Shatner: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship, Xanna D, her continuing mission to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no girl has gone before.

THAT’S RIGHT, KIDS! I FINALLY MET WILLIAM SHATNER!!!

And I pretty much nearly died from euphoria.

You all know I am the biggest science-fiction female freak in the entire universe. And if you don’t, then what the heck are you doing reading this blog? I write Star Wars books (that someday I hope to make into a television series), I write sci-fi reviews for movies, I read sci-fi novels, I play sci-fi video games, I have Star Wars posters all over my room, my movie collection consists of 99% sci-fi. Even now I am currently watching ALL the Star Trek series—EPISODES IN ORDER.

Now, I don’t wanna start up a war on who’s more sci-fi-nerdy than the other, but I just wanna prove that I am, indeed, OBSESSED with all things to do with space, truly the final frontier.

To this day I still want to be buried on the moon when I die, or be put in a capsule and shot into space. That would make all my dreams come true.

But, first things first. I met the man himself, Mr. William T. Shatner…sorry, I just had to throw in the T. Forgive me, Bill.

Let me just tell you, my life is officially complete. I can die tomorrow and by okay with it.

So let me tell you how it happened…

One day I posted my status on Facebook saying “I still can’t get over William Shatner…sexiest man ever!” Or something like that…

The next morning, I woke up to a Facebook message from a theater friend of mine saying, “You know Shatner’s going to be at my house filming in two weeks, right? Why don’t you come over and just hang out?”

I bolted out of bed and a slew of shocked profanity flew from my mouth. “Are you &*^@$#$&**&%*@ KIDDING ME?!?!”

Of course I said yes. But there was a little voice inside my head saying it’ll never happen, you want this too much. Anytime I really want something, it usually evades me. So I tried to forget about it. Then, a few days before the shoot, my friend contacted me again to remind me to come out. Yeah, sure, okay…

I wanted this so badly I could feel the bad karma finding me.

The day came for me to hang out during the shoot. Also, on that day, I had a scheduled audition later that night. I wondered ironically, How is it that everything happens on the same day?…

I went to my friend’s house around lunch break, ate delicious halibut, gourmet steamed veggies, mashed potatoes, and pineapple slaw, finishing it with Perrier Lemonade. I met most of the crew members, all of them extremely friendly and welcoming. But William Shatner was nowhere to be seen. He was having lunch privately in his room.

A few hours went by and I anxiously kept checking my phone’s time. I was cutting close to when I needed to leave for my audition. The location was two and a half hours away.

I finally came to terms with myself: when will you get another chance to meet William Shatner??? Probably never again. So I decided to sacrifice my audition for Mr. Shatner.

Many hours passed. I got to see Shatner shoot his scenes. I even caught him glancing at me sideways, which thrilled me to the bone. I smiled at him and he smiled back. He seemed like such a nice person, pleasant and good humored. He laughed with the filming crew and his voice was a deep bass, husky and sweet.

Finally, they wrapped at 5pm. I knew I had missed my opportunity to audition at this point, considering my scheduled time was 6:30pm…again, two and a half hours away.

But then I finally got to meet Mr. Shatner. Handsome, charming, gentle and polite, he was.

I got my first picture with him, in which I very much noticed how strong a grip he had around my waist. More thrills to my bone.

But when I checked my camera to see how it turned out, I noticed he blinked.

Oh no, I need another! I thought. I had to have a perfect picture. Who knew when I had another chance like this?

Finally I worked up the nerve to ask him again.

“Mr. Shatner?” I said meekly. “Is it okay if I have another picture of you?”

And he said, with his deep bassoon-like voice, “Well, it depends on with whom?”

And I said, “Well, with me.”

“Well then, get over here,” he said, smiling with arms wide open.

With that, I nearly died, falling into his arms and into the stars of the universe.

I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I was. I was beaming the rest of the day and more. I have had so much admiration and respect for this man. I’d seen things he’d done even before the Star Trek series aired, aka Thriller’s Grim Reaper, which is one of the most frightening episodes I’ve ever seen. This was mostly due to William Shatner’s performance, selling the horrific image of the Reaper purely through facial expression (you never got to see the actual Reaper) as Shatner went to his death.

After the picture was taken, I said, “It was truly a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Shatner. Really a pleasure.”

He smiled and said, “No, no. It was a pleasure for me.” Which, of course, made me blush as red as my jacket and I had to escape. So I nodded, smiled and walked away.

I said goodbye to the film crew that I had mingled with for hours, thanked my friend for inviting me out to enjoy the day with them, and made my way to my car.

“We’ll see you next week, right?” Shatner’s assistant called out to me.

I turned, startled. “What do you mean?”

“You’re coming back next week?” she repeated.

I looked at my friend, confused and not sure what to say. My friend nodded and smiled encouragingly.

“Is that allowed?” I asked finally, turning to the assistant.

She said, “Of course!” Then she leaned in closer, saying, “Trust me, all the guys here want to see you again,” and winked.

I was tempted to say, Does that include Bill?, but I knew better. The man was spoken for, of course.

In any case, being invited to hang out with the crew is a big enough thrill for me to not turn down. How could I say no? And besides, I’m a whimmer. And that’s what whimmers do.

And so begins another whimming adventure. In a galaxy far, far away…oh wait.

 

P.S. I DID make my audition later that night, only I was an hour and a half late. I decided to go anyway for the hell of it. I ended up getting a callback for Sweeney Todd.