Sunday, July 02, 2006

A brush with celebrity #2

Aaaah, what a day… hours of shopping with Marcosy (I bought flip-flops!), followed by a trip to the cinema with Jo to see The Lake House (which was pretty good, but not amazing enough to dethrone Star Trek IV and Back to the Future as my favourite time travel movies).

How to round off this weekend? Ooo… How about A brush with celebrity, part deux:

So, a few months after I began work at my current company, around October '99, word got round that one of the stars of Star Trek was actually going to come into the office - indeed, would be having lunch with us! Would I finally have the chance to put on a Gorn costume and wrestle Shatner? Would I be able to ask Walter Koenig to say "nuclear wessels" in person? Or could I get George Takei to say "Oh my!" to my face?

Nope. Because the person who was coming in to see us was none other than relative Deep Space Nine newbie Nicole de Boer. Despite the fact that she'd only appeared in one season of DS9 I was still massively excited. You must remember I was only around 21-22 at this point in time, so I was pretty much excited by anything. Here's your paycheck - "WAHAY!" - here's some chocolate - "REALLY!? WOW!" - look, a stick - "Ooo, stick!" I think you get the idea.

Anyway, it probably doesn't matter that I thought/still think that she was/is super hot.

So the day of Nicole's appearance arrives, and I'm sitting there vibrating away in excitement, having remembered to change my Seven of Nine screensaver to an Ezri Dax one. And then there she was - walking down the driveway with her friend whose name I can't recall because she wasn't famous or in Star Trek, and was thus totally unimportant to me.

Nicole comes into the office, politely greets everyone, and does her best to look excited and not at all frightened by being trapped in an office full of what appears to be uber-nerds.

"Let's all go to lunch," someone said (because we're taking Nicole out to lunch - and not just to McDonalds for a Happy Meal - although I'm sure she would've been thrilled with whatever that week's toy was). Off to lunch we strolled then, to a posh restaurant called The Brackenbury.

During the course of the walk there, Marcosy and I either hung back, or strolled ahead, because we were showing Nicole that we were *SO* cool, and not in the least bit intimidated by her Hollywood-starriness. Also, I was a tad nervous because I'd actually just written an article for a different publication that made reference to her having an old man's worm inside her (she was a Trill, you see).

So we get to the restaurant and take our seats, and whadya know, I'm sitting next to Nicole! Yes, I effectively pitched my tent right next to he- Um... Hmmm... bad choice of phrase. Anyway, so we sit there, exchanging pleasantries, and suddenly she whips out a camcorder and starts camcording us all (Yes! Nicole de Boer has footage of me!).

After that little ice-breaker, I started to relax a bit, cracked a little joke here or there... Oh, and Marcosy was getting on super-massively well with her friend, whatserface, which was nice because it meant I pretty much had Nicole all to myself.

It was a beautiful thing, people - I knew this when we started talking music.

"I love David Bowie," she said.

I shook my head in disbelief. "You do? Gosh! I *love* David Bowie too!" And in that moment our eyes met, and as everything around us pailed into insignificance I could see the future that lay before us… I saw us running in fields in slow motion, I saw her in her Starfleet dress uniform as we got married, our honeymoon on Risa … the children, oh the beautiful, beautiful half human, half Trill children, our wonderful home in the countrysi-

"I'm trying to get my fiance into Bowie too."

YOUR WHAT?!

"My fiance - he's in a rock band!"

WHAT?! DID YOU JUST SAY FIANCE!? FIAN- DUMP HIM. DUMP HIM NOW! HE'S NO GOOD FOR YOU!!

At least that's what went through my head. In reality I just said something like "that's super!" Then I smiled, and Nicole de Boer walked out of my life forever.

They say time mends a broken heart, but I still have difficulty watching Season Seven of Deep Space Nine.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did Tim Russ (the Voyager Vulcan, for Sparky readers and non-Trekkies) have the same effect on you when he came into the office for lunch?

That would be worrying...

As I didn't bother going for lunch with either Nicole or Mr. Russ (does this make me über über cool?), I didn't see what people were like with him...

Tim said...

No, Russ was waaaaaay before my time...

Anonymous said...

didn't she drink yo under the table last time you met?

Tim said...

Who, Nicole? I think we were both being good and not drinking.

Though seeing as she has, like, eight life time's of experience, the constitution of an old man, and a fresh young liver I reckon she'd be hot to trot in a drinking contest.

Yo Nicole! You reading this? Call me - let's do absinthe!