Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

(Continued from Comic Con Day 2 Recap, Part 1.)

From there, I went to the Dumbrella booth where Wil Wheaton was supposed to be signing autographs. I got there about 5:40, in plenty of time for his 5:30-6:30 signing, except I didn’t remember his Twitter post correctly because it was really 4:30-5:30. Crap! I got lucky, though, because around the back of the booth I spotted him (squee!) being interviewed. Not knowing how quickly he was going to run off afterwards, I stood back and took a photo.

As I waited like a real geek in my bold black and yellow Star Wars tee, I realized that the woman interviewing him was Leah from Mahalo Daily. Cool! The interview kept going, so I meandered around the adjacent booths pretending to be looking at their stuff when really I was just waiting in the wings to pounce on Wil when the taping stopped. I found an inconspicuous spot behind him so at least I wouldn’t look like a stalker. And then suddenly I realized that I may have been in the line of vision of the freakin’ Mahalo Daily camera… I bolted out of that as quickly as possible when I realized it. I was in no condition to have my disheveled and sweaty geek self recorded for all eternity on the internet, staring intently at the celebrity giving an interview I couldn’t even hear. Gah. Hopefully I didn’t actually make it into the footage.

[Edit: I'm in the shot from minute 6:28 until you see a brief look of terror and my quick departure at 6:49. I'm semi-fuzzy in the background, so thankfully I'm not as horrified after the fact.]

Anyway. The interview finally ended and they chatted off camera for a little while longer. Then, when the Mahalo Daily people turned away, two fanboys pounced on Wil before I could from my slightly more inconspicuous (really this time) spot. One guy invited Wil to his film screening, and the other just wanted to say hi after comfirming that he was the kid from Stand By Me.

“I’m a bigger fan,” I thought to myself, imagining scenarios in which I could shove the guys aside cartoon violence-style. “After all, I’ve read his books and I subscribe to his Twitter feed and his blog and I’m a fan of his writing, and he would appreciate that.” I thumbed my Moleskine notebook while talking to myself and then suddenly realized that the second guy was leaving. I started sweating nervous buckets when he glanced at me, possibly wondering if I was just going to follow him around all night being a creepy fangirl in the shadows.

“Hi,” I blurted in his direction. “I know you were signing autographs earlier, and I missed it…”

He interrupted me and caught me completely off guard by saying “Well, I’m still here, so it looks like you didn’t miss me.”

So I stammered out an autograph request that sounded so completely retarded out loud I thought he might just laugh nervously and run away. What exactly I said, I don’t remember, but he responded warmly and put me more at ease because he was just so approachable, which somehow turned right back around and made me nervous as hell.

I told him that I read his blog and he expressed surprising gratitude that made me just want to hug him. I had wanted to say how much I took from his journey to becoming a writer in Just a Geek, but it came out more generic. “You really inspire me as a writer,” or something. *facepalm* I told him that I was tickled that he was also inspired by David Sedaris (as he wrote about on his blog a few weeks ago).

The whole time that I blabbered on about this or that, he maintained a very engaged, steady eye contact. I was a little too nervous to maintain steady eye contact myself (which normally is no problem for me). He was really listening to me, which speaks volumes. I wish I’d dabbed off my sweaty glow before approaching him!

And then came the part that is still making my face flush. I had been holding my geeky business card while walking, and finally held it out to him. “Well, this is me, and I just want you to know that if I ever become a writer you should know that you inspired me.”

Wil graciously took the card from me and I thanked him again. I wanted to just reach out and hug him, but didn’t want to go that far and completely invade his personal space, so I just held out my hand for him to shake. He shook it with both hands, which surprised and delighted me. He expressed thanks with more sincerity than I think I did. I grinned and we parted ways, though I turned back after a couple steps and watched him walk away, not wanting to lose the moment but at the same time wanting to relax and return to my normal non-fangirl self.

Now I not only want to be a writer like Wil Wheaton. If I ever reach a celebrity position of any level, I also want to be gracious fan-friendly celebrity like Wil Wheaton.