Something something rearview mirror blog posts 2009. This is continued from part three.
I told the world what happens when you feed a dog chocolate while he wears a tinfoil hat in the microwave.
My friend Mike (@cwgabriel) and I engaged in the great retweeting madness of 2009, which I totally won.
I went to Comicon and, uh, got excited:
... and that's when I saw that Joss Whedon was sitting in the front row. About ten feet from me.
Let's take a look inside Wil's head, shall we:
Me: OMG OMG OMG
Brain: What?
Me: JOSS WHEDON IS RIGHT THERE! HE CAME TO THE PANEL AND HE'S RIGHT THERE!
Brain: Okay, just be cool.
Me: OKAY I'M BEING COOL.
Brain: No, you're staring.
Me: What?
Brain: You're staring. Stop staring.
Me: Shit. Okay. I'm not staring now. [pause] HOLY CRAP DID YOU SEE THAT JOSS WHEDON IS RIGHT THERE IN THE FRONT ROW?!
Brain: Yes, you mentioned that. Also, you're staring again.
Eventually, I broke out of the loop, which in WhetonIX looks like: (if near.joss=1, do {stare.like.idiot} fi;), and I enjoyed the rest of the panel.
Anne turned 40, and we had a radical bitchin' 80s costume party for her.
I found an old photograph of the four of us from Stand By Me that unlocked a flood of memories:
I forget what day this picture was taken, but it was 1986, right after Stand By Me had been released. There we are, sitting on chairs in the green room, waiting to go be interviewed by (I think) Ron Reagan, Jr. It was my first trip to New York, and I remember how excited I was to go to that huge, almost mythical city, see Times Square, ride the subway, visit the Statue of Liberty, and hang out with Jerry in his home town.
[...]
I've always said that Stand By Me was so successful because Rob cast four young actors who were so much like their characters, but I think it's spooky how the four of us ended up being so much like our characters: River died too young, Corey struggled like crazy to get his personal demons under control, Jerry found success and happiness, and I'm a writer.
...I have had a fucking weird life, man.
My dog Ferris, who Anne rescued from a bus stop in Monrovia where she'd been abandoned when she was just a puppy got cancer, and died. It was absolutely devastating.
I saw Ferris' empty dish last night when I fed Riley, and it unleashed an agonizing wave of sadness so overwhelming, I dropped to the floor in our living room and cried as hard and as long as I ever have in my life.
After she was finished eating, Riley came over to me and sniffed at my face. Through my tears and gasping sobs, I told her it was okay, I just missed Ferris a lot and I was sad.
She rubbed her face against my cheek and trotted into the family room. A moment later, she returned with her soggy tennis ball, which she gently put into my lap. She looked up at me, and then walked into the corner of the family room, where she picked up her rope - her favorite toy, which she brings with her to the front door whenever we come home - and brought it over to me. She set it on the ground next to me, and then laid down and put her head in my lap. I cried for a good long time, but I was comforted by Riley's actions, even if I'm projecting my own feelings onto her. I felt like she could tell I was grieving, so she brought me the things that make her happy, before letting me cry on her until the fur on her neck was soaked with my tears. When I finally stopped, mostly because I was physically and emotionally exhausted, I felt a tiny bit better.
Ferris was just eight years-old, and a huge part of our family. I still miss her every day.
I wrote some fiction, and released it as a limited-edition chapbook at PAX. It was my first foray into anything longer than a blog post, and scared the hell out of me to release. I still haven't decided if I'll publish it at Lulu like I did with Sunken Treasure.
I started a weekly podcast to promote Memories of the Future called, appropriately enough,Memories of the Futurecast. It eventually got so fun and so popular, I gave it its ownwebsite.
When I was at PAX, Jonathan Coulton, Molly Lewis, and Paul and Storm sang a song to me. Just thinking about it now still brings tears to my eyes. It was one of the highlights of the year, if not the entire decade. Know what else I got at PAX? H1N1. Yay.
The third series of the D&D Penny Arcade podcast began. It, uh, didn't end too well for Aeofel.
In memory of Ferris, Anne and I held a fundraiser for the Pasadena Humane Society's Wiggle Waggle Walk. Due to the generosity of WWdN readers, we ended up raising more money than any other individual - almost $14,000. Because so many people contributed to our effort, the humane society asked us to walk a shelter dog. We loved him so much, we adopted him and made him part of our family. His name is Seamus, and he's awesome. Yes, he'll get his own post with pictures and everything, just not right now.
To be continued in part five...
