Star Trek: Insurrection

Welp, I'm sick. You can help me make a differential diagnosis:

1- A legit cold
2- A Kentucky-induced allergy attack
3- My body hates me for subjecting it to so much human contact over the last week and a half.

I don't know. Does being around other humans make your nose run? That seems like a thing.

Anyway, last night I watched Star Trek: Insurrection. This is the third TNG movie (that's counting Generations as the first) but it's more like a really awesome episode of the series. In short, some seriously Amishy people are inhabiting this gorgeous, idyllic planet in the middle of an otherwise pretty uninhabitable system (called "The Briar Patch," which I love) and some jerks (including Star Fleet) are picking on them. Data (who was supposed to be helping Star Fleet) don't take no mess and starts going all Crazy-Android on them until Captain Picard and Worf sing some show tunes to help him calm down. Then everyone starts kind of aging backwards and regaining their youth and Picard is all, "No one puts 300-year-old-Baby in the corner." Then--lots of fighting. Both space fighting and Picard in a t-shirt fighting. Pretty awesome.

Yep.

I love this one. Seeing everyone back, acting a lot like they did in the first season (Riker even shaves his beard) or even before (Worf is experiencing Klingon puberty) was refreshing. Back in May, I didn't want to say goodbye to my TNG friends so this episode-as-movie really hit the spot.

This movie has a ton of amazing moments. I mean, a ton. And that's something I've been thinking a lot about. Picard's seriously sexy lady friend specifically brings up the idea of wonderful moments--perfect moments. Her cultures lives at such a chill pace that its people can essentially slow down time to experience a moment more fully. She asks Picard whether he's ever experienced a memory that he would like to just live in. Instantly, he replies with, "The first time I saw my planet from space."

Yes. That does sound pretty damn amazing. I've obviously never gazed down from orbit at the little marble that housed every single thing and person relevant to my life so that's not the first thing that springs to mind. But I thought about it last night and today. I've had a few really great times in my life, moments that changed me, moments that I could have lived in. One really stands out. It's mine though. My perfect moment. And it's a great thing to think about when I don't feel so great. It's an escape when I'm sitting somewhere away from home, without my own bed or my own TV, facing humans on a daily basis, and sneezing into tea made in someone else's kitchen.