In a wonderful little neighborhood called Larchmont, there’s a wonderful little bookshop called Chevalier’s.
A friend of mine ran into Patrick Stewart there today, and when my friend mentioned that to me, I was reminded of the day a few years ago when Patrick saw my book there, and he texted me a picture of it, because he was excited for me. I’d misplaced that memory, and I’m so grateful that I found it today.
This isn’t Chevalier’s. This is Vroman’s in Pasadena.
I was going to post that on Bluesky, but it was too long. Rather than break it up across posts there, I took it as a reminder that my blog exists for a reason, and this is absolutely a lovely little memory that I can share on at Friday afternoon.
While I have your attention, I want to share some stuff that’s come across my event horizon recently. It’s on the other side of the thingy.
A few hours ago, I finished my part of this project I’ve been developing and working on for a few years. Now, other artists are making their contributions to the project, as we move it closer to that terrifying and exhilarating moment when we give it to you.
I just wrote this in an email:
“This feels like I’m tempting Fate, but … I’m optimistic. I feel the way I did when we were working on Tabletop, before anyone had seen it. This just feels good, it feels like it fits into a space that is currently vacant, and even if it doesn’t find a huge audience, I know we made something special for the audience we did find.”
Tabletop is the most recent thing I did that totally belonged to me in every way that mattered (until it didn’t. heavy sigh.) and I didn’t realize how much I missed having something like this in my life until I was doing it again with this thing. Working on my own thing lights me up in a way that working on someone else’s thing can’t, even when I love working on their thing as much as I can possibly love working on anything.
AUGH! I am so excited for this I just want to slap it.
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This month has been such an awful year, my sense of time is … “weird” is the best I can come up with … in a way it hasn’t been since the lockdown days, when every day felt like Friday, and it never felt like the weekend.
Anyway. When I woke up this morning and plucked the rectangle of doom from its charger, I fumbled it (like you do) and bumped the screen with my thumb as it slipped from my hand and tumbled to the floor, alarm screeching. I groaned, dragged myself out of bed, and then I carefully and mindfully bent over to pick it up because my body is just being such an asshole about the whole I’m fifty-two-almost-fifty-three situation. I silenced the alarm as I cursed the guy who set it for me yesterday.
At some point in the fall to the floor, the rectangle must have switched modes from endless delivery of doom to have some joyful memories because if you look like someone who is going to throw me into a volcano if I don't, because when I slid my thumb across the face to shut it up, it revealed a collage it had made me, from one year ago, when Anne and I were on Star Trek: The Cruise. Oh, little phone I didn’t know I’d have to name FuckTrump all over again when these pictures were taken, I can’t stay mad at you.
This morning’s bedhead went on a milkshake date, did some fun nerdy stuff, watched his favorite human hit one of the jackpots on a slot machine, and watched the sunset.
And I gotta tell you, the joyful memories were abundant, retrieved by all my senses and delivered to me in 7.1 4K Mega Digital Super Surround-o-Rama.
I remembered the kindness shown to me by literally every single passenger I encountered. How everyone gently respected my boundaries, how delightful it was to notice something in the decor that was an easter egg for nerds like me.
All it takes is a few graphics to turn a boring cruise ship elevator into a starship turbolift.
He was so patient while I nerded out and took a selfie.Right after this picture, I asked him if knew where I could find Tuvix. It was awkward, I admit.
I remembered the hours I had the privilege to spend backstage with my extended Star Trek family, with my Space Mom and Space Little Brother I Never Knew About, before going on stage to perform with them for an audience that wanted to love us.
The Crusher Family Therapy Hour With Todd Stashwick was the first time I’d done improv in years. It was so much fun.
I remembered how great it felt to walk off every stage I was on, feeling like we met their expectations. (I didn’t remember, but was reminded by my blog, that I risked a raw, emotional, vulnerable performance, and was rewarded with a standing ovation.)
I walked off that ship feeling energized, inspired, grateful to be part of something so special, and I didn’t realize until this moment how much I needed to feel the memory of that, right now.
The 2025 cruise is happening as I write this, and I’m envious of my friends and family who are part of it … but I’m also really happy for them and my fellow nerds, because I remember.
