Wil Wheaton's Blog, page 44

only sometimes I question everything

Photo from image-archeology dot com

I’ve been busy in 1983 for the last couple of weeks, working on this thing that I thought would be about 3000 words, but is now ten times that, and isn’t as close to being finished as I thought.

Yesterday, I worked really hard to get out not a lot of words (under 400), but that’s okay, because I was working on a scene that’s super important to the rest of the story, and if I got it wrong, it would be like one of those mathematical errors that’s may be only slightly off, but compounds over time until your spaceship ends up crashing into the sun instead of landing gently on Titan.

I was still unsure about yesterday’s work when I started today, and I’m unsure of it right now, but I decided that I have to trust my instincts, not overthink it, and just keep going. I even said to myself, “the only way to keep going is to keep going and the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.”

Once I accepted that it may not be totally right, but was not totally wrong, I was able to get back into the narrative. We’re still at Universal Studios. Here’s a little bit from when the tram drove through the backlot exteriors.

It was totally magical to me. They were all just facades, and none of the sets were dressed with anything more than signs painted on the windows, but I thought it would have been the coolest thing in the world to be on any one of those streets when they were being filmed. To look around and pretend that I was in New York, or Chicago, or the Old West, or wherever Dracula was from – Bulgaria, I thought? – and only have to use my imagination a little bit, because set dressing and lights and costumes would do most of the work … that was incredible to me. At this point in my life, I’d only done a couple of small parts in some little things that have been lost to time (they don’t even exist on YouTube, and I know because I’ve looked), and a handful of commercials. I didn’t want to be an actor as much as my mother wanted me to be an actor, and most of the time if you’d asked me I would have told you that it wasn’t something I wanted to do when I grew up. But riding past all those fake buildings and seeing all that movie magic –

“What’s wrong?” Evelyn said.

“Huh?” I said.

“You … you look … sad.”

This still happens to me. I think about things, I get lost in my imagination and in my own thoughts, I retreat from the world and the people who I’m close to, I’m told that when I go to that place in my head, I always look sad, even when I’m not.

“I’m okay,” I said, “I was just thinking.”

This is a work of narrative fiction, mostly stuff that didn’t happen with stuff that did happen mixed in. Some of it, like my memories and thoughts about working on a backlot, are real, and other parts of it are … less real. It’s fun to imagine and remember, remember and imagine, and listen to the characters when they have something to say or do that I wasn’t expecting.

In real life, I was always disappointed that there wasn’t more of a backlot at Paramount when I was working there in the 80s. There is now, and it’s pretty cool, but back then it was just a single facade for the TV show The Bronx Zoo. When I go to work at Warners for Big Bang Theory, I always drive through the backlot, and I’ll even go for walks through streets I know from The Twilight Zone, The Dukes of Hazzard, even Casablanca, when I have long enough breaks during production. I don’t think I’ll ever become immune to the magic of a studio backlot, or a set that’s totally immersive, a little bit of imagination made real on a soundstage.

The version of myself who is in this novella probably doesn’t grow up to be an actor like I did. I’m pretty sure he grows up to be a writer, because … well, that’s all in the story and I should probably just leave it at that.

As I get closer to finishing this thing, I don’t plan to keep doing updates like the ones I’ve done the last week or so, because I want to keep the story behind the curtain more than I have. These parts have been fun to share, though, because I enjoy knowing that they spark some of your memories about the early 80s.

“a full day of hollywood, from the other side of the camera”

via matterhorn1959.com

I took the weekend off from writing, and though I wanted to write yesterday, I had too much stuff to do out of the house to get anything done. I woke up this morning before my alarm, and I got to work as fast as I could, because I wanted to know what happened next in my story.

I think I have identified the complete three act structure, more or less, and I’ve also figured out how this story can loosely follow a Hero’s Journey. That’s not to say that I’m following a formula, just that understanding how those structures apply to this story will help me know where I am in the narrative when I get there, instead of having to look back a few thousand words and compare.

Last week, I thought I’d finish this up around 30,000 words, but I know it’s going to go longer than that. On the one hand, that’s cool because it means I’m putting together a much bigger story than I thought possible when I started. On the other hand, if it doesn’t all hold together, that’s a lot of words that aren’t necessarily going to see publication.

But I’m not worrying about that now. Right now, I’m enjoying every step of this process, and having a really good time as I level up my ability as a writer and storyteller. Even if this whole thing ends up being cut down by half or something, it will have been worth the time I spent writing it, and I’m pretty sure that, once it’s finished and I get some fresh eyes and perspectives on it, I can polish it up and ensure it holds together in the rewriting process.

This is a significant growth for me, personally and professionally, because as recently as two months ago, I would have been convinced that it had to be perfect and ready to publish right out of the first draft, when I know that only a select number of extremely experienced writers are capable of doing that.

So I wanted to share a little piece that I wrote today, because I think it’s neat. As always, this is a first draft and will likely change before it’s finally published:

If you go to Universal Studios now, it’s a full-on tourist destination. There are multiple high rise hotels, an epic shopping and dining area with a few dozen shops and fancy restaurants, and an actual theme park with thrill rides. In the 80s, it was much smaller. There was a single hotel, two fancy…ish restaurants (the train-themed Victoria Station, which was reachable by funicular, and Whomp Hopper’s, which was western wagon-themed for some reason) and not a single thrill ride. The entire theme park experience was just a few shows of varying quality, and the eponymous tour. A lot of people talk about how the world seemed simpler, and less complicated when they were young, and I think that could apply to Universal, but my clearest memory of it, the way that I can best describe it, is “uncluttered.” I’ve been once as an adult, and a lot of the magic I loved as a kid is just gone, and it isn’t because I’m older and know how all the tricks work; it’s just another theme park that’s too crowded, and the tour feels more like an afterthought than it did when I was a kid. But in 1983, it was amazing. 

