2024 Year in Review Part 5: Fandom and Personal Life

So, I’ve covered how me doing year in reviews started, the reading I’ve done, movies and television watched, theatre and visual arts encountered, and podcasts listened to. But what about me personally? In this final part of my 2024 Year in Review, I cover what happened to me both as a fan and personally.

Fandom

I went to seven (sort of) cons this year, five of which were as press. I also helped out with two others.

In February, I attended Gallifrey One for the fourth time (Derek Jacobi was a hoot!). I still need to organize the photos from it. I cosplayed for the first time ever, as Aziraphale to Kate’s Crowley.

In April, I attended WonderCon (I INTERVIEWED CHUCK TINGLE! Also – Christian Slater read my shirt back to me as I interviewed him). Also in April, I went to the Loki panel for PaleyFest and got to take Tom Hiddleston’s photo {sighs in fangirl}. Also also in April, I attended the Writers and Illustrators of the Future Awards (also for the fourth time) and was where I connected with Echo Chernik who I then interviewed for my Longest Day fundraiser (still to be edited).

Speaking of the Longest Day, when I was still looking for interviewees, I reached out to Juliet Landau to see if she would be interested/available, and got back “she loves your podcast and your writing” from her rep.

In June, I attended the first Q Con in West Hollywood. In July, I attended Midsummer Scream for the first year and had a blast even though I was there as press. In September, I helped out with Rainbow Space Magic. In October, I went to LA Comic Con (and technically still have a couple of interviews to write up from it).

When I started writing up my off-the-cuff thoughts on Quantum Leap, I also decided to try and post fandom-related posts on my Dreamwidth more. I’ve been somewhat successful (two so far).

In 2024, we lost Peter Schickele (PDQ Bach) in January, Joe Flaherty (from SCTV) in April, Christopher Durang (my favorite playwright) also in April, Donald Sutherland in June, Shelley Duvall in July, Maggie Smith in September, and Teri Garr in October. And, of course, there was the Neil Gaiman news. The less said about that the better. (Damn it, Neil: you were supposed to be one of the good ones. And dear sweet crispy walnuts, did it just get worse.)

Personal

2024 was, to say the least, eventful. This section is more about what happened to me personally, although I will mention the occasional news piece if I feel it is something I feel impacted me enough to be worth writing about.

Health-wise, I finally got my antidepressant medication to the right levels, and in July I actually started writing fiction again. (I do feel the one helped the other.) I haven’t written fiction in … oh, twenty years? It felt strange having characters speaking to me in my head again, but a good kind of strange. In other health concerns, I also did a sleep study and found out I have sleep apnea and am chronically sleep deprived. (That would explain why I’m tired all the time.) I’m going to be getting one of those machines, assuming my insurance covers it. My shoulder also started hurting on just one side September and I now have to take an anti-inflammatory for it.

As for Kate, she had some issues with her eyes and had eye surgery. She also is as recovered as she can be from her hip issue and is officially disabled. She now has to wear these fabric leg braces to help. Thankfully, her job isn’t affected – and she’s getting a placard for the car.

Finally, Neko – the older of our two cats – has a heart murmur, and we were told in April that it was getting worse. Considering she turned 16 in July, we know our time with her is limited. She’s still considered “feisty” by the vet, and we have a liquid medication we have to give her before any appointment that calms her down. She started getting some of my chicken when I get it from Popeye’s, and even has learned to put her paw on my arm to ask for more. (We don’t spoil our cats at all!)

Gillian, our other cat, is fine, but is being a bit of a pain. She’s still a trash panda. She loves dragging things out of the trash and then playing with it. Her favorite toys tend to be straws and plasticware from take out. She also has started a ‘game’ at night where she knocks down our medication from the shelf JUST as we start to get to sleep. Kate had to create a sort of set of doors for the shelf they’re on to try and stop it, and she’s just learning how to open said door. She also has started nuzzling me in my armpit when I’m on the couch. Cats are weird, man.

In terms of work, Kate started out 2024 still on Workers’ Comp due to her hip, but got back to work around March. Despite her original intent to not get sucked back into being a union steward, she is now a senior shop steward at the Center. She also interviewed for a few jobs at the Center, and eventually got promoted to Officer Level II and is now working in dispatch (same hours every day!!! and WEEKENDS OFF for the first time in close to 20 years).

As for me, my day job is still going strong and I’m still working from home. Both cats like to sit on top of the desktop computer, which has the power button on top, tend to every once in a while ‘accidentally’ turn the computer off. (Accidentally is in quotes, because sometimes I think they do it intentionally.) I helped out with three of their conferences: one in Visalia, one in Sacramento, and one in my own backyard of University City. They also flew me up to Sacramento for their annual holiday party.

I joined BlueSky in February and then started bulking it up in November when more people starting coming over to it. While I still don’t have some of the follower brags I do on Twitter (Melissa Joan Hart, The Mindy Project, Susan Bennett, Deadline, Juliet Landau, and – while he was still on – