Still Just a Geek, page 55
*So farting is how the body gets rid of the remaining gas the surgeon used to inflate it. Personally, I think farts are always hilarious and never not funny. I’m guessing she’d want me to take this part out now, but I’m going to leave it in, because I love every bit of her, and it seriously was one of the happiest moments in our marriage and I wouldn’t have changed this part of the memory for anything.
*If I haven’t said it already: thank you. Your support has always been something that has kept me afloat, and even then, when I really couldn’t process it, I could still feel it.
So, again: thank you.
*My editor commented at the end of this section that it was really cool I started with the “maybe I’ll” repetitions at the beginning of chapter, but then lost that thread about halfway through.
Me: Oh—you mean the part where I talk about my wife’s diagnosis and my worries and fears and lack of sleep and her surgery? That’s where I lost my rhetorical device?
Editor: Yeah.
Me: *through gritted teeth* Noted.
*Going to the ER is as close as most of us will get to experiencing relativity: time passes normally for other people, but for us, it expands and contracts and distorts, much like how scientists think black holes work.
I’m not saying ERs are black holes . . . no, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
*I love American Gods the book. I wanted to love American Gods the TV series, and though it started out so promising, it lost its way, or at least stopped being what I wanted to watch, so I gave up on it. Bummer.
BoJack Horseman is one of the finest animated series of all time, and is the very best series about addiction, depression, abuse, and recovery I have ever seen. Of course, I may be biased because of that whole “Back in the nineties, I was on a very famous TV show” bit in BoJack’s story is, um, relatable for me.
*It never occurred to me to call our kids while Anne was going through everything with her ovarian torsion. I didn’t want to put the burden of their father being terrified about their mother on them, and I knew all I could do was worry them.
Once Anne was out of the woods, we finally talked to both of them. Ryan had to work, but Nolan was free and came over to have lunch with his mama, which I loved. I love how close our boys are to their mom and me.
*If you think this sounds corny, maybe it is a little. But it’s also real. And the fact that it was natural was what made it so special—that we were back to a place where we could be corny.
Also, don’t judge us.
*Earlier, I noted my experience with my dad getting sick. And while that felt real at the time, I think there was also a sense of me wanting to impress everyone (including him) with my writing and emotional vulnerability—to perform my fears and worries there. I definitely had many of those feelings, but knowing what you do now about my relationship with my parents, it might read as forced. I know I now read it that way.
But rereading this, it feels purer. More a distillation of what I remember feeling at the time, and it only feels realer to me now, years later.
Part of that is accepting what I want to do as a writer. Part of that is accepting what I want to do as a man with emotions.
*Yes, it’s a Hamilton reference. Yes, I already brought up Hamilton.
Name five bigger pop cultural events that have happened in the last five years. Star Wars and MCU only count as one.
I’ll wait.
*Before this, I was not quite Shatner shouting about gremlins, but it was close.
*Let’s be fair, though: It’s rational to not enjoy turbulence. Yes, it happens all the time and pilots deal with it all the time and very rarely does it cause a disaster.
But it’s fucking turbulence and it’s not fun.
*My editor asked me if I still feel this way about language and terminology. After some thought, I don’t think I do. Language is important, and what we normalize through language changes the world and it changes us. I try really hard not to think of myself as “not normal,” because “normal” isn’t a thing. Put another way, everyone’s normal is relative to their experience.
So a big part of my life experience is redefining what “normal” is going to be for me, and accepting that without judgment. If someone I cared about read this bit to me, I would agree with their doctor, and encourage them to be more kind to themselves.
*I want to be very clear in case for some reason I wasn’t when I first wrote this: I was both angry and sad about my friend’s disease. That’s both okay and natural. He lied to himself, and to us about it, and the lie is what hurt, not that he was sick (that hurt, too, because you never want your friend to be sick). It also hurt because, especially in that moment, all I could think was Maybe I could have helped him more. That’s not fair to me, and it’s not even fair to him, but that’s part of grief.
I don’t blame Stepto for anything. He was sick and his sickness took him from us. But goddammit do I still miss him.
*As much as one can enjoy something like this, which ends up being more than I expected, because Stepto specifically wanted us to celebrate and do cool shit and put on a show for each other. I’m not gonna lie; it was a big ask, but we did as good a job as we could have, and I’m not sure it makes sense, but enjoying each other was part of what he wanted, so that’s what we did.
