Why I Love Star Trek

I watch Star Trek pretty much every day. That probably sounds totally weird, and maybe it is. But Star Trek and I have a long history together. We’ve been through a lot.

My earliest memories of watching Star Trek were watching The Next Generation in the basement of my childhood home. We’d watch it while eating pizza and playing board games on family game night. I don’t know if I had strong feelings either way about it back then, but I have very fond memories of those moments, now. And I always held onto a love for the series and the values it espoused. Indeed, I attribute much of my commitment to equity and diversity to things I learned from Star Trek: coexistence, tolerance, not imposing your own values on other cultures, and appreciation of difference.

After college when I landed my first real job, I moved to the city, and discovered a nearby video rental establishment that had ALL of the complete Star Trek series on DVD. Heaven! I started watching them in order, starting with The Next Generation, then Deep Space Nine, and then Voyager (I’ve never been able to get into the Original Series). At the same time, I was struggling with a lot of anxiety: my beloved grandma was sick with cancer, which just happens to be one of my mortal fears. That fear is pretty well controlled with medication now, but at the time, I was having pretty regular panic attacks. Because I had/have panic attacks almost exclusively at night, I was also having a lot of trouble sleeping. So I took to just leaving Star Trek on until I fell asleep. I would often start the next episode on the disk when I was already dozing, and many times I drifted off to sleep to the opening them. The opening theme I associate most with those times is that of Deep Space Nine; to this day, that lovely, calm horn intro, followed by the same theme in the solo trumpet, played so mellowly and soothingly, it is very comforting.

I don’t have panic attacks very often anymore, thankfully. When I do, I now have Xanax for breakthrough anxiety, in addition to the Zoloft I take daily. But even when I take a Xanax, it often takes it awhile to kick in before I feel calm; in the meantime, the only things that can help calm me are lying on the cold bathroom tile floor and watching Star Trek. The latter is much more pleasant, and the soothing lullaby of DS9’s opening and closing themes never fails.

2013 in Review

I’ve seen several posts on Facebook about how terrible 2013 was for many people. I’m very sorry for everyone who had a rough year… but mine has been great! 2012 was more difficult for me, and I guess the first half of 2013 was a bit trying as well, but oeverall, the good definitely outweighs the bad.

January

On New Year’s Day, I turned 32. At that time I was undergoing fertility testing after 2+ years of trying to get pregnant with no luck. This was not very enjoyable. Fertility testing is painful, both physically and emotionally.

A good thing that happened in January was that we got the band together! I’d been wanting to try to form this group since Fest of 2012, and in January it finally came together, and I’m very happy it did!

February

In February we had our first practices with the band, and Rob and I took a trip to Mexico.

Being romanced by a pirate in Mexico

March

In March, Rob had a surgery that was designed to improve our fertility. I was pretty optimistic about the success of the surgery, but it was also difficult because it definitely was not guaranteed to help, and both of our doctors were already implying that IVF might be our best hope, which made it difficult to maintain my optimism. I was so proud of Rob though– he underwent the surgery very willingly and without any complaint.

In March my BFF also revealed to me that she was pregnant. Although I was of course really happy for her, I couldn’t help feeling simultaneously sad for myself– a most unpleasant state of affairs.

April

In April, we adopted our second dog, Gilly. I’m happy to report that things are still going great with him! Trip was jealous at first of his new little brother, and he still gets jealous over toys and cuddle time with us, but every day they are becoming more and more like a pack. They haven’t quite reached the point where they will cuddle together, but Trip will now tolerate Gilly being right next to him on the couch. He also gives Gilly kisses on the nose, which is pretty sweet. We’re still working with Gilly on his mouthing and jumping, but overall he’s a pretty well-behaved pup, and he is only 2, so he’s still a young thing.

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Festing Through The Ages

This is an exciting year at Fest for me. Not only am I part of a brand new musical group, Hardtack Jack, but it’s also my 10th year as a participant! That means I’ll get my first service award– pretty cool! So I thought it might be appropriate to take a look at how I got into Fest in the first place, how I started working there, and what I’ve been doing all these years. Fest is a family tradition. Not in the way that it’s a tradition in some families, who participate together, in which the children grow up at Fest. But my parents started the tradition of taking my brother and me there once a year, starting I think in 1986. It was always my favorite summer/fall activity and I remember looking forward to our trip to Fest every year.

Early Fest experience… 1991

In 2002 or so, my brother started working at the chocolate booth at Fest. He got the job through a friend of his who worked for the chocolate vendors outside of (and at) Fest. In 2004, I started working at the chocolate booth, too. I worked there through 2008.