When we got off the bus, the counselors met us, and we gathered in small groups around them. Carlos told us that we’d spend the first couple hours seeing the different shows, and then we’d reconnect with the rest of the group to ride the tour. We were going to all get our own car in the tour tram, which I thought was pretty cool. There were six other kids in our group, including the red headed kid from the previous day, and a brother and sister who were fraternal twins. I can see their faces in my memory, dirty blond hair and brown eyes, braces on both of them and dark summer tans, but I can’t remember their names. It was like Michael and Michelle, or Abby and Andy, or one of those precious naming combos that yuppies in the 80s did, like giving everyone in the family the same first letter in their name.

Carlos wore what would be an ironic trucker hat today, but was entirely sincere then. His Van Halen tank top was tucked into his shorts (and if I can step out of the story for a real quick second and just say to the kids today who are romanticizing how we dressed in the early 80s: no. Just … no. Don’t make the same mistakes we did.)

I did 2032 words today, for a total of 26505. I’d keep writing because I love where I am in the story right now, but Anne and I are going to a show tonight, on a date, like adults.

And this, which I found while I was searching for a title image, is too great not to share:

I really hope this all holds together, because I love telling this story.

do something kind for future you

This was waiting for me on a music stand, about a year ago, when I was doing a voice over job.

I’m part of a very small, private, online group of runners who share training tips, race experiences, encouragement and advice. We’re a diverse group of men and women of all ages (I think I’m one of, if not the oldest), but we all have a common goal: stay fit, and run more.

One of the women in the group, who I will call E, introduced me to this incredible concept about a month ago that fundamentally changed my life not just as a runner, but as a human. It’s an incredibly simple concept that anyone can apply to their lives.

Ready? Here it is: Whenever you can, do something kind for Future You.

Future You is someone you love and care about. Future You is someone who you want to be happy, and you have endless opportunities to make that happen.

This concept came into my life when she said, “I really didn’t want to run this morning, but I knew that Future E would be glad that I did, so I ran for her.”

I’ve often given joking apologies to Future Wil for eating too much spicy food, or staying up too late, but I never really thought of Future Wil as someone who existed, who was a person, who was depending on Present Wil to make his life a little easier. After E put it into context the way that she did, I could see and feel Future Wil come into existence. I could remember all the times I made myself do something I didn’t want to do, or decided not to have more ice cream, or not to stay awake too late to watch just one more episode of a show, so that I was rested, or didn’t feel nauseous, and regretful.

One of the ways my mental illness expresses itself is to make me feel like nothing matters and nothing is worth doing because everything sucks and I suck and everything is awful. One of the ways I’ve learned to live with that and push back against it is to recognize that it’s not rational, and to just get through it. But now I have this new skill to use that really helps me when Depression starts doing its best to wrap a lead blanket around me: Present Wil feels like garbage, but Future Wil doesn’t have to suffer because Present Wil is suffering. Future Wil is probably going to be grateful that Past Wil did his best to make Future Wil feel better.

I guess it’s a rhetorical trick, a way of fooling myself into taking the best care of myself that I can, but it doesn’t really matter if it’s a trick, because it works for me. I have a really hard time doing things that are just for myself, because I feel like I don’t deserve it for one reason or another … but that me from the future? That guy hasn’t done anything to me, and I should do my best to do something kind for him, like eating good food, or getting enough sleep, or getting out and exercising even though I really don’t want to do it.

Of course, the tricky part is committing to this, but I’ve been having a lot of fun doing it, and I enjoy the surreal silliness that comes along with the whole thing.

Some things you can do for Future You, to get you started:

Make your bed. Future You is going to love going to sleep in a clean, orderly bedroom.
Oh, you should probably straighten up the rest of your bedroom, too. But it’s okay if you can’t! Maybe Future You will help, after Future You sees how nice it is to have the bed made, and Future Future You will love it!
Wash your dishes. Future You will be so glad that the sink isn’t full of dirty crap.
Take the stairs. Future You will feel awesome because you did something that wasn’t easy, when you didn’t have to.
Get that toxic person out of your life. Future You will be so grateful that she doesn’t have to deal with that jerk any more.
Turn off Twitter. Future You is going to be so happy that you didn’t waste time arguing with that person you don’t even know.
Make plans to do something fun with someone you care about. Future you will get to hang out with someone you like, and present you has something to look forward to!
Buy Future You a present, like a massage, or a spa day, or tickets to a movie or a concert.

You get the idea, right? It’s so simple and obvious to me now, and it feels like something that I’m sure doesn’t come as much of a revelation to the smart people out there, but my whole life I have missed totally obvious things that were right in front of my face. Maybe some of you missed it too, and now you may feel like doing something kind for Future You.

Recipe: Vegan Applesauce Bran Muffins with Blueberries

Vegan Applesauce Bran Muffins with Blueberries

Because I posted this picture on Twitter and all these people were like HEY I WANT TO MAKE THOSE HOW DID YOU DO IT?

Okay, a few things before we start: this is just a basic muffin recipe I cobbled together from the Internet, with a couple of vegan substitutions. I didn’t make the substitutions because I’m vegan, but because I was out of eggs and I didn’t want to go to the store. Once I decided to do one vegan substitute, doing one more wasn’t that big a deal.

