Star
Trek in my life
from Adele's perspective
Time capsule message from my 29-year-old, circa 2002 self to my 14-year-old self, circa 1987, probably flopped across the bed, lost in contemplation of the new Enterprise poster hanging on her wall, or rereading dog-eared copies of New Voyages:
Trust yourself, you're gonna be fine. You won't be a great scientist or an astronaut by age 30, and that's OK.
Oh, and about that Wesley character... yeah, sometimes he's a dork, or good things come so easily to him that it's easy to envy/dislike him. And sometimes he's cool and inspiring, and sometimes he says or does things very similar to you. And true to the popular press, he is cute and smart. One day, you will meet the talented actor who portrayed him. You will see his live stage performance of his writing, and talk with him and admit that his portrayal of Wesley was one of things that helped you survive and even thrive some in high school, and thank him for his writing which resonates with you, sincerely and with a hug. He will think you are cool. You're a cool teenager now even though some days will suck, and you're going to grow up to be an interesting woman. Some days will still suck, but some days will be totally amazingly wonderful.
- - - - -
Star Trek has been in my life for a very long time, interwoven with other experiences in a way I don't expect any other television show could be. So this is the story of Star Trek in my life, but it's also the story of other things in my life.
Yeah, this is a long. All of this introspection, because of just a TV show. Yep! That's right. And if you've got a problem with that, go away. There's nothing for you here.
When I was little, I watched reruns of the original Star Trek series on TV. They were neat. I really liked Spock and Scotty. Vulcan philosophy appealed to me, and engineering was cool.
I got put in a speed-reading program at school fairly early on. I was also put into a pull-out enrichment program, though I still had to do all the same work the normal kids did on top of the Project Merit work.
I was always into space stuff and natural history as a little kid, and Sally Ride was my personal hero. I watched Reading Rainbow and 3-2-1 Contact and Sesame Street and Life on Earth and Cosmos and Jacques Cousteau and Nova and Nature and The Nature Of Things and loved every minute of all of them. I had a wonderful cat named Frisky until I got allergies to her and we gave her to a nice old man who was moving to Florida and wanted company in his retirement. My Dad bought me Heathkits to solder together, and we built an AM radio that still works properly and a multi-melody doorbell that never did. I had the moon lander Lego set, and what seemed to me to be a whole bunch of the space explorer Lego as it became available. I got D-Sticks one Christmas and spent that entire winter building hanging masterpieces of structural design that never failed to take my parents by surprise if they tried to walk across the family room, where Dad had stuck some small nails into the ceiling and hung strings for me to hang them from.
I wrote angry letters to Lego when they created pink Lego for girls.
I haven't really outgrown those little electronics kits or D-Sticks, by the way... the two photos of me below were taken at Christmas 1999, and Easter 2000 or 2001, I believe.
I. was my very best friend, from second grade on, and she never made me feel weird or strange for what I found fun or interesting. We did everything together. We set up teepees made from 1x1"s and old bedsheets every summer, built haunted houses in her parents' basement, made Seawee circuses out of yarn and pots and Tupperware, grazed herds of Breyer horses across the living room floor, and had caterpillar races. Mom and Dad let me have a ten-gallon aquarium and I had minnows and a crawdad from the creek, and then feeder guppies from a neighbor, freshwater mussels from a fifth-grade trip to a lake camp, and a golden snail named George. One year I. and I apparently started digging a grid-marked pit during recess, and when her Mom called the teacher to figure out why she was so dirty when she got home from school, the teacher calmly replied that she and I were doing an archaeological dig next to the school during recess. We convinced a few friends to play Greek Gods after we discovered Bullfinches Mythology together. She and I played Star Wars together, too. I had Luke, Leia, Yoda and a Jawa, and she had just about all of the other main characters and the Millennium Falcon. We were inseparable until sixth grade. One year, I incited our little group of friends to dam up the creek behind our house, using clay from the side bank, gravel from the sand bar, and a few pieces of plywood. I don't think I.'s Mom ever quite recovered from the sight of her darling daughter up to her knees in water and up to her elbows in mud, shrugging her pigtail braids out of her face and sharing my clay-spattered grin of triumph.
That's I. and I on the right, below, back to back in the swing and flying, thanks to Dad's big push... and his blue and yellow shoe is in the right foreground since he was lying on his back in the grass taking the photo. Those tire swings that Dad and Mom and I built were so much fun.
Thank heavens Mom thought to put me in dance classes early on, since that provided a peer group unassociated with school that I'd depend on later.
