Strugglelong and Prosper

I know I am probably the millionth person on earth to say this, but the new Star Trek movie is so awesome it hurts a little. I mean, seriously, it is delightful. There explosions and lasers and aliens abound. What I've always really loved about Star Trek, and what I think separates it from some of the other cult favorite sci-fi phenomenon, is that in Star Trek aliens are a give-in. I mean, they are just there. They are around. Everyone's cool with it, no one's like, Vulcan, what the hell is that? In Star Trek someone will be like, oh, meet my friend Iabsjtewiuglon, and everyone's like, oh, right, this guy, the pleasure's all mine, which tentacle should I shake? You just have to admire a series that is like, come one, come all, gay Asians, fierce Black girls, residents of the stars, as long as you are klingon free you are cool with me. But why, you might ask, am I making this revelation now? Well, because I literally just saw the movie. About 2 months later then every other person in the world.

In my defense, I was sort of busy with the not-Yale business and the graduating and the mental breakdown that accompanied all that. So by the time I had received my very expensive piece of paper from the nice man in the crazy velvet robes in not-New Haven, everyone I knew had already seen the movie. Fine, I thought, I will see it my self. And then I took a look at my bank account, fainted, woke up, looked again, threw up, and started formulating a plan that would allow me to experience the magic of Star Trek with no money down. That's right. I made my parents take me.

We saw the movie at the Imax Theater in not-Philadelphia's Franklin Institute Museum, which is a huge dome of a theater. Seeing a movie in that space is like, well, sort of like flying in a space ship, and as you can guess, having the world of Star Trek all around us was both amazingly exciting and scary as hell. Never have I been so worried about alien invasion as I was that night, and I worry about alien invasion a LOT. (Seriously. Battlestar Galactica could totally happen. Cylons are everywhere. Tell no one.) In our mad rush to make it to the movie on time after work, my parents had nobly sacrificed dinner, which made us almost willing to eat our own hands by the time we got our seats. Coming back from the concession stand, laden with popcorn to tide us over, I was hard-core hit on by the ticket guy. Seriously, do men think this works? "No, I don't currently have a boyfriend, but gosh, you look delightful! Let's make babies! I've always wanted to date a total stranger who checks me out as I struggle into a movie theater with my PARENTS." That guy needs to take a lesson from James Tiberius Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Girls like boys who have their own starships, save the world on a daily basis, and remind them of William Shatner.

At this angle doesn't our new cat, Falco, look kind of like an alien? Hopefully his race is a friendly one.