Ingredients:

1 C all-purpose flour
1C bran cereal (I use Bob’s Red Mill Hot Bran Cereal For Cool People)
1/3 C applesauce
2/3 cup brown sugar
1t vanilla extract
1C almond milk (unsweetened)
1t apple cider vinegar
½ C blueberries
1T flax seed meal + 3T water

Okay, a few things before we start: this is just a basic muffin recipe I cobbled together from the Internet, with a couple of vegan substitutions. I didn’t make the substitutions because I’m vegan, but because I was out of eggs and I didn’t want to go to the store. Once I decided to do one vegan substitute, doing one more wasn’t that big a deal.

Before we even start you’re going to pre-heat your oven to 375. If you have a convection oven, set it to 350. If you have a nuclear reactor, it’s going to be too hot, so find a regular oven.

First, make your egg substitute by mixing one the flax meal and three tablespoons of water together. Set aside for at least five minutes.

Second, make some fake buttermilk by mixing a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar (or lemon juice) into the almond milk. Let that sit until the egg substitute is done doing its thing. Put them next to each other, so they feel like they have to compete to be the best.

Third, combine the fake buttermilk you just made with the bran cereal, in a large bowl. Stir it all together so it’s mixed really well, and let it sit for ten minutes. Tell the egg thing and the buttermilk thing that they had it easy.

While it’s sitting there, you combine the brown sugar, the fake egg stuff, and the vanilla extract. Mix them up really well, too.

When ten minutes are up, mix the sugar stuff into the bran cereal and stir like crazy until it’s all combined. Use a spatula thing (available from Spatula City) to make sure you get all the sugar stuff out of the bowl you mixed it into. If any of the sugar stuff is left behind, it will attract C.H.U.D.s. I am totally serious and this is really important.

Now take the flour, and mix it into the bowl of cereal, milk, and sugar stuff. Mix the hell out of it because you want the moisture to be evenly distributed. Double check when you’re done. Is there any hell left in your mix? Keep mixing until all the hell is out.

Now take half a cup of blueberries and dump it in. Guess what you’re going to do? That’s right, mix it all together.

You have a bowl of almost muffins! Good for you. But don’t go high fiving yourself just yet, tough guy. Now you gotta put some paper muffin things into a muffin pan, and use a big spoon (I used a tablespoon from the silverware drawer) to put about 2 spoonfuls of batter into each muffin thing. I got about 10 muffins this way, but your total number of muffins will probably vary due to variations in weather, air pressure, time of day, the stock market in Asia, and how intensely your neighbors have recently had sex on the other side of your apartment wall while you were trying to sleep.

Your oven should be ready now, so go ahead and put the muffin pan into it and close the door. Say a prayer to whatever god of baking you think will pay the most attention to your plea.

It takes about 15 minutes at 375 in a regular oven, or about 12 minutes at 350 in a convection oven for your muffins to be all baked and ready to go. I recommend stabbing them with a toothpick, so they know who’s boss, and also so you can find out if they’re ready (they’re ready when batter doesn’t stick to them).

Put them on a wire rack to cool. Be really careful when you take them out of the muffin pan, because I don’t want to have burned the everlovingfuck out of my fingers for nothing.

You can eat them right away, while they’re hot, but they’ll be a little chewy. If you prefer them to be slightly less chewy, let them cool for about 20 minutes or whatever.

These have like up to 70000000 calories in them but they also give you superpowers if you make them right, so it’s a tradeoff.

EDITED TO ADD: I’m not a particularly skilled baker, so maybe this recipe could benefit from leavening, like a teaspoon of baking powder, or maybe some baking soda (because it would theoretically react with the vinegar) but I don’t know for sure. If that sort of thing matters to you, the Internet has answers and suggestions for you. Oh, and this isn’t gluten free, but if you use your commas correctly, you could give it away and be like, “It’s gluten, free!”

slips into the sea, eventually

This thing I started writing a few weeks aog, which was supposed to be part of a short story collection, has completely taken on its own life, and instead of being a quick 3500 word thing about a single event, it’s become (as of today) a little over 21,000 words about the fragility of friendship, and what that means when we’re at that weird time in our lives between elementary and middle school.

I’m pretty sure that I’m in the middle of the second act, so maybe this will finish up in another 10,000 words or so. Once that happens, I’ll set it aside for a couple of days to let my brain get some perspective, and then I’ll go over the whole thing to see if it even holds together.

I started writing this because I loved Stranger Things so much, and it made me remember a bunch of stuff about the summer of 1983, when I was 11 years-old. It was the first time I had a real crush on anyone, the first time I learned that adults can be horrible even though they’re adults and they aren’t supposed to be horrible (especially to kids), and what it’s like to lose friends who are important to us.

Some of it is true, most of it isn’t, but all of it has been incredibly rewarding and fun to write. Today, I’m finishing up a thing is on one level about making a sandcastle, but is also about something else entirely. I thought I’d share some of it:

We picked up a couple of big, plastic cups and one of those buckets you buy at the supermarket, the ones that come with a little plastic shovel. Evelyn invited Brandon to join us, and the three of us got to work on our sand castle.

Some of the other kids were on either side of us, building their own castles. One group of girls was making something that reminded me of a big octopus. Dana and the CITs walked around us, offering encouragement and what was probably taught in their training as positive reinforcement.

“I think we should have a tall castle, on top of a hill,” Brandon said.

“Yeah, with a moat around it,” I said, “and some walls out here.” I dragged my finger through the sand a couple feet away from where the moat would go.

“Why do you need walls if there’s a moat?” He said.

Somewhere in my brain, the hours I’d spent playing D&D, and the days I’d spent reading books and modules filled with diagrams and illustrations of keeps and castles joined together and shoved a torrent of words out of my mouth before I could stop them.