In fourth grade, girls and boys would pair up and "go with" each other. This mostly meant that the boy would push the girl on the swing during recess, or offer to carry her books to the bus in the afternoon. Gary asked me if I would go with him, but he was always getting into trouble in class and I didn't approve of that. I told him if he could keep his name from being written up on the blackboard for the whole week, I would. But each time someone caused trouble in class, the teacher would put their name on the board, and add a mark next to it if it happened again that week. Too many marks meant you had to stand on the line rather than running around playing during recess. Needless to say, I didn't end up going with Gary. Later I asked a nice boy, J.J., to go with me, and he did for a little while, until his friends gave him crap about going with a smart girl who did well in school. He dumped me because he couldn't handle the pressure from his friends. I may still have his last note, and it hurt and made me very angry, all at once.
I read some of the novels by James Blish and other Star Trek authors... a lot of them, actually. There was a used bookstore in the same mall with the local Target where I could get them for seventy-five cents if I was lucky every time Mom needed to run errands there. That mall also had the slurpee stand that sold rootbeer-flavored icey drinks, which came with a nifty spoon-shaped straw and were my absolute favorite. One of my favorites in the huge pile of books I read and reread while in elementary and middle school was Spock Must Die. It deals with the duality of that character, which was interesting to me. Sometimes I felt like I had more than one perspective on things, or had to for various reasons separate how I felt from how I coped.
I had a lot of favorite books. I still do. But that's a whole 'nother story.
At some point I found the two Star Trek: The New Voyages books. Little did I know then that they were my introduction to fanfiction! The essays and introductions were inspiring, and my favorite story was The Procrustean Petard, which deals with some interesting gender identity issues, though any of the stories featuring Uhura were pretty darned cool, too. "'Night, Mister Spock, sugah..."
By the time I hit middle school, I was one of the few girls in the science club and the only girl in chess club, and I'd been bumped up a year in math, which meant that my whole class schedule was shifted from that of my peers, and I was ostracized by kids my own age and a year older. Gee, what fun. On the advice of my Mom, I ignored it, and boy, did Spock provide some inspiration for keeping a calm facade across my face when I was simultaneously completely furious and deeply hurt by the teasing in the lunchroom. I. went the liberal arts route which was more socially acceptable and I went the math/science route which wasn't, so we'd sort of parted ways in sixth grade. My friends at the dance studio didn't even know I was in the honors classes; I was just part of the team with them. I loved ballet and tap and enjoyed being a cog in the machine of the big 30-girl production numbers. I doubt any of them had ever heard of science fiction! I had a few school friends that stuck by me, especially Angie S. and Amy M., and I ran cross-country for two years and made a few friends and a few enemies on the team.
I went to summer camps in math and science at the local universities. No one at school knew, but the girls at the dance studio just accepted it, no questions asked. Some girls in the group went to cheerleading camp, some when to music camp, and Adele went to nerd camp. It was all OK. Angie and Heidi and Beth and most of the other girls were weekly breaths of fresh air just chattering away before and after dance class.
At a summer camp back around seventh grade, I had danced with a boy for the first time. Yeah. At nerd camp. Marshall Groves, wherever you are and whatever you are doing with your life, thank you for asking me to dance at the Choose Your Own Decade party at STAR!
I later had summer camp romances that turned into pen-pal romances with C1, who was a dishonest weasel and who lived far away, and then with C2, who was an odd sweetie who lived far away but still remembered my birthday years later. I made friends with K, C1's other ex-girlfriend who lived near him, and I saw her at math contests all during my middle and high school years. She was trying to be the first girl accepted at Rose Hulman back when it was all-male.
I kept up with all of the news articles I could find about the possibility of a new Star Trek series. I was anticipating, and hoping... wishing for the new show to bring the joy and the vision I'd seen on the original series and in the New Voyages books back to TV. I know the show couldn't have been what it was without every single contributor, and over the next few years, the team created a show that was all I could have asked for. Well, except for seeing more women Captains, and that got taken care of later in the franchise! Until 2002, I have not once said a proper thank-you to anyone associated with the show, not since I sent a longhand thank-you to the network for putting it on the air even before the premiere aired.
I had my parents and a handful of historical and living role models telling me that I could be anything I wanted to be; that women were capable of anything men were.
I didn't have many role models showing that that could be desirable in the eyes of others. Men/boys seemed to want pretty bimbos to hang on their arm, sluts to turn them on, or mommies to take care of them. They didn't want girls/women as peers or friends or equals.
Some teachers and my parents told me it was neat to want that equality, to be smart, to apply myself in school (which is different from being smart, they were careful to add), to want to go to the library for fun, and to read lots and lots of books. Of course, most kids my own age told me differently.
