You Know You Watch Too Much Star Trek When...

1. You have dreams involving the characters. In particular, when they begin to demand you keep Wheaties in the house so you ask your mother to buy them next time she goes shopping in order to appease said characters. (Surprisingly enough, it worked. McCoy has not asked for Wheaties in six days.)

2. Over half of the links in your internet history are Star Trek related.

3. You offer your parents what small fraction of your soul they do not yet own in order to buy Star Trek paraphernalia. 

4. You come to the realization that you would be willing to mortgage your soul, since it has already been sold to the parental units, in order to meet William Shatner...or Leonard Nimoy...or Brent Spiner...or Patrick Stewart...or...

5. When your mother orders you to take out the trash, you promise to "Make it so".

6. You giggle anytime someone uses the following words: Bridge, nuclear, vessels, whale, Jim, doctor, bricklayer, Cap'n, or 'warp core manifold'. 

7. You call anyone with pointy ears Spock. Friends, siblings and other relatives are especially subject to this.

8. Your father discovers you watching Voyager at 5:48 AM, and correctly assuming that you are never awake that early, he accuses you of staying up all night watching Star Trek. When you admit to it, he says, "Well, at least you were watching something worth while."

9. You plot to drop Star Trek references into homework, projects, and conversations with teachers in order discern which of them are Trekkies.

10. When someone asks you what your favorite time of year is, you very nearly answer, "Pon Farr time," before you realize that it is A) an inappropriate answer, and B) they will not understand.

11. You notice that you have not been using contractions...at all.

BABIES! Everywhere!

Well, not literally, everywhere. Definitely here. And good god is it weird. Actually, having a baby in the general vicinity is weird. I haven't had a baby within ten feet of me for more than five minutes since I was about 6. 

Also, on another note, I have recently discovered that when I hold a baby I fall asleep. I held my niece today for ten minutes, and then passed out on the couch for an hour. I suppose to be fair though, I've only had 9 hours of sleep in four days. So, sleep deprivation + baby = Sleepy Woody.

Another thing, baby cribs are bloody impossible to put together. I spent 45 minutes wrestling with one that should have been put together in 10. Those directions tell lies. 

And I'm calling her Spock dammit. She has pointy ears, ergo her permanent nickname is Spock. Alicia angsted at for that, but I think it's fair if she's going to insist on telling Kenna that I'm Aunty Pookie. 

...Babies are so weird. And what's even scarier, is that my Mom is dropping massive hints that she wants more grandkids, and Alicia has made it very clear that she doesn't plan on having anymore in the foreseeable future. Which means...shiiiittttttt. Good thing I'm going to be a doctor and I have an excuse for not having any for at least the next 8 or 9 years.

No Room

I often wonder what it is about people that makes them so...desperate to be perceived as strong and confident all the time. We allow ourselves no room for weakness, no room for brief moments of complete release. No, instead we put on our brave face, stick out our chin, paste on a smile, and utter the often used but seldom believed phrase of, "I'm fine."

I myself am one of these people. There are any number of ploys I use to distract not just others, but myself as well from my woes, and yet I wonder why I continue to do it when the logical side of me very well knows that I would feel better if I just talked to someone about it. But I can't. I seem to be stuck in this rut of self-reliance, though I admit I am not trying too hard to get out of it. Being confident in my ability to handle situations on my own is very important to me, but there is a point where even the most self-reliant person needs help.

So if it is simply self-reliance that holds people back, or an even more basic form - self preservation - than there is little anyone else can do for them. But it can't be that simple. There are other factors to consider...vanity, reputation, appearance, shame, trust, and a whole host of other things generally considered important to people, but not always on a conscious level. 

I suppose there are some people who have no qualms about talking to others about deeply personal issues, but I am not one of those. Everytime I have a personal problem to deal with, a little voice in me says, "You need to do this on your own. No one knows you better than yourself. They'll just mess it all up." And to a certain extent, that little voice is right. But, like I said before, there always comes a point when you have to reach for help. And I have managed to do that a few times...but there have been far more when I simply couldn't force myself to do it.

So, instead, I put on my brave face, stick out my chin, paste on a smile, and tell everyone I'm fine. I laugh and I swear and I grin, and I wonder how many of the people I talk to that day are putting on their brave faces too.

On Writing: Naming Characters

Perhaps one of the most frustrating aspects of writing is choosing a name for a character, especially for people like me. And I think it only gets worse when attempting to write within a canonized, pre-established universe. I'll give you an example that has plaguing me for the last four days straight. 

Not everyone is a huge Trekkie around here, but I've come up with a rather interesting idea for a story about Data's creator - Noonien Soong - and his ancestors. In the canon universe, Noonien's great-grandfather is Arik Soong, a man who lived approximately 125 years before Noonien. This leaves two empty non-canon generations for me to fill in. Now, me being the anal writer I am, I want the names to make sense both lineage-wise as well as what the names themselves actually mean.

After a bit of research I discovered that the name Noonien is a romanticized version of the Chinese name Nunian, meaning "diligently remembering". Arik is Norse for "great leader". So, two generations for me to fill, and basically I'm now left with no way to narrow down my choices into one lineage because one name is Oriental, and the other is European. This leaves me with trying to make the meanings of the names make sense for the actual characters.