*Yes, I already wrote this. This is for dramatic flourish, to reset the scene. It’s effective storytelling—trust me.
*If you knew him, it was impossible not to love him. He was Stephen Toulouse. Jamie to his family, Stepto to literally everyone else in the whole world.
*Remember? Before they went and ruined the whole goddamn thing so badly none of us want to even think about it anymore?
*I will never dignify him by naming him; he doesn’t deserve the mention.
*Yes, you can actually walk to places in Los Angeles.
*This story was written before my cholesterol was so high, my doctor was like, “Dude, your cholesterol is dangerously high. You need to do something about it.” The something I did was the easiest, hardest, and laziest thing I could do: quit eating everything I liked, including all beef, dairy, most sugar, and basically every dessert.
It worked. I lost something like thirty-five pounds in seven months, and I dropped my cholesterol from dangerous to “five points above normal, but safe.”
Not gonna lie; I’m real damn proud of that, and today, I don’t even miss steak.
Cheese is a whole other thing.
*Which is true . . . except for chocolates. And mint-in-box toys. And some first-edition comic books . . .
*There shouldn’t be things like “guilty” pleasures. If being a geek has taught me one thing, it’s that you like what you like, and as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone, you shouldn’t be ashamed or ostracized for that.
*Since I wrote this, I’ve done a substantial amount of therapeutic work toward emotional healing, and a big part of that is I could absolutely watch these movies now, and absolutely enjoy them on their own terms, as the only type of cheese I can now safely consume.
*In the same way Atlanta is both New York and Sokovia and pretty much everywhere else in the MCU.
*The Alamo, not the chupacabras. Well, some of the chupacabras.
The point is, dangling modifiers are the enemy here, not the Alamo, goat-suckers, or Ponch.
*This was written before I left Twitter on account of all the fascists.
*It bore repeating, that’s why.
* . . . I wanted to be a gangster.
As before. If you are smiling and nodding right now, make sure you get any suspicious moles looked at, at least once a year.
*Don’t tell Anne I call her this sometimes.
Just kidding. I adore her (duh), but let’s be real: this is a good joke.
*He said these exact words, and you can’t prove otherwise. In fact, that’s how he usually addresses me. “Hi, Incredible Father. Can I borrow the car?”
*“They” being tired donkeys . . .
Here for the rest of the book, folks.
*I realized this might be the whitest sentence ever written.
*Maybe he isn’t the antagonist in our story, as much as we are the villains in his.
*If you’re not familiar with the Scottish method, you probably aren’t as into golf as you think you are.
*Hurr, hurr, hurr.
*I’m still open to golf sponsorships. I will wear anything on the course.
*Hi, I’m twelve.
*Golden Road is a brewpub and social gathering spot in Glendale, just a few minutes up the 5 from Atwater, where the golf course is.
*In hindsight, him calling us out like that was bullshit.
I love him, but answer your texts if you want to golf in the morning with your brother and me.
*Clearly not referencing Anne here.
*There are a few regional words for this in America. I say “roundabout.” You can call it whatever you want, but I’m not going to do the work for you if you don’t know what a roundabout is.
*Now, Americans: I know there are a lot of places in our country that are like this, too. But I’ve never lived in them, and I’ve certainly never driven in them.
So it was eerie. And a bit nerve-racking (did I mention driving on the left side of the road is tough?).
*Buzz. Killed.
Party. Pooped.
Sport. Spoiled.
*More massively? Massivelier?
I was pretty stressed.
*EXCEPT FOR THE ONE RIGHT BEHIND YOU. AHHH, RUN!!!!
*I’m assuming she knew all three things: about the position of the stars, that I was being pedantic, and that it was a nerd thing.
Anne is very smart.
*If this sounds like the beginning of a slasher film, just wait . . .
*How else could you explain a country where they like to eat haggis?
*Just like a succubus . . .
Okay, I made that up.
The succubus part. The part about his hands is real.
*This goes without saying. They’re all good dogs.
But definitely do this if you meet someone else’s dog: ask if you can pet it. It’s just polite, and it can also save a lot of grief (because good dog or no, it’s still a dog, and some react to people in different ways).
*Again, spoilsport. At this point, I would have been content playing with the dog.
Maybe that’s what she detected—she knows me well.
*Since everyone knows you look east.
Duh.