Those first years of The Next Generation... in the popular media, the Wesley role was billed as "smart" and "cute", two words which just didn't belong together in my middle school and high school. "Smart" usually went in lockstep with "undateable" especially for the girls. Wesley brought to life a role model that showed me that there was some hope after high school in the wide world for a bright person to be desirable to their peers. I didn't have the same crush sort of feelings that many of my classmates seemed to have on boy stars, but I did want to grow up to have friends like Wesley Crusher. Maybe even one of them would go to a dance with me. As it was, I asked two boys in middle school to go to dances with me, and both of them turned me down. After a while I got up my gumption and just went by myself. I like to dance!
I also decided that the Acting Ensign's presence on the bridge and in the labs showed at least one way that society could appreciate the skills and contributions of a smart-beyond-their-years kid, one who wanted and was able to take on some adult responsibilities before actually being an adult. Someplace, sometime, there were kids going through what I was, trying to deal with peers and adults that didn't know quite what to do with them. Data's character held a certain fascination for me, too, because I felt as though I was outside of normal human social interactions at school, like there was some secret code I just wasn't programmed to understand.
And Next Generation gave me hope, when I really needed it, that somewhere there was a place where smart girls could be seen as attractive, too.
Dr. Crusher, Guinan, Counselor Troi, Lieutenant Yar... capable, beautiful, intelligent women! And attracted to and attracted by capable, attractive, intelligent men! What a concept!!
Dr. Crusher saved lives. She made tough decisions and protected the crew in a way that wasn't curdlingly maternal... more like a momma mountain lion protecting her cubs. Guinan was unapologetically an enigma, with a great sense of timing and humor and wisdom to match. Counselor Troi dealt with the whole messy feelings issue without coming apart at the seams, and often told people things they weren't quite ready to hear. And Yar... well, any woman who commands a Klingon and has odds to win a shipwide martial arts contest was and is way cool in my book. Don't mess with her!
By high school, and in part thanks to Star Trek's influence among many other factors, I'd hit my stride more. Freshman year I'd made friends with S, M and B, all a year older and absolutely cool in varied ways. I ate lunch in the greenhouse room attached to the science lab, admiring M's green thumb and sometimes chatting with B about dancing and biology. S was simply and utterly cool. I could talk about anything with her (I'm back in touch with her and it feels great to be able to email her at the slightest provocation). I made some nifty guy friends, too, B1 and B2 and J and D and especially T.
I got a reputation over the next few years as being the only gal who could both eat her lunch and assist people who needed to use their lunch hour to catch up with their advanced biology cat dissection projects at the same time with no problem. I was elected Science Club secretary sophomore year, and president junior year. We did paper drives and sorted through the school's trash for aluminum cans and hosted plant sales so we could fund our trips. We organized scientists to come to school for career day. We went on tours of Eli Lilly, local environmental labs, pharmacies, a NASA facility over in Ohio, the museums in Indianapolis, Chicago and Louisville... and we went camping, canoeing, and spelunking. I loved Science Club, and I made sure that the people who did the most work on our fundraising projects were eligible to go on the most field trips. We had a blast.
At another summer camp, I met M. Beautiful deep brown eyes and nice rhythm on the dance floor and he played a mean hand of rummy, in addition to being a wonderful, interesting, smart guy who could work math puzzles with me. Our letter-based romance sustained me through junior year's Christmas dance at my high school, and the Prom at his, 100 miles from mine. We split up eventually, and got back in touch as friends during college. We lost touch again after that, but are now once again back in contact. I am going to be very careful about not losing a current email and snail mail address for him this time!
I spent the summer between junior and senior year as an exchange student in a language-immersion program in Krefeld, Germany. I got to take a few swings at the Berlin Wall with a mallet, and brought a few pieces home, and learned a lot more German than the rest of the folks in my high school language classes. My host family was wonderful, and I got to watch all three of the Back To The Future movies and the first Highlander movie auf Deutsch with my host brother and sister's friends, which was way cool. Oh, and drinking beer was legal, so I figured out that I could happily have one with the evening meal and not embarrass myself. That was good to know during college!
I was still watching Next Generation when I could, but I didn't keep up with the fandom, so though I had some inkling that Wesley wasn't popular with everyone, I didn't pay much attention to it. My opinions didn't usually agree with folks around me, anyway, and sometimes Wesley was annoying.
I dated J, then D, then B1 a bit during senior year and my last summer before college. It was strange actually having a boyfriend who lived locally, and in some way or another I always felt that they felt strange about dating a smart girl.
I lost touch with Star Trek when I left home for college. Caltech surrounded me with many interested smart men, and I was ill-equipped to handle the place, both academically and socially. But, as they say, that which does not kill me makes me stronger! I've learned since then that just because one can do something, with Herculean effort, does not mean one should choose to do so... but that's later wisdom.