Aside from the Minnesota Renaissance Festival (MNRF), I’ve been to a few other faires.  Here’s me with my dad in 2006, when the Olde World Ren Faire in Twig, MN was still open. I’ve also visited the Bay Area Ren Fest (BARF, haha) in Tampa, FL, and the Iowa Renaissance Festival in the Amana Colonies.

Luckily my spouse enjoys Fest too– not as much as I do, but he comes out a couple of times a year, sometime in garb. This is 2008.

Somewhere along the line while working at the chocolate cart, I started playing Charlotte Rowan, my pirate persona. But after 5 years selling chocolate, I decided it was time to try something new. In 2009, I worked as a beer wench at Mac’s Pub through the Shakopee Jaycees. Mac’s is known as the pirate pub, so we usually hold our annual pirate invasion photo outside of it:

(Photo Credit above and below:Jamie Piekkola)

Slinging beer didn’t really turn out to be my thing, so in 2010 I joined Terpsichory Courtly Dance Troupe as a musician to provide music for the dancing. I had to curtail my piratical nature a bit, as with courtly dancers it didn’t make sense for me to be a pirate… but I was still a pirate at heart! I was with Terpsichory for 3 years. Unfortunately I don’t have a record of who took the following photo… I know it was one of the pros. I love it though!

On days off I got to be incognito!

2011: Still with Terp, slight costume change.

Cool HDR photo by Majikboxman:

Pirates in 2011:

Terpsichory, again by Majikboxman:

2012: My brother came to visit, all the way from Vegas! (It was also my parents’ 40th anniversary.)

Now, in 2013 I’m back to at least being a sailor. Under a new name, Callista Seaborne, with my band, Hardtack Jack. (Sadly in this pic we’re missing one member.)

Taping the Flag to the Wall

The last couple of nights I’ve been reading through some old notebooks that my BFF and I used to write notes to each other in middle and high school. We’d use the same notebook and pass it back and forth, so the notes and their responses are contained in the same notebook. It’s like reading two diaries intertwined. There are about 45 notebooks total, I think. I have all the even numbered ones, and she has all the odd.

Today I read a note that I wrote about something touching and funny that happened in math class. The story goes like this:

I sit next to J.W. in math and my desk is right under the flag, so every time I stood up the flag would be on my head. It was really annoying, and one day J.W. had masking tape in his pocket and he taped the flag to the wall!

Ha! I’d forgotten about that, but I remembered it as soon as I read it. That was a funny and nice thing to remember.

Be My Baby

Eric

“Dancing…. I can’t believe we’re dancing in gym.” Jared pulled a pair of blue gym shorts and last year’s division champions basketball t-shirt out of his locker. “It’s not even a sport!” Jared Dennison was a star basketball player, but he was good at most sports and liked to show off his athletic ability in gym class.

“I know, dude,” Eric replied, lacing up his sneakers. Trying to sound convincing, he added, “Dancing sucks.”

He’d never admit it to Jared Dennison, but actually Eric didn’t think dancing sucked at all. It was better than basketball, anyway. Eric didn’t like basketball, even though he was one of the tallest boys in his grade. The boys on the team only passed to each other, and didn’t let anyone else play.

“Especially for you,” said Jared. “You have to dance with Amy Sheridan! She’s so ugly!” He slammed his locker shut and walked away, laughing.

Eric flushed. Amy Sheridan was quiet and taller than most of the boys and her clothes were sort of weird. The popular kids called her a dork, but the truth was that Eric liked her. He didn’t know why Jared thought she was ugly. He thought she was pretty, and he liked the way her long brown hair floated around her when she twirled. It felt nice when their hands touched.

He had it all planned out. When it was time to practice the Lindy Hop, he knew Ms. Tenney would put on “Be My Baby.” It sounded like something that his parents would listen to on KOOL 108, the Oldies station, but it wasn’t a bad song. Anyway it was convenient.

But Jared would probably think he was a dork too, if his plan worked. He didn’t know why he cared, especially when he didn’t even like Jared—their lockers were only next to each other because “Dennison” came after “Demler” in the alphabet—but he did. Maybe he wouldn’t do it, after all. He sighed, closed his locker and headed out to the gymnasium.

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Toys, Consumerism and the Disappearance of Imaginative Play

Last night I had a chat with one of my very good friends who is about 4 months’ pregnant. Without my saying anything on the topic, she brought up the too-many-toys thing, so I recommended a book that I’ve been reading, Simplicity Parenting, to her. This might seem a bit strange, since I’m not a parent and not even pregnant yet, but a lot of these concepts are things I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I just recently found this book recently that really resonates with me, and I am happy to find out that my friend shares some of these feelings. As long as I’m not infertile or something, our kids should be close to the same age, and it will be good for our kids to have friends whose parents feel similarly about some of these issues, especially since I’m sure they’ll also have friends whose parents DON’T fee the same way, which will probably be hard for the kids to understand.