“A moat only holds back a small number of foot soldiers, and is really only effective during a siege. It stops a coordinated attack from more than one side, if you only have a single drawbridge opening, which is good, but you want to have a large parade ground that surrounds your castle so your archers can protect it if an enemy breaches the walls beyond that. You can build parapets on the walls, too, and have an additional layer of protection from orcs. Also, walls prevent trebuchets and catapults and siege towers from easily getting close to the castle, itself. See, the inside of a castle can only ho –”

“Okay okay okay,” he said, impatiently, “I don’t need a whole stupid history lesson.”

I felt my face get hot, and I shot a glance at Evelyn. She either hadn’t heard us or wasn’t paying attention, as she built up a small mound of sand in front of her.

“Sorry,” I said, quietly.

Without looking at us, she said, “Walls look cool, Brandon. Let’s put walls around it.”

That’s from the first draft I cranked out today, so it’s still raw and will likely get rewritten, or maybe even cut entirely. But right now, shortly after I finished writing it, I like it and the memories it stirs up.

I don’t know what’s going to happen with this thing, and I won’t know until it’s finished. But no matter what I end up doing with it, I have learned so much about myself as a writer and artist in the last few weeks that I’ve been writing it. I’ve developed confidence that I didn’t have before, and I feel like I have found my way back to the art, which is something I realized I’d been missing more than I knew. I’m trying so hard to get an audition for the next season of Stranger Things, and I haven’t been able to do it, even though there’s a character that I could play. As recently as a few weeks ago, I would be struggling every single day with the depression and frustration that sort of thing brings into my life, but instead of spending all this time feeling hopeless and adrift, I’m happy and inspired, artistically fulfilled, and feeling productive (where I had been feeling totally useless for a long, long time).

 

The August Reboot Check-In

Near the beginning of June, someone asked me if I was planning to do any travel during the summer.

“No, I’m staying home to write a book,” I said.

“Oh? What’s it about?”

“It’s a collection of short stories that I’ve been wanting to tell for a long time, but haven’t had time to tell, because I’ve been doing other people’s work for the last couple of years.”

“That sounds like a cool project. And the year is only halfway done!”

“There’s another way of saying that,” I said. “The year is already halfway done.”

And so here we are, past the halfway point of the year. A long way past it, actually. Today is the 244th day of the year. There are 122 days left in 2016. Better start your holiday shopping.

I never thought I would have a midlife crisis, because the way they are depicted in media and pop culture are anathema to me: the sports car, the clothes that look ridiculous on someone my age, fucking someone young enough to be my kid. These are all things I would never do (things that are pretty gross to me, actually) so I just figured that it wouldn’t happen to me.

But I read Henry Rollins’ column in the current issue of LA Weekly, and he mentioned something about having more days behind him than in front of him, and I realized that, yes, I’m having a midlife crisis. It’s not that I want or need to do any of those gross things I just listed; it’s the feeling that there are more days behind me than ahead of me. It’s the feeling that I’m running out of time to do the things I want to do, and the fear that comes with that. It’s feeling the world around me change and leave me behind. It’s seeing young people who have no idea just how fast they’re going to be me. I guess it’s the feeling that motivated me to do this reboot in the first place. I may have fewer days behind me than in front of me (or maybe not; my generation is probably going to live for a really long time, maybe even to a point when we can upload ourselves into computers … unless we’ve already uploaded ourselves into computers and all of this is an illusion) but I’m going to make the most of them, to the best of my ability.

So let’s check in and see how things are going.

For those of you who have forgotten, or who are here for the first time, the changes I decided to make late last year are:

Drink less beer.
Read more (and Reddit does not count as reading).
Write more.
Watch more movies.
Get better sleep.
Eat better food.
Exercise more.

 

Drink less beer. So I quit drinking entirely in January, so this feels like a cheat and an easy A. I’m keeping this on the list, though, because I like that I make an affirmative choice every day to not drink, and to dig deeper into the reasons behind that. I’ve been thinking a lot about this particular part of my reboot, especially all the reasons I drank more alcohol than was healthy for me, and how my life is different since I quit. More than anything else, I just feel more present in my life. I get more out of my days. I’m more productive, I’m healthier, and I’ve lost nearly all the weight I wanted to lose (this goddamn last 1.5 pounds is turning out to be as reluctant to fuck off as it was when it was 3 pounds, and it tasks me.)

The last week or so has been really shitty for my Depression and anxiety, and choosing to not add the depressant effect of alcohol (that tricks you into thinking that it is the opposite of that, when it’s actually making everything so much worse) is the right thing for me. Because I have been present in my life, because I have been willing to face the good and bad things head on, because I have refused to be a victim and because it’s been really fucking hard for the last ten or so days, I have earned an A+.

Read more (and Reddit does not count as reading). I finally read Cat’s Cradle, and it blew my mind. It inspired me to think about a lot of things from a Bokononist perspective, and I haven’t processed all of it, but I still find a lot of comfort and serenity in it. Busy, busy, busy. I picked up William Gibson’s The Peripheral again, after putting it down a couple months ago. It’s dense, and in true Gibson fashion, demands to be carefully read and re-read, rewarding me or leaving me behind, accordingly. It isn’t light reading at all, but it’s enjoyable, interesting, and keeping me turning pages. I’ve read three issues of Lightspeed Magazine, caught up on several issues of Mental Floss, Mother Jones, The Nation, Playboy, and WIRED. I’ve been reading almost every day, and deliberately getting offline to read almost every evening. I just picked up a couple of books for writers yesterday, and I’m picking around them. More on those next time. For the month of August, though: A+.