I sent this picture to my godson, and he sent back “Who are you supposed to be in that picture? Is it AI?” I guess my sister hasn’t introduced him to Star Trek.“Mom, I want Wesley.” “We have Wesley at home.” Wesley at home:
Thanks for reading, friends. I hope this finds you well. Before you go, if you haven’t subscribed to updates, I’d love for you to do that. I have an incredible announcement coming, and I don’t want you to miss it. (That’s why these horrible reminders are all over the place). A huge thank you and terrorist fist jab to the 13,000 of you who got this in email! I appreciate you.
My work life is weird. Most people have a reliable schedule and know when they’ll work, and how much. They can plan out their week, their month, and their budget accordingly. But not me. I will go weeks or months without a job, and then work my face off for 45 straight days. I’ll look at an empty week on my calendar that suddenly fills up before the end of Monday. I’ll have zero jobs and a wide open calendar for weeks at a time, and then four jobs all want me and they can only work at exactly the same time so I have to choose just one. (I hate it when that happens. I’d do so much more cool stuff if not for the constant conflicts).
I mean, look, this as far as problems go, as far as uncertainty goes … this is not the worst thing. I love how much I get to just do my own thing, usually whenever I want to, it’s not the worst thing! But I also am not crazy about that uncertainty. To make it less intense, we made a choice about 15 years ago to keep a year of liquidity in savings, just in case. Knock on wood, we haven’t needed it. And to take even more control over my life and career, I started developing this project that, if it finds its audience, could become the thing I do full time. I would love that. You have no idea.
This week, I’ve been working my face off on what feels like the final lap of this passion project I’ve been developing for a couple of years. Late last year, after a long development process that felt at times like it would never end, I started work on the thing. Last week, we hit a significant milestone that allowed us to set a release date on the calendar for next month, and I’ve spent all day every day this week doing so much writing for it, my fingers are numb and my brain is mush. I want to keep going, but the flesh is spongy and bruised.
It’s been a nice break from the horrors, though, and I have been so grateful for that. It reminds me that, even though everything is terrible and America is in the middle of a fascist coup, we still need breaks from the fight to restore our hit points and our mana. We need to step away from the fire hose of social media and all of its algorithmically-driven agitation and addiction. We need to breathe and taste the air and practice some quiet self care. As an entertainer, I can help create that space for anyone who wants or needs it. That’s how I can be a Helper. That’s what I want to do with my work, and that’s what this project is all about.
I really want to make sure you know about this when it releases. The best way to make sure you do is by signing up for email alerts when I make pots posts on my blog. If I did what I think I did, you should be navigating about ninety thousand popups and reminders that you can subscribe.
Cirroc Lofton played Jake Sisko on Deep Space Nine. I played Wesley Crusher on The Next Generation.
And before this week, he and I never talked about it, which is something that’s been on my mind since we saw each other at the Star Trek: Picard season 3 premiere.
This week, things finally lined up and I was a guest on his show, The 7th Rule. We talked about The Game, our space families, and what it means to be the og star trek kids.
The origin story of one of the most influential and transformative business leaders and philanthropists of the modern age
The business triumphs of Bill Gates are widely known: the twenty-year-old who dropped out of Harvard to start a software company that became an industry giant and changed the way the world works and lives; the billionaire many times over who turned his attention to philanthropic pursuits to address climate change, global health, and U.S. education.
Source Code is not about Microsoft or the Gates Foundation or the future of technology. It’s the human, personal story of how Bill Gates became who he is today: his childhood, his early passions and pursuits. It’s the story of his principled grandmother and ambitious parents, his first deep friendships and the sudden death of his best friend; of his struggles to fit in and his discovery of a world of coding and computers in the dawn of a new era; of embarking in his early teens on a path that took him from midnight escapades at a nearby computer center to his college dorm room, where he sparked a revolution that would change the world.
Bill Gates tells this, his own story, for the first time: wise, warm, revealing, it’s a fascinating portrait of an American life.
I didn’t want to let the work get dry and academic, which is a real possibility when doing someone else’s memoir, so I treated it as if I were playing a character, the character of Bill Gates, who is telling you this story of his remarkable young life, and the founding of his company. I got into his head, into his character, and did all the work I would have done if I were playing him on camera or on stage. I’m so proud of how it all turned out. I would never be cast to play him on camera, and it’s the kind of work that isn’t really recognized in my industry the way on camera is, but that doesn’t diminish it in any way. I am so grateful that I got to do it.
It released last week, and I am intensely proud of it. We talk about it a bit in this podcast, that I feel like I leveled up my skills when I was doing Source Code (and Picks & Shovels, and When The Moon Hits Your Eye), and it’s some of the best work I’ve ever done.
