April '99

Oh the shame, the shame...

***

I admit it.

The rumours are true.

I was once a Parisite.

You'd never guess these days. A quick glance around my bedroom would reveal, among the DiCaprios and Will Smiths (and one treasured Billy Zane), no less than four Chakotay posters, providing a nice counterpoint (no episode reference intended) to the Janeways beside them. But, once upon a time, in the distant past of my early teens, I thought Tom Paris was cute.

Blame it on my innocence, my foolishness in thinking that a sexy drawl could compensate for a lack of facial art. My vague belief that anyone who could befriend a loser like Harry Kim had to be worthy of my crush, before I had discovered the joy in combining a first officer and an easy target. And my odd, though not unique, idea that there's something sexy about a hotshot pilot. (This may be genetic, though, my mother once admitted to a crush on Han Solo, while we both liked Antonio Sabato Jr's flyboy character in Earth 2.) Whatever the reason, I once paid fifteen dollars for a magazine with an interview with Robert Duncan McNeill.

But times change, and even teenybopper seaQuest fans grow up and learn to cringe (but that's a different confession all together...) And so it was that I saw "Resolutions" and became an instant J/C'er and Chakphile. I can't really explain that infatuation, except in the general sense that my parents had just split up, and Chakotay seemed like a sensible kind of guy who wouldn't bash his wife. And, when I was looking for a husband, maybe I'd want one like Chakotay.

I suspect there may be something fundamentally Oedipal about my crush on Chakotay.

At any rate, Tom Paris disappeared from my walls, to be relegated, along with seaQuest, Sweet Valley High and my frilly sailor dress, into a mental category known as "deeply embarrassing stuff which I'll just die if anyone finds out about", usually simplified as "blackmail stuff".

By now you're wondering why I'm discussing this, if public knowledge of my Paris-crush was once considered grounds for suicide. Well, it's simple.

I may be leaning in the Paris direction again.

Tom Paris has finally grown up and met my minimum respectability standards. Unfortunately, this hairline seems to have grown up with him, and don't even get me started on his double chin ... but he's okay. Like B'Elanna, I've finally seen beyond that pig boy barrier, and come to like him.

And so, while I still harbour a secret wish that Janeway and Chakotay will get together, I've taken down Leonardo-as-the-guy-from-Titanic and replaced him with RDM-as-Tom-Paris.

Anyone know where I can get me a pizza and some cheesy black and white SF?

Questions, comments, amusingly snide remarks and money can be emailed to elizabeth_barr@yahoo.com.au

Copyright © 1999 Elizabeth Barr

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