Write more. Well, I’ve done 18000 words this month just one one story, plus close to another 12000 or so on my blog and various other places online and off. Until I got distracted and tried to kick Lucy’s Audition football twice in a week, I was feeling super productive, very content, and like a real creative artist. I haven’t written every day, but that’s okay. The thing about writing (at least for me) is that I can be writing when I’m not sitting at the keyboard. It’s a state of mind as much as anything else, and I am in it. One of the reasons I put this on my list was to make myself choose to write, instead of doing something else, like play games or fuck off, or wrap myself in a blanket of Depression and try not to suffocate. I have had the single most productive month of the year, building on a very productive and satisfying month of July. When people ask me what I do, I can honestly, confidently, and proudly say, “I’m a writer.” A+

Watch more movies. Like writing, this was something I needed to change because I was spending too much time looking at Twitter because someone was wrong on the Internet, reading Reddit because someone was wrong on the Internet, and not entertaining and inspiring myself with movies because someone was wrong on the Internet. I watched a ton of movies this month, from weird, experimental Kenneth Anger films to Republic Serials, to modern films that I was late to the party on. Two standout films for me were The Invitation, and Guardians of the Galaxy. “Wait, Wil Wheaton,” you are saying, “Guardians of the Galaxy came out a hundred years ago in Internet time!” You are right. I have tried to watch it at least half a dozen times, but I kept finding myself looking at it instead of watching it, because the visual effects are so fucking incredible. I finally forced myself to stop doing that, and just enjoy the story. It’s easily my favorite of all the Marvel movies to date, edging out Deadpool by a Groot. Anne and I also started Daredevil (holy shit is it amazing) and finished Outcast (Kirkman, call me if you need a guy like me because I love your show). I also started Bojack Horseman, which I had avoided because it looked like one of those Adult Swim stoner shows, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which I just hadn’t gotten around to watching. So: I was totally wrong about Bojack Horseman. It’s incredible, and I can relate to it in a way that makes me uncomfortable. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is hilarious, and Rachel Bloom is a national goddamn treasure who we don’t deserve. I include television with movies because we are living in a moment of nearly perfect television that is, on average, more entertaining than most movies. Part of being an artist is finding inspiration in other people’s work, and I’m getting a ton of inspiration from the performances and the filmmaking that I see on television. A+

Get better sleep. WELP. Something had to wreck the curve, and this is it. In my defense, it’s not my fault. I’m doing everything I can to get better sleep: wearing the dumb goggles before bed, reading before bed, sticking to a regular schedule as best as I can, no caffeine in the afternoons, and regular exercise. But the things that are outside of my control, like my stupid goddamn broken fucking brain that insists on waking me up at 2am every fucking morning so it can remind me about all the things I hate about myself, or my stupid goddamn brain deciding to wake me up every hour just to remind me that it can, so ha ha ha who’s laughing now, meatbag. My nightmares are relentless and I wake up almost every morning feeling like I’ve hardly slept at all. I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that this has lined up almost exactly with the worst Depression and Anxiety I’ve felt in months. If I were to base this on my effort, I get an A, because I really am doing all that I can, but — you know what? I am going to give myself an A. It’s not my fault that my brain is being an asshole.

Eat better food. When I started my reboot, my diet was garbage. Sure, I tried to tell myself otherwise, but a 44 year-old can not live on burritos alone and expect to stay healthy. I’ve been doing a pretty good job staying on target with my calorie and macronutrient goals, and what was threatening to become a serious ice cream situation is mostly under control. When we eat out, which is rare, we always go to someplace that makes healthful food, but mostly we cook our meals at home. I can’t look at the last month or so and say, “well, this was garbage” over and over again, so I’m on target with this one, too. Because I could probably dial back ice cream a little bit (cholesterol is a thing we middle-aged dudes have to worry about), I’m giving myself a B+.

Exercise more. I’m running almost every day, and the days that I don’t run, I’m walking my dogs. I adjusted my step goal to 7000 from 10000, because I felt it was better to succeed at a realistic goal, than it was to consistently fail the ideal goal. I’m in season 2 of Zombies, Run!, and I have my average up to 5K or about 35 minutes, whichever comes first. I’m doing a combination of running and walking, so my time isn’t as fast as it would be if I was training, but I don’t care about that. I’d like to get myself up to running for 30 minutes without stopping, so I can start training to do 10K, and then a half marathon in the next six months or so. I’m proud of myself, because I have made myself put on the shoes and hit the road even when I haven’t really wanted to. I don’t make excuses, I make steps and then strides, and before I know it I’ve done my exercise and I am always glad that I did. A friend of mine has this concept of “Future Me” who is always grateful to “Past Me” for doing something that “Present Me” is happy about. I think maybe I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s been a helpful way for me to think about stuff. I like Future Me, and I want to do nice things for Future Me, especially when Past Me was selfish and Present Me is feeling shitty because of it. All the versions of me get an A this month.

Okay let’s total up my score and see how I did. Last month, I thought I was on track for an A+, but I didn’t quite get there. I got 28/30 for an A, which was still pretty great, all things considered, and this month it’s …. (you can’t tell, but that ellipsis, actually represents about two minutes of counting and scoring): 31/30! Holy shit I get a very high A, that I could probably curve up to A+ if I wanted, but I won’t because I want to really earn it without a curve when it happens.

One last thing I wanted to mention, that may interest you if you’ve read this far: I have had a ton of help from my son, Nolan, who is an internationally licensed trainer, with certifications in fitness nutrition and performance nutrition. Nolan has guided and counseled me every step of the way, and it has made all the difference.

