And I got a great series of posts for my blog. And I've learned the benefit of going ahead and asking anyway, even if it's the most ridiculously improbable idea around.

Because you know what? Sometimes, the answer is yes.