Anyway, here are some quote from the book about too-many-toys and some other things. (I would just blog my feelings, but a lot of them are perfectly described in the book, and using quotes is easier than re-articulating he same ideas in my own words.  )

As a society, however, we’ve signed on wholeheartedly to the notion that more, bigger, newer and faster all mean better. We’ve done so as a survival mechanism. It is a very basic, primitive drive (albeit with its own particularly manic, modern, Western spin). At its most basic level it is understandable, thought it no longer serves its original purpose, and we’ve taken it to the point where it actually threatens, rather than ensures, our survival. (p11)

Why simplify? Over the years, I’ve come to see how a child’s quirks or tendencies can be exacerbated by cumulative stress, I’ve seen how children can slide along the spectrum from quirk to disorder when they experience high levels of stress. If I had a bit chalkboard, I would write it as this formula: q + s = d; or: quirk plus stress equals disorder. (p24)

This echoes a book I read for my Complex Systems course, that talked about psychological disorders being basically this: a quirk or personality trait amplified into a disorder.

Children’s play [has become] less focused on activities, and more on the things involved, the toys themselves. (p57)

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Ex Typology

If I had to guess on the types of my SOs….

MM – INTJ
JM (ick) – ESTP
NR – ESFJ
BD – ESFP
IR – INFP or maybe ISFP
GV – INxx… INFJ is a strong possibility, actually
TK – ESTJ, or possibly ESFJ
Spouse – confirmed ESFJ

Shine

The song ended with a final chord on the lead singer’s white, custom guitar. The chaotic din of 100 people shouting over the music to their friends morphed into a rainstorm of applause, whistles and hoots emerging from the pattern like lightning through the gritty bar.

“Thank you, thank you,” acknowledged the singer, his Castro-style cap pulled low over his eyes against stage fright. A fellow intovert, I suspected.

Requests for the songs from the band’s old album out all around me. “Mr Fancy!” “Talk to me!”

I wanted to hear a new song.

“Shine!” I called, my voice cracking with the uncharacteristic exertion. My boyfriend and I were only about three or four rows back in the crowd at the foot of the stage, but I doubted the two slutty-looking bottle blondes in front of me had heard me, let alone the band. Oh, well.

As others continued to clamor for old songs, I watched the band members’ lips move inside the veritable Cone of Silence created by the crowd noise. After a moment, the singer spoke:

“Alright, this next song is for you.” He was looking straight at me.

In front of me, the blondes went wild, screaming and holding their Bud Lights up in the air.

“This song is for you,” he repeated, raising a bit onto his toes and tilting his head, looking pointedly at me over the screaming blondes. The opening chords of “Shine” crept out from behind the screams and shouts.

Meeting his eyes, I smiled and gave a slight nod.

“He was totally talking to you,” my boyfriend said, leaning in close.

I smiled at him and nodded again. “I know.”

Post-Fest Reflections

This is a note I wrote on Facebook after last year’s Fest season ended. I am copying it here for several reasons: Because it provides a nice contrast between my feelings at the end of last year’s run with my feelings at the end of this year’s run; because some of the feelings are still relevant (like not being able to form “quick” friendships like everyone else); and because it really delves into one of the plights I experience as an introvert, which is kind of the topic of this blog (even though not all most posts are germane to that topic).

Reflections on the 2009 Fest Season

Another year of Fest has come and gone. It wasn’t my best season. My heart just wasn’t really in it this year – I missed more Saturdays than I attended – but hey, I’m a newlywed, give me a break! I am very jealous of those whose other halves are just as nuts about Fest as they are, but while my husband likes Fest, he’s not as fanatic as I am and this season, my heart was at home with my new husband.

Another reason I think I struggled this season is that after 5 years as a chocolate wench, I decided to sell beer with the Jaycees this year. I’m glad I did, because selling chocolate was not a great gig, but after 5 years, I was just starting to get to know the people in the Bakery Stage area.

It takes me forever to get to know people well enough to open up to them, and Fest is a real challenge for me because I have seven weekends a season to get to know people, and typically I start to open up a little around weekend 6 or 7, just in time for the season to end. Then, 10 months go by, so that by the beginning of the next season, I feel about as ready to open up as I did around weekend 3 or 4 of the previous season. So after five years in the same place, I felt like I saw kind of starting at square one again this year.

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