Nolan has started doing remote training, using e-mail and videoconferencing to guide and help his clients. If you’re interested in having a professional help you reach your fitness and/or nutrition goals, I know that he can help you. He’s at Nolan Wheaton dot Com. Tell him that I sent you.

I know that some of you are rebooting with me. How’s it going?

i’m having trouble breathing in

One of the many delightful* things about having Depression and Anxiety is occasionally and unexpectedly feeling like the whole goddamn world is a heavy lead blanket, like that thing they put on your chest at the dentist when you get x-rays, and it’s been dropped around your entire existence without your consent.

Physically, it weighs heavier on me in some places than it does in others. I feel it tugging at the corners of my eyes, and pressing down on the center of my chest. When it’s really bad, it can feel like one of those dreams where you try to move, but every step and every motion feels like you’re struggling to move through something heavy and viscous. Emotionally, it covers me completely, separating me from my motivation, my focus, and everything that brings me joy in my life.

I live with Depression and Anxiety. I take medication, I practice meditation and CBT, and I see a therapist regularly to help me handle it. It doesn’t control my life, and it doesn’t define my life … but when it’s really bad, it sure feels like it does. When it’s really bad, it feels like it is the only thing in my entire life, the Alpha and Omega of my existence.

And so it was on Saturday. I’d felt it a little bit during the week, but I honestly couldn’t tell if it was the slow, relentless suffocation of anxiety, or if I was just really tired. I also have occasional mono flareups, because that lives inside my body, and it could have been that, even. The fun** thing about anxiety and exhaustion is that, for me, they feel largely indistinguishable from each other, and one typically feeds the other in a perpetual motion cycle that is horribly efficient.

But by Saturday, I felt terrible.I didn’t want to be a victim, and I didn’t want to be a prisoner in my own life, so I took a walk that turned into a run that turned into a walk, that turned back into a run. It was really hard to keep going, but I did it, and while I was out on the road, listening to my playlist and exercising my body, I tried to use the rational part of my brain to objectively look back on the week, and figure out what the hell happened to open the anxiety floodgates. I got a ton of writing done, and I enjoyed every bit of it. I’m super proud of the work I’m doing, and I think I’m going to have something that’s worth publishing when it’s finished. I don’t feel creatively stifled like I did as recently as a month ago, so that couldn’t be it. I even had an audition I didn’t expect, for a role that I was perfect for, on a show that I love, that —

And there it was. The audition.

If you’re one of those people who decides that talking about this is whining, please stop reading this now and go fuck yourself.

I auditioned for this show about a year ago, and I nailed it. I know that I nailed it, because the producers told me I nailed it, and they wanted to wait until there was a larger role on the show for me, instead of using me to play a character that was in and out in a single episode. So when they called me back for a different role last week, a role that was on a few episodes and was right in my wheelhouse, I thought “this is the thing they were talking about! This is the thing I am going to book!”

For at least ten years — a fucking decade — I never book the job, so it’s really, really hard to go into auditions and not feel like Charlie Brown running toward the football. But this time was different. I prepared, I did a great job in the room, casting told me I did a great job in the room, and I even asked my friend who is on the show if they wouldn’t mind putting in a good word for me.

I had the audition on Wednesday, and for most of thursday, I let myself feel hopeful. But by the end of the day, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. I felt like an idiot for getting my hopes up, I was embarrassed and humiliated that I asked my friend to help me out, and I felt like a jackass for letting myself believe that this time anything would be different.

So that’s where all my anxiety was coming from. That’s why I didn’t sleep well all week. That’s why I felt the lead apron of Depression and Anxiety fall over me and wrap itself around me: I let myself feel like it could maybe happen, while I was simultaneously trying really hard not to get my hopes up.

I realize that to anyone who doesn’t have the stupid fucking mental illness that I have this seems really, incredibly, profoundly stupid. Most of being an actor who auditions is about being rejected, passed over, not chosen. It’s just the math of it.

But I let myself believe that this time was different. Just like I let myself hope that the time before it was different.

But it’s never different. It’s never going to be different, until it suddenly is different, and there’s nothing I can do to make that change … but I have to hope and somehow believe that this time it will be different, or I may as well hang it all up.

and that’s why i feel like i’m suffocating.

 

 

*not at all delightful

**not at all fun

Because you asked: some thoughts on Star Trek Beyond

This poster, though, is fantastic.

I was asked on my Tumblr thing what I thought about it, because I didn’t like the trailer at all (I said something like “I just saw this trailer for a generic sci-fi action movie, but everyone was wearing a Starfleet uniform.”)

Before I get into Beyond, some context: I’m the guy who worked on TNG, but was a massive TOS fan growing up (and still is). When I watch Star Trek movies, I don’t watch them as someone who actually went to Starfleet Academy (class of 2389 REPRESENT!) but as someone who loves Star Trek and cosplayed as Spock before he knew what cosplay was. So, that said, to recap: I loved the first rebooted Trek movie. It had its flaws, but none of them were big enough to upset me, so I give it 4 out of 5 jars of Red Matter. I really enjoyed Into Darkness when I was in the theater, but the more I thought about it after, the more it fell apart until I now have to give it 2 out of 5 tribbles-on-a-stick.

Star Trek movies are always going to have a hard time with fans of the series, because when we think about Star Trek, we think about 79 episodes of the original series, or our favorite 30 episodes of TNG, or the last season of DS9. We take something that’s been spread out over days of on-screen time, spread out across years of releases, and then compare all that character development and nuance and series of individual moments with something that has to be a fully-told and completely self-contained story in 90 or 120 minutes, and it has to be accessible (as defined by risk-averse studio goons) to as wide an audience as possible. So I think it’s unfair and unreasonable to directly compare the film installments of a long-running TV series to that series. I won’t do that with Star Trek Beyond. I’ll just compare it to the two previous installments in this series.

