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another one of my garden metaphors

This is another one of my garden metaphors.

Last summer, a volunteer sunflower showed up in the garden. As I do with all feral plants, I left it alone, but made sure it could grow and thrive. It did.

When it finished growing, I collected its seeds, and spread some of them around the yard. Some of them grew into flowers, and I collected some of their seeds. I kept them in a safe place, until the ground was ready to receive them earlier this season.

I planted those seeds into my actual garden, and I have tended them with the rest of my plants. Sunflowers, I have noticed, don’t really want or need much intervention, so mostly I was making sure no pests were damaging them, and I did remove a couple of stalks that were struggling. What is left have grown into this beautiful sunflower patch that attracts so many bees and other pollinators that are beneficial to our entire garden, as well as our local ecosystem in general.

I get to look at these flowers every day, and absolutely love everything they bring to my garden and to our local ecosystem, and when they are done, hundreds upon hundreds of seeds will emerge, because I kept an eye on a single seed about 25 moons ago, and mostly left it alone; I simply cared for and gently supported and protected it, until it was strong enough to bloom.

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happy (on camera acting) retirement to me

Earlier today, I posted this on my Facebook:

I feel like most of you already know this, but for those who don’t… the last movie I did before I retired is a little indie horror thriller called Rent-A-Pal.

I am proud of this movie and proud of my performance in it. I don’t talk about my acting work a lot, but I just found out that it’s been added to Amazon Prime Video in the UK, and wanted to share that.

Here’s our Wikipedia page, with more information and various links.

Rather quickly, a number of people said some version of “Wait, you retired? How did I not know about that? Why?”

I guess I haven’t really talked about it in public, or at length, but … yeah. I’m done. I wish I’d walked away twenty years ago and gone to school to find another career, but for a lot of reasons, I just wasn’t able to. Fortunately for me, I decided to start writing a blog, and … well, it’s been quite a journey.

I’m not sure I’ve ever put all of this in one place, so here’s how I answered one of the people who asked me why I quit.

I never wanted to be an actor in the first place, and I haven’t booked an audition in over a decade. The roles I am offered are generally tiny, stunt casting, uninteresting parts that are not about what I bring as a performer, but what I bring as a hashtag influencer who can promote to a large audience.

I’ve done a couple things for friends, or as favors for people I respect. I’ve felt that the work is fine and competent, that I do my job effectively. But there is no joy in it for me. From the moment I leave my house, I just want it to be over and I want to be home doing something I love.

I fought that reality for twenty years, hoping against hope that a role would spark in me the same joy that I see in all of my friends who are actors when they work. I hoped against hope that I would land The Role that would finally be enough for my dad to love me. I chased that for way, way too long, and I hated myself every step of the way.

So a few years ago, I just decided that I wasn’t going on auditions, and while I would listen to offers (one or two per year, if that), I am just not interested in chasing after someone or something that has made it very clear they aren’t interested in me or what I bring to the table.

And what’s interesting, a little sad, and maybe even a little tragic, is that I spent all these years trying to figure out how I could convince casting to pick me, how I could prove I was worthy, with the same desperate futility I spent trying to get my dad to give a shit about me, and it wasn’t until I stopped doing it that I realized (and accepted) that none of the people I was trying to get to notice me cared. Not even a little bit. None of them noticed the effort, or cared to share any feedback about it. And it wasn’t personal; it’s just how it is.

I spent longer than I would have liked feeling pretty shitty about that, lots of regrets, until this one day when I realized I wasn’t losing anything, or giving anything up. I wasn’t leaving anything on the table, or turning away from a single opportunity. I was releasing myself from the burden of my mother’s expectations, and accepting that there is nothing I could ever do that suddenly convince my dad that I’m worthy of his affection.

It came so late in life, but it gave me the freedom to stop chasing after something that wasn’t important to me, because I felt like it was the only thing I could do. It freed me to write stories, work on my own projects, and live *my* life on *my* terms.

I still use the basic skills I learned over my lifetime in acting when I work, only now I use them to build stories and develop characters. I use those skills to bring audiobooks and voice over projects to life the best I can, and I genuinely love doing that work.

Thanks for asking. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken about this in public, in this level of detail before.

So there ya go, and now I have something to link to if the question is asked in the future.

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announcing the officially unofficial wesley crusher fan club

I’ve done a bunch of fun projects with Stands over the years. Today, we launched our latest: The Officially UNofficial Wesley Crusher Fan Club!

Over the years, I’ve met thousands of people who are around my age and grew up absolutely loving Wesley Crusher. They were inspired by him. They related to him when adults expected him to be an adult, but treated him like he was a kid. They wanted to be his friend on the Enterprise, part of his sick breakdancing crew. All the complaints about the — let’s generously say “uneven” — writing and early character development didn’t matter to them, they were just happy to see someone like them on Star Trek.

I never knew about that — we never knew about each other — because we were kids. But I’ve met so many of you, and I’ve shared your stories so widely, it’s not a sampling error. We all now know how beloved Wesley Crusher is and always was, so I conspired with my friends at Stands, and the Officially Unofficial Wesley Crusher Fan Club is open for members.

I love this. I think a lot of you are going to love it, too.

I think you’ll also love that every purchase supports GLSEN, an organization that works to ensure that LGBTQ students are able to learn and grow in a school environment free from bullying and harassment.

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Star Trek is bigger than any single one of us, and it has the power to change the world.

Over on my Tumblr thingy, someone asked me if I have ever met any of the original Star Trek cast. I said

Not only have I met them, I am privileged to call many of them my friends. George has been a mentor to me since 1987, and he only found out (because I told him) last year that I’ve been modeling my choices and interaction with fans after what I saw him do for so many years.

You probably know that my father is an abusive, bullying, piece of shit who terrorized me my entire childhood before going out of his way to be cruel to me when I was really struggling with all the attention I got as a teenager. So it was in that environment that I first met George and Walter and Nichelle, and they all treated me with love and kindness that I had never gotten from any of the adults in my life (save my Aunt Val). They made sure I knew that I was part of a family, now, if I wanted to be, and that they accepted me just the way I was.

I had never experienced that before. Attention, approval, even basic affection were all conditional and never freely given in my home. I lived in a house with four other people, but I didn’t have a family because my father wouldn’t let me into the family he made with my brother and sister; I was a thing my mom used to chase her dreams of fame, and — worst of all — they are emotionally immature narcissists who hated each other so much, I got put on her “team” without my knowledge or consent, and my dad treated me accordingly.

It was just an awful, painful, lonely existence that was only made better at all by my Star Trek family, who made me feel loved and valued for 10 hours a day. And that didn’t just start and end on my set; it was handed down to us from the original series cast (well, most of them, anyway) and I do my best now, as a 51 year-old Legacy Trek Cast Member, to be for the new cast members who George and Frakes were and are for me.

I’ve always known, but didn’t grok until recently, that when we are part of Star Trek, we are given the tremendous privilege to carry something precious that deeply matters to millions of people across generations. What we do with it, and the privilege of carrying it, is up to us; there is no wrong way to do it (some folks just do the job and move on, that’s fine). The way I choose to carry it and share it with all the people I interview on Ready Room is inspired by George and Frakes: Star Trek is bigger than any single one of us, and it has the power to change the world. That is an awesome responsibility and privilege, for those of us who choose to accept it. I still want to make them proud, I probably will for the rest of my life.