*This is excellent onomatopoeia. Use it as often as you can.
Also, kudos to me for spelling “onomatopoeia.”
*Where’s east?!? I thought.
*It was actually mud, but you can understand her confusion at the time.
*If you also started to think of Buttercup and Wesley in the lightning sand, then that’s okay, too.
*See?
*You can see them here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BLJWNuGBgL_/.
*In case you like to see pictures of sheep: https://www.instagram.com/p/BLLl4EKh969/.
(Spoiler alert: they’re not sexy pictures of sheep, in case that’s what you were hoping for. Not that I’m kink-shaming.)
*And we have, now in print, eBook, and audiobook!
*I didn’t add her response, but it was almost certainly “I don’t know if this qualifies as a good story.”
*Just keep reading. The context will reveal itself.
*Talk to someone in Texas about visiting, tell them you’re going to be there for a few days, and ask what you should do in Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.
Then watch them laugh and laugh and laugh.
*I mention this game quite a few times, and I will continue to do so, because it’s great, and everyone should try it.
I don’t get paid by Big Carcassonne, by the way. I do this from a pure place of love. #influencer #notsponsored #sponsorme #likeandsubscribe
*Half of this book is about embracing your inner geek. So of course this was my text notification tone. It still is, though for Anne it’s from TOS, and everyone else gets TNG.
. . . this isn’t as interesting as I think it is, is it?
*You may have heard of it? Just the number-one sitcom in the country for about a decade?
*And of course this was my ringtone.
*Now imagine if, just once, they’d done this with me for Wesley Crusher.
*I can’t help but smile rereading this. Because it is wonderful, and I like the fact that I acknowledged it back.
It just feels so wholesome.
*The overall story. Not the pain that originated it.
Steve’s a great writer, so I’m sure he could appreciate that all storytelling involves conflict, without celebrating the conflict I experienced in my own story.
*And here’s your context.
*Every single time I walked into Stage 25, from the first time to the last time, the entire cast and crew made me feel like I was family. What a gift, what a privilege, what a blessing to spend most of twelve seasons with them.
*Mayim Bialik. Sorry, I’m on first-name with her, but realize most of you aren’t.
*Even though I played that Wil Wheaton for a decade, and I knew in my head he was a different person than I was, I couldn’t fully embrace and be comfortable with it until my final season. I want to convene a meeting of the People Who Played Versions of Themselves Club, and find out if we all shared that experience, or it was unique to me.
*See what I mean? It’s a lot more complicated than it would appear.
*My editor points out I say “we laughed” a lot, and I wonder if that means I’m not the writer I think I am, or at least am trying to become.
What I do know is these are my memories, and we really did laugh this much when we were together. I genuinely feel like every time I’ve written “and then we all laughed,” we actually did laugh. It was just that kind of place, that kind of friendship.
It probably wasn’t a “wipe our eyes, hold our stomachs, can’t breathe” laugh, but we were happy in the moment (and all those other moments I note in this book).
*And, by osmosis, comedic writing.
*And then you eat barbecue, and you’re like, “It’s just too salty. KC barbecue is just better,” and everyone in Texas throws your book into the fire. This is the way.
*No, I didn’t have a secret love child in 2013.
Or did I?
I really didn’t.
*They still don’t let me claim this on my taxes, but it’s on my business cards.
*My friend says that fantasy football is D&D for jocks. Wearing nothing but paint and a pair of shorts in the middle of December at a New York Giants game is deeply committed cosplay. The Super Bowl is their Comic-Con.
*This is such an important theme that I write about it throughout this book.
But one thing I want to point out is that love is a key component to this. That being a geek is a positive thing because it’s about love, and what’s more positive than that?
On the other hand, if you consider yourself a geek and yet are hateful to others because their opinion differs from yours, then that’s not love, and maybe you’re not a geek.
Maybe you’re just a bully (and if you’ve been paying attention, you know what I think about that).
*I only have so much blood to sell each week.
*You see this on later seasons of The Simpsons, where they transitioned from having guest stars play characters to guest stars play themselves . . . and it never quite worked.
As someone fully aware of the entire Simpsons oeuvre, this made me wary.
*He was using his outdoor voice.
*And I once had sex, so that’s saying something.
*This had, in fact, been the story of much of my acting career after TNG. Whether it was auditions or guest spots, people would say these nice things to my face, and then ghost me.
