I was considering dabbling in the spiritual when a new actress was introduced into the cast that next season, a beautiful brunette named Dianne, and she was bigger into the enlightenment stuff than most people I’d met. We hit it off and started getting together outside of work. I was thrilled with the prospect of having found someone who might lead me through the maze of religions and philosophies I’d been reading about, and she was equally excited at the opportunity to lead me. Not long after we started seeing each other, she invited me to attend her weekly séance. Intrigued but slightly dubious, I accepted.

She was in the process of working through mother issues in therapy, and the fact that her mother had died five years before and was no longer around to talk to was making it difficult. So Dianne’s plan was to summon her and ask her a few things straight out. She’d been to three séances already, but Mrs. Wallington’s spirit was being uncooperative and had yet to show up when requested. I was with her on the fourth try, when Mrs. Wallington’s spirit was again a no-show—although the spirit of another customer’s great-grandfather blew out the candle on the center of the table and slammed shut a window, which put an end to my forays into the spiritual realm. It pretty much ended Dianne’s interest in it too; she only went once more before giving up entirely and going to primal scream therapy instead.

Dianne and I began dating seriously toward the middle of my fifth season on DC. She was everything I had ever hoped to find in a woman: beautiful, talented, intelligent but not intellectually threatening, driven, and amazing in bed. In my opinion, sleeping with her in and of itself was a transcendental experience. Forget all that spiritual crap the rest of Hollywood was throwing itself into; if you asked me they just hadn’t found the right person to sleep with.

Once sex was part of the relationship, we pretty much relocated to the bedroom. We didn’t go out very often; we’d put in a few minutes at the parties that were good for us to be seen at, and then we’d make excuses and leave for home, usually whoever’s home happened to be closest. She lived on the other side of the city, and it didn’t take long for us to get sick of the your-place-or-my-place question, so after six months we decided to move in together. My place was closer to the studio and slightly larger than hers, so in she came.