Category: blog

I am standing in the kitchen making dinner, listening through the open window to Ryan and Nolan as they play whiffle ball in our front yard.. They’re actually playing nicely together, not being overly competitive.
Nolan stands over a patch of dirt, in front of a bush, which represents home plate, while Ryan hurls the ball towards him.
Ryan always tries to throw the ball too hard, and usually has trouble finding the strike zone, so Nolan just sits there, letting the ball bounce off of the house behind him.
Nolan comes in for a drink of water, and without even thinking I tell him, “It sounds like you guys are having a great time out there. Tell you what: you keep up this good attitude, and I’ll come out and play with you.”
Nolan does a little hop, and says, “COOL!” before he runs back outside. I hear him tell Ryan, “Wil says he’ll come play with us!”
They’re both excited to play with me…that’s cool. I’ve been really busy these past few weeks, finishing up my book, so I haven’t been able to play with the kids very much. They’re getting to that age where they want to hang out one minute, and the next minute I’m so incredibly uncool they can’t even stand to be in the same room as me. Hearing the genuine excitement in their voices makes my heart swell.
Dinner is really easy tonight: It’s a curried tofu with rice dish. I put the rice into the rice cooker, cut the tofu into cubes and put them in the pan. I dump a bunch of curry over them, and I race out to play.
I’m thirty years old and a parent, and I’m racing through my “chores” to go play outside.
When I get there, one of Ryan’s friends (who is also called Ryan) has come over to play, so we immediately separate into teams: Nolan and me against the Ryans.
Nolan steps back up to the plate, and Ryan proceeds to walk him. He then walks me, then Nolan again, and we quickly load the bases with ghost runners. The sun is rapidly sinking into the mountains to the west, and the ball is getting hard to see, so I suggest that we call the game so the Ryans can have a few at-bats. Nolan agrees, and we send our ghost runners back down to Triple-A as we head
into the field and take our positions on the grass, and in the street.
Nolan pitches a few balls to Ryan, but it’s really too dark to play any longer. Like every other time we’ve had to call a game on account of darkness, I resolve to install lights over our front lawn so we can play at night, local building codes and my wife’s desire for a normal suburban house be damned.
We’ve been having fun, though, and like the only child who finally has someone to play with, I don’t want to go back inside; back to being a grown up…so I suggest that we play hide and seek.
They all excitedly agree, and I’m It.
We quickly define the boundaries, and “Safe.” I close my eyes and count to one hundred by fives.
As I shut my eyes and begging to count, the world slows, and I hear my own voice, twenty-one years distant, calling out the same numbers. I’m nine years-old, head buried in my arms as I stand at the light pole on our street which was “Safe,” Boston plays on my parent’s Techniques turntable, while my dad cooks fish on the Webber Kettle in the back yard. I can smell the smoke as it drifts over the house and hangs in our yard, in the still summer evening.
5…10…15…20…25…30…
I’m ten years-old, and I run like crazy, trying to evade Joey Carnes. It is summer, hot and smoggy. My lungs burn with each breath.
35…40…45…50…55…60…
I’m eleven years-old, and I can hear the stomp, stomp, stomp of my feet hitting the ground as I look for a hiding place. It’s springtime, and the grass is cool and damp beneath me.
65…70…75…80…85…90…
I’m twelve years-old, hiding behind the side gate, crouched down, my arm just barely touching the arm of the girl I have a crush on as we hide together. While we listen to the kid counting, I try and fail to screw up the courage to hold her hand. In middle school, she’ll break my heart over and over again.
95…100! Ready or not, here I come!
I open my eyes, and I’m back on my street. The kids are well-hidden. Lost in my memories, I didn’t think to listen for their footfalls, and I have no idea where they may be.
I walk slowly around a hedge, and see Ryan begin to run across the street, towards “Safe.” I run at him, hoping to cut him off, but he’s too fast for me. During my pursuit of him, his friend has made it to “Safe,” leaving only Nolan undiscovered.
I walk down our street, towards our neighbor’s house, and see Nolan racing across the front yard next door. I give chase, and we both run straight through the heavy spray of several Rain Bird sprinkles. Nolan runs very, very fast, but ends up going Out Of Bounds. We return to “Safe,” laughing, wiping the water from our faces.
Nolan is It, and begins to count. I run across the street, hiding behind a tree. When I was a kid, I never hid behind trees, preferring cars and fences, with their clever ways to spot an approaching “It”…but I know that if I stand still in the October darkness, he’ll never see me. I’m wearing a black
“Ataris” T-shirt and long olive shorts…I’m practically invisible.
Nolan finishes his count, and the chase is on. It is several tries before he catches someone, but his attitude never sours. We are all having a great time playing together, being kids.
Finally, I am just too wiped out to play any more, and I head back inside. Anne asks me to drive Ryan’s friend home, and on the way to the car, Ryan’s friend tells him, “Your house is so much fun! You’re really lucky that your Step-dad plays with you.”
Ryan agrees, but warns him that we don’t always play like that…Ryan tells him that I’ve been writing a lot, so I spend a lot of time at my desk. It’s the first time in months that I’ve played with them like that, he says.
He’s right. Most of the time these days, I have to be a grown up, and I can’t play very much.
But last night, I got to be a kid again, if only for an hour or so, and while I appreciated the sentiment from Ryan’s friend, he didn’t quite have it right.
Yeah, there was a lucky guy out there playing…but it wasn’t Ryan.