Time to add another factor. When figuring out how many years passed between the two canon relatives, I encountered a problem with the length of time, and basically I ended up being backed into a corner so that the only choice to make was that Arik Soong had to die at an extremely old age and clone himself just before he died. Not the solution that I wanted, but changing the canon dates would have pissed me off even more. The clone would be implanted with all of Arik Soong's current knowledge, thus leading to my choice of Kaeto Soong. Kaeto is a romanticized version of Cato, Latin for "all-knowing". I thought this name was particularly fitting since the character would be born with all of his "father's" knowledge already. I changed the spelling for aesthetic purposes; it just looked better to me.

Since I have decided very little about the character of Kaeto Soong's son, I haven't had much to go off of personality or history-wise. For now I have settled on Alem, Arabic for "wise man". Should Alem turn out to be a fool as I write, I may choose to change it to better suit my own anal tendencies, or maybe just leave it as is for ironic purposes.

But just that, just those two names, were the result of four days of research and decisions on my part. I have an entire piece of paper filled with name after name after name, all with various ways of spelling them and lists of descriptive traits from the two canon Soongs as platforms to beginning searches. 

Four days, two names. 

Sometimes being an anal writer really sucks. But then again, it may pay off in the long run. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

My Highly Inappropriate Man-Harem For Men Old Enough To Be My Father/Grandfather

I think it's high time I finally dedicated a post to my Man-Harem. Oh, I rant and  rave about them all the time, I sigh and swoon, I squee and grin; but my Man-Harem as a whole is very rarely discussed. Hell, I bet even I barely know everyone who is in it. So, in realizing this, I have decided to sit down and name them all...I suppose I should start with the original member:

Mr. David Tennant

While it is certainly true that Mr. Tennant was not the first delicious piece of man that I fell in lust with, he was the key factor in my decision to make my own personal Man-Harem, therefore becoming the original member of my...dubious institution. I suppose I owe it to Paige for getting me hooked on Doctor Who, but I stayed for the Tennant. And the show too. Of course.

The Harem quickly grew in size, rapidly gathering members from every corner of the world, from every genre of movies and television. My Harem is little over a year old, but just look who has joined already:

Mr. Ewan McGregor.

Mr. David Bowie

Mr. Brent Spiner

Mr. DeForest Kelley

Mr. Robert Downey Jr.

Mr. Hugh Jackman

Mr. Hugh Grant

Mr. John Cusack

Mr. Johnny Depp

Mr. Pierce Brosnan

There have been many recent additions to my Harem, but there are also many that have been around for awhile, lurking in my mind, just waiting for my Harem to come into existence.

Mr. Sean Connery

Mr. George Eads

Mr. Hugh Laurie

Mr. Harrison Ford

I am certain there are some I have forgotten, and I will probably be augmenting this post soon enough so I will leave my commentary here for now, and let the men do all the talking instead.So long, for now...I've become rather distracted just now...

Everything Relates To Star Trek.

It's true. It is honestly, absolutely, 100% true...at least with my life lately. Since the Circle (as a sum of all of the communicating parts instead of just a few individuals) has been entrenched in it's latest Star Trek obsession, everything has been returning to that one subject lately. I'm watching episodes and being reminded of Circle conversations or activities, or of discussions in ToK, or of things I've never really had the time or inclination to think about before but now find myself unable to think of anything else for hours.

For example, watching an episode of Voyager, the EMH makes a lesson plan in human dating rituals for his Borg friend because she doesn't understand them...which made me think of how Nikki made a Powerpoint presentation for Sara about how woman *ahem* pleasure themselves because she didn't get it. And it was just a really weird coincidence.

And now it's time for an epic Star Trek picture spam.

The crew being retards on the set of Star Trek III I believe...

Lawl, Redshirts.

I found this one chick on Deviant that does awesome Star Trek fanart, and I squeed.

Same chick that did the above fanart did this background. Yes squeeing did occur, and yes, it is my current wallpaper.

Obsession Strikes!

I know it's been bloody forever since I blogged last, but I'm going to blame three things: Italy/Greece Trip, WoW, and sudden, debilitating, time-consuming obsession. 

Yes, it's true, I have added yet another man to my Inappropriate Man-Harem For Men Old Enough To Be My Father/Grandfather. Everybody meet DeForest Kelley, better known as Dr. Leonard McCoy from Star Trek: TOS. And I'm really obsessed. 

Well, other than my usual obsessions and my recent additions of Mr. Kelley and my renewed addiction to WoW, I haven't done a whole lot of anything since I got home from Italy and Greece. The trip was great - two weeks, one in each country - and it was just long enough that I saw a lot of what I wanted to, but by the time the two weeks were over, I was glad to be going home.

For out Hot Man of the Week-athon, we've had Hugh Jackman week (Swordfish, Van Helsing, Someone Like You) and John Cusack week (Martian Child, Grosse Pointe Blank, Pushing Tin), and next week is Alan Rickman week. I think this movie marathon idea was great for further educating our...film knowledge, no nevermind about the hot men.

I've come up with some great ideas for my art projects this Summer, so I'll probably rant about those next time I do this.

I guess I'll end with: I'm going to ComicCon! YES!