On the Bridge of the Enterprise

You may have noticed a nerdy turn as of late. Specifically, there's a hell of a lot of Star Trek going on here. And it's not because there's a marathon on G4 this weekend. And it's not because J.J. Abrams may be restarting the franchise. It's more personal than that.

As you also may have noticed, my life is a little crazy at the moment. I've been out of work six weeks now. It hasn't been too bad. Unemployment is coming in and I've been interviewing. More importantly, I get up late, write jokes and perform stand-up regularly. If I was making any money at this, I'd never go back to a cubicle.

Yet my days are chock full of uncertainty. I don't like uncertainty. I don't like being afraid of the future. So subconsciously I look for some kind of comfort. And I keep finding it in the Federation of Planets. There's a future that won't make you afraid.

I'm not the world's biggest Trekkie. Superheroes have long taken precedence in my nerdy mind. The Twilight Zone and the X Files (most of it anyway) were better written genre shows. I don't believe in warp drive or transporters. To this day, I do not own a Starfleet uniform. But every now and then, I find myself drawn into this series. Every time my life is a mess.

1979- 7 years old. No one in the 4th grade liked me.
1986- 13 years old. Starting high school on the other side of town.
1991- 19 years old. Bad first relationship.
1994- 22 years old. Bad second relationship.
1999- 27 years old. Starting a freelance career in poverty.
2005- 32 years old. Hating my job.
2006- 33 years old. Losing my job.

It doesn't matter if it's Captain Kirk, Picard, Sisko or Archer (not Janeway though. Screw Voyager). As soon as I watch an episode, I feel protected. It doesn't matter how bad things get out there, in forty minutes (two hours if it's a movie) everything's gonna be just fine. I don't feel that way after the Twilight Zone or X Files. And I certainly don't feel that way when I leave the house.