Without holding Beyond next to the hundreds of episodes of Star Trek we can watch on TV, and just looking at it as part of this current film trilogy: I was really disappointed by it. Unlike Into Darkness, which was a lot of fun for me in the theater but fell apart upon reflection, Beyond just fell apart while I was watching it. You can read more if you’d like to know some of my reasons. There are spoilers.

Let me start out by saying that I enjoyed a lot of it, before I completely turned on the movie and checked out. The first act is great, and so were parts of the second act. I loved the relationship between Spock and McCoy, I thought the swarm of whatever those ships were was really, really cool, and the Dyson Sphere starbase thing looked amazing. All the performances were solid, and the effects look great.

But with just a few very small cosmetic changes, the story could have been any generic sci-fi action movie produced in the last 20 years.

I really didn’t like that there was this amazing female character (who could keep a fucking STARSHIP HIDDEN for years while she survived on a hostile planet) who turned into The Girl For Kirk To Save the instant the boys showed up.

Someone who read this post in its original form on Medium also observed that Uhura was reduced to Spock’s girlfriend in this movie, and all the amazing stuff she’s capable of doing just sort of … vanished.

I hated hated hated hated the whole Sabotage thing. Instead of laughing and enjoying “is that classical music?” I just rolled my eyes, because by that point, I had turned on the movie.

The whole film was massively overdirected. The camera moves were indulgent and distracting, totally unnecessary, more than one time to establish the ship being on its side, and disoriented me the rest of the time.

There were, like, three? climaxes in the thing and by the final one I just didn’t care and wanted it to be over.

When we got to the message about strength through unity, it felt tacked on and preachy and unearned.

Do we really have to keep destroying the Enterprise?

I could go on, but I’d probably get into nitpicky stuff. Maybe I’m outside the demo now, and it’s not the movie’s fault that it didn’t deliver what I wanted. I know that a huge number of my friends who saw it loved it, and felt like it was the most “Star Trek-y” of the new films. I couldn’t disagree me. I think that if it was a generic sci-fi action movie, it would have been fine (I still hate the way a strong, competent, ass-kicking female character becomes the damsel in distress when the boys show up, though). But it’s supposed to be a Star Trek movie, and just like we have expectations for a Star Wars movie or even a Fast and Furious movie, I think movies should fulfill the promise of their premise.

Beyond was a Fast and Furious movie in space, and that’s not what I wanted to see. I give it 1 out of 5 motorcycles that are on the bridge of a starship for no logical reason, and still work after not being used for an incredibly long time for even less logical reasons.

we shone like the sun

I opened the window in my office, and moved my desk next to it. It’s hot outside, but there’s a gentle breeze that cools the air just enough to be comfortable when it comes through the screen. It’s quiet in my neighborhood today, except for a lawnmower up the street, and I can hear the occasional train go by, up near the river.

I read a story once about a kid who grew up in a small town, and slept with the windows open so he could hear the trains when they went by a few miles away. He worried that he’d be stuck in his town forever, and those trains represented freedom and a world that existed beyond the county limits.

I can’t remember the name of that story. Maybe I made it up. I’ve always wanted to tell a story about a kid who wants to get out of his small town, but can’t find his way. You know, like everyone else in the world.

Anne’s out of town, so I made a bunch of taco stuff on Monday, and I’ve been having tacos every night, because I’m one of those people who would wear the same thing every day if I could, on account of efficiency. Did you know that tacos were invented by the Dutch? Look it up. It isn’t true.

I had another audition, for a show that I love, playing a character I’d love to play. This is not a repost. It was yesterday. I didn’t suck, and now I’m trying hard not to let myself hope, but I’m secretly hoping.

I wrote 1300 words today, and finished with just over 15,000 on this story I’ve been telling for about a ten days. I thought it was going to be a 2000 word blog post or two, but it just kept on going, and now it’s looking like it will be a novella. It doesn’t have a title, but it’s set in 1983 (thank you, Stranger Things) so I call it 83 until I can think of a title. Here’s a little bit:

Until I sat down to recall this particular story, about this particular summer, I hadn’t thought about these guys, who I lost touch with over thirty years ago, in at least a decade. They are all frozen in amber at that age, during this moment of our lives. Stephen’s house has lots of dark wood on the walls, heavy gold/yellow/brown carpet, and an orange, conical, metal fireplace in the living room that looked like it was from some version of the future, imagined in the 70s. His television is big tube model, in a wooden cabinet with stereo speakers on either side. There’s a cable TV box on top that switches to ON TV and nothing else. His mom’s stereo takes up several shelves next to the TV, and she has a lot of record albums. Stephen only owns three that I can remember: Def Leppard’s Pyromania, Foreigner’s Four, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. They were all given to him by his older sister, who I’m now realizing was cooler than any of us thought when we were kids.

Some of that is true, most of it is from my imagination. This whole story is like that, and it’s been a lot of fun to write. I don’t know what I’ll do with it, or if it even works as a single narrative, but it’s something I need to do, so I’m doing it until it’s finished.

My dogs are keeping me company today. Marlowe is sleeping on the couch behind me, and Seamus is on the floor. Whenever I get up to refill my water or leave the room for some reason, he follows me, staying close. My dogs make me feel loved, and valued, and I allow myself to believe it is not just because I provide the food and walks.

I’m walking them every day, and running as much as I can. It hasn’t been that much, because it’s been really hot and something that my body hates is pollenating, but I’m getting about 7000 steps every day, and earning a small scoop of ice cream with dinner. I hit my target weight this morning, though I think I need to shave off one more pound to ensure that I stay here. Weight is just a number, and it really isn’t everything, but my scale is sort of like a score for me in my reboot, and I feel like I cleared a level today.