I watched some of the first season of Deep Space Nine out of curiosity, but many, many other stresses from school and life took most of my attention away from most entertainment. Living on my own so far from my parents was stressful in ways I'm sure even now I don't comprehend, but it was something I felt I needed to do at the time. I dated E for a while, and then S. We married, I was primary caregiver through his cancer treatment, and we later divorced amicably. I remember watching the first few episodes of Voyager sometime during all this, too. And I bought Nichelle Nichols' Beyond Uhura book, which is marvelous. A group of college friends got together every week to watch a few seasons of Babylon 5 as they aired. That was really cool, and Claudia Christian's character was awesome.
I. and I got back in touch with one another on winter holiday breaks when we were both home from college. Every time I see her or hear from her, no matter how long it's been since we've had contact, things are just right between us.
I hadn't really thought about Next Generation during these past few years. I'm still figuring out this whole career thing, and rebuilding my life as a single woman is really interesting and engrossing. I have a bunch of hobbies and I'm back to being a bookworm. I dated a nice guy, J., for a few years but things didn't work out.
Sometimes I expect feelings to be reasonable or rational, and they aren't always. I guess my Mom wasn't kidding me a few months back when she said she unintentionally raised a logical little Vulcan!
I discovered Stargate SG-1 during 2001 which reminded me about my childhood dreams of archaeology and paleontology... and provided a great character as a role model for "pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again!" I felt like I was starting to hit my stride again, just a bit, and was thinking happy thoughts about grad school. Dad kind of freaked that I could be so influenced by any TV show, but Dad has always worried a bit about me "losing myself" in my interests and projects, and that's never going to change. I know I won't lose myself, I'll only find more of myself, the more I throw myself into whatever study project or desire to create that I foster within myself.
Then 9/11 happened, and the world sort of derailed. I did what I could to keep stable equilibrium. I went home for my tenth high school reunion in the fall of 2001. I had a great time, and met up with B1 and J and D again. We're now all in contact electronically. Work was very stressful since a few reorganizations brewed chaos and miscommunications in the department.
Sometime in all that, a friend of mine sent me an email... "You've got to check out this website! wilwheaton.net is so cool!"
I've been keeping up with Wil's blog ever since. He's one of my favorite online essayists, and not just because he was part of Star Trek. Yep, I'm a lurking member of the Posse.
A while ago, Wil posted some entries about Wesley. He's been very open and introspective lately, and his writing just resonates with me somehow. And then he posted some entries about the 15th Anniversary Celebration convention for Next Generation. I learned a bit more about convention politics and fan opinions of Wesley and Wil, which was kind of weird. It upset me that anyone could think that Next Generation could have been what it was without Wes... without any of the characters! I sent a thank-you note to Creation for re-inviting Wil to the con, and told them the only reason I would consider attending would be to see him.
I went out and bought the first few seasons of Next Generation on DVD, and that combined with Wil's The Wesley Dialogues sent me blundering into a wonderful, painful, joyous trip down memory lane... not just of the show, but how I felt waiting for it, of all of the things that were going on in my life that year. The feel of the pillow under me as I plopped down sitting against the couch to watch the premiere, alone and hoping and wishing in my parents' basement. The swell of the music, the revitalization of Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future, the hope and faith that humanity will grow beyond petty nonsense and reach for the stars.
And the geeky, idealistic, angry and hurting and creative and determined and independent teenager that I was, and still am, somewhere inside, was suddenly right here sitting in my living room.
All of the feelings about being an unaccepted smart girl were right underneath the surface, waiting for me to be mature enough to deal with them. Unresolved disappointment at being unwanted in certain, specific ways back in school was still sort of festering underneath the equally-truthful identity I have now as a happily independent woman... who now suddenly understands that I was surrounded by so many interested men during college that I retreated into long-term relationships out of both a desire for emotional safety and a confusion of how to handle dating. I still probably have a long way to go in figuring out relationships, and that's OK. I have some awesome friends and some awesome online pals, and I manage to see some of my far-away online friends a time or two a year in person, and I'll be fine.
All of this has led me to attend my very first Star Trek convention, and to write this story down.
By the way, in-person Wil is both cute and smart, though in different ways than on-screen Wes was. They're both very cool, though Wesley is still sometimes a dork. Wesley is a teenager and always will be, after all, and that's OK.
I owe a great debt to the Great Bird of the Galaxy, and in reconnecting with Next Generation, I have recaptured more of wonder and anticipation about the universe and the joy of my life as it unfolds ahead and behind me.
Thank you so much, Gene Roddenberry and all of the wonderful people who brought his vision of Star Trek to life. My life would not have been the same without all of you.
I'm sure I'd still be interesting, by the way. But I wouldn't be the same, and I like who I am.
And I think it is so completely wonderful that I have found friends, mostly women and a few men, who will understand this story, and love me for it. Thanks for reading.
One more thing: Wil's first book is available, and it's awesome...
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