And now, for something completely different:
Several readers have told me that TrekWeb has linked to this group wedding picture of all of us from Nemesis.
I’m the guy who looks like a complete dork.
Looking at that picture, I can clearly see how happy I am –to the point of goofiness– to be there with all of them. It was a great time.
Here is Star Trek Dot Com’s write up of the rest of the TNG con, including a brief mention of the Saturday night program, where I read some stuff from WWDN, to a very wonderful, warm, appreciative crowd.
When I saw Brent backstage Sunday at the con, he asked me how I felt about being cut. I told him what I wrote here, and he was surprised and happy that Rick called me himself. He told me how upset they all were that I was cut, and he asked me if I’d be at the screening. I told him that I would, and he says to me, “You know, Wil, you should still be involved in all the press events.” He gets this impish glint in his eye…the same glint that I lived for when I was sitting next to him on the bridge, the same impish glint that I knew was going to end up getting me in trouble when he made me crack up, and he continues, “I think you should sit there, answer as many questions as you can, even if you don’t know the answers. I’ll see you in Europe. It’ll be fun.”
Before I could play the “yes, and…” improv game with him, he was whisked away to go on stage, but not before he says, “Hey, you’ve got my number, right?” I tell him that I do. “Use it when you need it, man. It’s great to see you.”
It’s great to see me?!
Yahtzee.

The 15th Anniversary Celebration of TNG was just wonderful today.
I had my talk this afternoon, and though I started out slowly, I warmed up, and eventually left feeling very satisfied. I asked many people in the house how they thought I’d done, and they were all very complimentary.
Then I watched Patrick, who I have never seen onstage…holy shit. If you get a chance to see Patrick, RUN THERE.
I hung out for the bulk of the day, signing stuff for people and visiting with some really cool WWDN readers, one of whom gave me the gift of “The Wesley Dialogues” printed and bound into a little book…it was so freaking cool, I can’t even tell you.
Speaking of books, the week has been very light on entries because I’m nearly finished with mine.
Remember how so many readers have been telling me to write a book? Well, I listened. Watch this space for details on how you can get it in about a week or so, maybe two. Know what’s in it? The end of SpongBob Vega$ Pants, baby!
Tonight, I took the manuscript with me, and I read selections from it for a large crowd, who really seemed to be “with me” for most of it. Having an audience “with me” rather than pissing them off of boring them is always a good thing, and I left tonight feeling really happy. My mom was in the house and she came up to me after the show, crying, telling me how good I was, and what a great writer I have become. Yeah, she’s my mom so she isn’t the most objective person in the world, but making my mom proud is also always a good thing.
I read some entries from the old WWDN, like The Trade, Hooters, Fireworks, and The Wesley Dialogues, along with a new story called “Hooters Revisited,” which will end the book.
I am really excited, guys. For the first time in ages I look forward to each day, and I feel like I’m doing something which really makes me happy.
There was one thing which bothered me, though…this guy was talking to me about how much he admired my guts for putting my life out there, and while I was talking with him, my friend Keith came over, and I got distracted, and when I turned back around, this cool guy was walking away. I bet he felt like I totally blew him off, which is making me feel really bad. If you’re reading this, I’m sorry, man.
I’ll be back at the con for a few hours in the morning tomorrow…I’m hoping that hot porn star shows up again.
…Just kidding.
(well, maybe not)

I had an audition for “John Doe” this morning.
I watched it over the weekend, and thought it was pretty good. There were some things that I thought were very “pilot heavy,” but other than that, I think the show has great potential…sort of a Bourne Identity meets Millennium, meets Girls Gone Wild.
A brief explaination of “pilot heavy” is in order: When a series creator wants to sell his or her idea to a network, after all the scripts are approved, and the casting is done, the creator shoots what is called a “pilot.” In the pilot, the creator has to show the network more or less what they’re going to do over the years of the series, and introduce them to the main cast, as well as to the viewing audience. Because of these necessities, pilots can be a little heavy on the talking and exposition, and the explosions and stuff.
So I thought it was a little “pilot heavy,” but not bad at all. I don’t think anyone should ever judge a series by it’s pilot.
So I’m a little excited about this audition, because I like the show, and I haven’t had an audition in several weeks.
Funny aside: at an audition I had a few weeks ago, I walked in, and the receptionist comes over to me and says, “You’re Wil Wheaton, right?” I told her that I was, and she replied to me, excitedly, “I LOVE YOUR WEBSITE!”
Okay, I thought that was really cool. =]
Anyway, there’s this massive brushfire burning near my house, and the resulting cloud of smoke is thousands of milles thick, and hovering over my house, so when I walked out to my car, it was covered in ash, and the sun was casting this spooky blood red haze down on everything. My lawn is completely dead, so it was sort of orange…wish I’d taken a picture of it, but I didn’t.
So I head over to the audition, which is to play a character called “Elvis”, who is described thusly:
“a wild-eyed genius with an IQ that’s over 160…a former “Doogie Howser” with a brilliant mind and questionable social skills. The youthful chief of neurosurgery at a Seattle hospital…”
Sound familiar? He’s sort of halfway between Wesley and the guy I played on Invisible Man, so it’s not a lot of work to prepare the audition…I even get some technobabble…albeit medical terminology, which is a little bit easier to remember.
I get to the audition early, and as I’m walking up the stairs, I am passed by this AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL GIRL, who is clearly reading for the part of the AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL GIRL…I shit you not, she is even wearing a red dress.
As she passes me, I am engulfed in the intoxicating sent of her perfume, and I am hit full in the face with a hypernostalgic memory from when I was about 15…