This story I’m writing is entirely fiction, but it’s based on real things that I did and real people I knew when I was a kid. It’s been a lot of fun to remember things the way they were, and then retell them the way I want to. It’s fun to think about kids I knew when we were eleven and twelve, because I haven’t thought about them in thirty years. Part of me really wants to step through time to go back to the summer I set this story in, so I can see the places I’m remembering and describing. Part of me wants to go back to those places right now, but I won’t, because doing that would tear apart the picture I have in my memory, and I want to keep it exactly the way it was.

I don’t know why it was important to me to start this off with the bit about my window, but it seemed relevant a little bit ago. Now it’s just a detail that ended up not being necessary.

But working with the window open is nice. I can smell flowers and wet dirt and cut grass, and it helps me to remember.

I wish time wasn’t linear.

 

 

 

a little boat looking for a harbor

It was Friday afternoon. My manager called me and said he was sending me audition sides for a meeting that would happen Monday or Tuesday. He told me about the show and the role, and in spite of everything I have learned in 37 years as an actor, I got excited because it was really fantastic stuff.

I read the sides, and extracted as much as I could about the character from them. See, there’s a preparation thing that I have to do whenever I’m going to perform a role, whether it’s for a job I’ve booked, an audition, something on-camera or a voice job: I read the scene (or the whole script) and I ask a series of questions based on what it tells me. What does this person want? What’s in his way? How does he feel about that? What does he do about how he feels?

Sometimes, a scene makes the answers to those questions really easy to find. It’s there in the dialog, and in the prose that the writer uses to describe the scene. Sometimes, the characters are drawn so clearly, finding those answers is as easy as reading the words on the page. But most of the time, I have to do some work to find the writer’s intention, so that I can take words on a page and turn them into a character that makes the audience feel something. For this particular audition, the character was fairly clear, and though I didn’t get to read the entire script, the audition sides were an interesting scene that told me a lot about who he was, and why he was interacting with the other character in the scene.

I broke the scene into some broad strokes, so that I knew what he wanted. Then I broke down the lines into specific actions that let him deal with what was in his way, and how he felt about those things. To be completely honest, this is my very favorite part of being an actor. I love breaking down a script and then breaking down its scenes and then breaking down those scenes into even more specific actions, so that every single thing I do, every choice I make, is logical and real and grounded in the reality of the character and the world he lives in.

So Friday evening came around, and I hadn’t heard from casting, so I knew I wasn’t going to be called in on Monday. Monday arrived, and as the day went on, I heard nothing, and I began to wonder if the producers had offered the job to someone else over the weekend. My manager called me as I was writing an email to him, and he told me I had an appointment the following morning. It was a period piece, and I happened to own some clothing that is appropriate (and would hide my tattoos), so I asked if it would be weird to wear it.

“Casting actually asked if you could please dress as much in the period as possible,” he told me. So that was pretty awesome.

I went to work on the scene. I developed my understanding of the character, including what was at stake for him, why he was there, and what he wanted. Then I realized that there was a power dynamic in play, and that thought he was giving the appearance of being there to do something for the other character, what he actually wanted to do was set her up, so he could use her to get the thing he really wanted. I have to say that I was particularly proud of myself for uncovering that, because it wasn’t super clear in the text. It was there as one possible interpretation, and I decided to make that my interpretation. If I was wrong, I’d find out in about 15 hours.

Preparing this audition was fun, mostly because all the writing I’ve been doing lately has put me into an artistic frame of mind that made it easy to see what the writer intended. Preparing this audition wasn’t intimidating, because I’ve been doing so much voice acting, I have a confidence and security in my ability to perform that I wouldn’t have, otherwise.

So I went into the meeting on Tuesday morning feeling really solid and confident and comfortable.

And I did a great job. I only read the scene once, and the casting director told me that she didn’t need me to do it again.

And I knew that I wasn’t going to get the job, because I never get the job.

But I still had fun, and I still enjoyed it, and I’m still proud of the work that I did, because when the casting director described the character’s motivation to me, she told me to do exactly what I had already prepared. Something like that does a lot for an actor’s confidence, you know?

So I nailed it. And I let myself believe, for a very brief moment, that maybe I had a chance to play this character, who will be on this show for seven of ten episodes. Maybe this will be the time that I got lucky and all those things I can’t control, all those things that are not my performance, would line up in my favor. Maybe I’d get to do some work that would be rewarding and challenging and memorable and important.

But I didn’t get the job. They loved me, but went with someone else. I don’t know why, just that they did. They always do.

And even though I know, intellectually, that there’s nothing wrong with me, that I didn’t go in there and stink it up, that there are countless factors out of my control that have nothing to do with the one thing I could control and all it takes is one of those things to not go my way …. But I still feel, emotionally and irrationally, like there is something wrong with me, because I never book the job. I feel like I got my one swing of the bat for the season, put the ball in play like I was supposed to, and still didn’t get on base.

And now I have to find and focus on the good things in this experience, like how much fun it was to prepare it, how I did a good job for a casting director who will hopefully bring me back for other roles on other shows, or maybe another role on this show. I have to remember that feeling proud of myself, feeling creatively satisfied, feeling like I did a good enough job to earn the role even if I didn’t get cast, I have to remember that all of those things are real, and valid, and it’s okay to have felt good when they happened.

Even though I know all of those things, all I feel right now is disappointment. Even though I knew it was coming, even though I knew I wouldn’t get the part, because I never get the part, I am still really sad that I didn’t get the part.