Krib's Ink: Girl Meets Trek

On December 4, a bright sunny day in Hawaii, I awoke. Brushing aside the looming due dates, ideas for term paper rewrites, the forty or so ungraded literary analysis papers, I donned my only Star Trek tee that read: I’m with illogical. A giant arrow pointed left. The direction of ill-logic. In the midst of the end-of-semester hustle-bustle, nervous breakdowns, and cryers (students who procrastinate the entire semester then come to your office in tears), I made time to enjoy the 45^th Annual Star Trek Convention, my first convention. My memory of the day, incomplete at best, stands against the backdrop of reality, of teaching and writing, of grad school and jobs. Even now, the images converge on one another, threaten to fall into oblivion. Hence this blog: to preserve the memories, to take note of the trek.

I avoided conventions for only one reason up until this point. They broke the continuity and the reality of the Star Trek universe. The Red Hot Chili Peppers said it best: Space may be the final frontier, but it’s made in a Hollywood basement. For me, I’ve always hated “the end.” The end of a book, the end of a series; the end felt so much like the end of a life. I worried that a convention might reinforce this end, remind me of the quickness of life, it’s illusory nature. Also, it might reinforce the geek within for there is power in numbers.

We (yes, my best friend came along, though she’s no Trekkie; Thanks, Sam!) arrived at the Sheraton in time to catch Weyoun (DS9), that is, Jeffrey Combs, pontificate. Armin Shimmerman (Quark, DS9), J.G. Hertzler (Martok, DS9), Max Grodenchik (Rom, DS9), and Casey Biggs (Damar, DS9) took turns asking and answering questions. The large convention room was barely a quarter filled, but I still could not help but feel an attachment to the people around me. When does that ever happen? To my right, a middle aged Japanese couple wore Next Generation science uniforms. To my left, a man in his seventies adjusted his Vulcan ears and ceremonial robe.

If ever I belonged anywhere…I bumped into J.G. Hertzler in the hallway. He played a Klingon and a General to boot. When I looked at him I saw a six foot, 200 lb. Klingon weilding a bat’leth. He looked down at me and said: “Haha, I love your shirt.”

In the vendors room, I purchased a DS9 post-production script from Max Grodenchik’s personal collection. For those of you who watch the show, this guy is just like his character. A bit slow to process, mouth usually open, stuttering through sentence fragments; he took my email in case he missed his script and wanted it back. Five minutes later, I was still waiting for him to sign the script. He appeared lost in thought. Or maybe just lost. I tried to help. “Just sign your name.” “Oh…Where?” “Wherever you’d like.” “Oh. Ok.” Pause. He points to a spot on the cover “Do you want me to sign it here?” “Wherever is fine.” “Oh.” Pause. “Do you want me to address it to you?” “No need.” “How do you spell your name?” My turn: “Oh.” Gratefully, his wife was there watching the both of us stammer at each other. She clarified my request and Max finally signed the script. Sam watched our interaction (I could see her laughing) while she snapped pictures on her iPhone. Awkward sums it up.

At some point during the convention, I reverted. I lost the ability to articulate myself in clear and complex ways. I forgot about my two term papers that needed hours of research, reading, and work to complete. I forgot about my students and the forty-seven emails waiting in my inbox. I forgot I was a twenty-seven year old with an unpaid mortgage. I became a little girl with a debit card on a mission to purchase any and every piece of Trek history I could find. I also giggled (ugh, yes, giggled) as the actors walked by. And yes, they saw me. No longer able to form complex sentences, I walked up to Armin Shimmerman (Quark; one of my favorite characters; also appeared on Buffy as Principal Snider) for an autograph. As I stood in line, I thought: What should I say to him? Perhaps compliment him on his ability to channel an alien character on such human terms? Articulate that his character and the show was the very reason I was a PhD candidate and a writer? That the show and the humor he brought to it helped me through some dark and hormonal teenage years? But I was continually interrupted by my fifteen year old self: Oh, my god. Oh, my god. It’s Quark! It’s Quark! In the end, I said nothing at all. I stood in front of him with the geekiest grin you can imagine and held out the script. Thankfully, he had some experience with this geeky inarticulateness and shared a story about the script with me. As I turned away, my voice returned. I said softly: thanks. It’s really great to finally meet you. And shuffled away as quickly as I could, giggling.

The day stands out as one of the best of 2010. It arrived in the midst of such stress and apprehension, where the future was uncertain and the responsibility, mounting. I almost didn’t go for these reasons; I didn’t have a whole day to waste on childhood fantasies. I didn’t even have an hour, evidenced by the fact I hadn’t seen a Trek episode in months, since my last posting. I was finally, wonderfully, reminded of what my life is all about. Stories. Writing. Some of my first pieces were Star Trek fan fiction. If you don’t know what fan fic is, you are probably too cool to be reading this anyway. Some writers, like Stephen King, hate television. He writes, “turn off the tv” as advice to writers. I couldn’t disagree more. TV, simply another medium for the transmission of stories, brought Trek to my home every Sunday at 8pm. While I spent entire days reading Trek novels and other books, seeing the show on TV reminded me that this was a shared world. Books can be so private. They only speak to the reader at the time. But millions watched Trek. Millions. And maybe, because of that, I didn’t feel quite so alone.