I’m with my best friend Darin. We’ve just seen a movie in Burbank, and we’re driving back to his house. We could take the freeway, and be there in about 15 minutes, but we choose to take a more circuitous surface street route, knowing that it will allow us to stay out longer.
We’re listening to “The Queen is Dead” as we pull through the curves of this particular street, talking about girls, comics, Nintendo, and debating the me. We stop at a light, and a two girls pull up next to us. I look over, notice that they’re insanely hot, and begin to get nervous. At 15, I’m convinced that any girl I see is a potential trip to at second base…though I’ve never even been to first base, or really had a real at bat, yet.
Darin looks over, and says, “Hey! That’s Misty!”
“What?”
“That’s Misty! I know her from school.”
Darin waves to her, and we all get out of our cars, leaving them idling in the middle of the street, in the middle of the night. Over the next few months, and even now, that simple act of standing in the middle of the steet would bring me incredible satisfaction.
Darin introduces me to her, and she is very, very nice to me. I am immediately drawn to her. She is about my height, with lots of thick blonde hair and bright green eyes that stand out from her face in the La Crescenta night. She is funny, and engaging, and our conversation is easy and effortless. She is also wearing this amazing perfume, that gives me goosebumps…I realize with some embarassment that I have been inhaling deeply through my nose, while she talks, drinking her in.
We talk for a long time, Darin and I carefully avoiding topics like the ones we’ve been discussing in the car. Though we are nerds, we know that Cthulhu is just not discussed in the presence of potential foolin’ around.
A few cars pull up behind us, and we wave them around, as we stand there in the middle of the street, in the middle of the night, enjoying the freedom of being away from our parent’s ever-watchful eyes, talking to a beautiful girl while Morrissey entreats an anonymous driver to “take me out, tonight…take me anywhere I don’t care I don’t care…”
Eventually, that time comes when we have to get home, and she has to leave as well. We begin the awkward process of saying goodbye, and I try to screw up the courage to ask Misty for her phone number. We stand there a little too long, me fumbling with my words, and she asks, “Would you like to go out sometime?”
I unsuccesfully try to act nonchalant and my voice breaks as I reply, “Sure!”
She writes her number down on a 3×5 card…which I provide to her from within my Car Wars Deluxe Edition box set. She writes her name and number on the card, and before she delivers it into my sweaty hand, she takes a bottle of perfume from within her purse, and sprays the card.
“So you won’t forget me,” she said.
Yeah, like there is any chance of that happening.
I put the card back into my Car Wars Box, and we all get back into our cars, still idling in the middle of the street, in the middle of the night.
Darin and I drive back to his house in an electrified, excited, stunned silence.
I have gotten a phone number from a beautiful blonde, without even asking.

Though I kept that card in that box for years… I never got the courage to call her. I don’t know why, really…I know I was super geeky and afraid that she’d want to make out, or something, and I wouldn’t know what to do (I should be so lucky)…maybe I was content to sit in the safety of my garage, listening to Oingo Boingo, happily considering what could be…maybe I was just a lameass who didn’t know what to do when the golden prize landed in his lap.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s the last one.
After my audition today, as I was driving home into this great ominous cloud of thick grey smoke, I thought about that night, and the months that surrounded it. I thought about the way her perfume still permeates my Car Wars Deluxe Edition Box Set, and the times I’d play Car Wars in my dressing room with my friend Caius, when I was working on TNG.
I remembered how cool I thought it was to be on Trek back then, and how much fun it was to be part of something that I knew was great. It was wonderful to be part of something that made me feel proud. I feel that same way about WWDN. I feel proud of this stupid website, and the chance it’s given me to find my Voice…I feel proud that even though the source is clunky and I really need to redo everything now that I know what I’m doing, this lame website is mine, for better or for worse.
As I drove home, I looked to my right, at the bright blue September sky over Downtown, and off to my left at the growing cloud of smoke swrling around the mountains, and wondered whatever happened to Misty, who signed her name with a heart over the i. I wondered if she remembers standing in the middle of that road, in the middle of the night, fifteen years ago. I wondered what that amazingly beautiful girl in the red dress would say if she knew that the smell of her perfume had put me in a time machine.
The fire burned hotter, out of control.

You know how you make all these plans, and then that pesky Real Life gets all busy, and you have to put those plans on hold?
It’s like that.