Stories about curiosity, connection, fandom, and the ordinary moments that become something more, usually with coffee and a little jibber jabber along the way.

I Thought I Was Going to a Star Trek Convention

My first Star Trek Las Vegas convention became a story about fandom, friendship, belonging, and what it means to finally meet your Trek community.

Off-Hour and What Holds When Everything Else Starts Breaking

I have developed a completely reasonable distrust of countdown timers in Star Trek. The moment somebody puts minutes and seconds on the screen, I know whatever everyone was planning to do that evening has officially been cancelled. There will be no quiet dinner. Nobody is finishing that book. Whatever personal

I Have Questions

I have questions. This is rarely good news for anyone who happens to be nearby. It usually starts innocently enough. Someone mentions something in conversation, I notice something I’ve never noticed before, or I encounter one tiny piece of information that doesn’t fit neatly into whatever I thought

Level-Five Transporter Accident and the Strange Things That Make Us Ourselves

I was raised by puppets. Not exclusively, obviously. There were actual humans involved in my upbringing. But Sesame Street, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Daniel Tiger, and The Muppet Show were woven into my childhood in ways that probably explain more about me than I should admit publicly. Somewhere along the way,

I Thought I’d Have This Figured Out By Now

Room One I have been packing suitcases for most of my adult life, which you would think would have resulted in some measurable improvement in my ability to pack a suitcase. You would be wrong. Every trip begins with the same confidence. I know where I’m going. I know

A Case of Chiaroscuro and Everything Between Black and White

The moment Star Trek: Strange New Worlds decided it was going to spend most of an episode in black and white, put Una Chin-Riley in the middle of a film noir mystery, bring Kor into the proceedings, and make half the Enterprise crew start keeping secrets from one another,

Human Best Friend and the People Who Get Under Our Skin

There are moments when I suspect the writers of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds sit around a table asking one another what they can possibly get away with. Una Chin-Riley belting out a Klingon version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" while M'Benga tends bar

I Wasn't Going to Make This Complicated

There are certain promises I continue to make to myself despite overwhelming evidence that they simply aren't true. One of my favorites is, "This will only take a few minutes." It's an optimistic little sentence, isn't it? It arrives with all the

The Griffin Incident and the Courage to Keep Exploring

I’ve never been especially good at watching horror movies. Not because I mind being scared. I simply spend most of the running time offering what I believe are perfectly sensible advice to the people on screen. “Maybe don’t open that door.” “Perhaps we don’t investigate the abandoned

By the Time We Notice

Room One There are moments in our lives that don't seem particularly important while we're living them. In fact, they often look exactly like every other Tuesday. No dramatic music. No life-changing announcement. No feeling that we should stop and pay attention because this is

Valles Marineris and the Courage to Live in the Present

One of my favorite things about Star Trek is that it has never believed wonder and wisdom are mutually exclusive. It has always understood that sometimes the biggest ideas arrive wrapped inside the most unexpected stories. A courtroom drama becomes a conversation about prejudice. A holodeck adventure becomes an examination

The Long Way Home

An Essay in Four Rooms ROOM ONE There are some mornings that seem so ordinary while you're living them that you almost forget they're happening. This morning was one of those. The coffee was hot. The house was quiet in the way a familiar house is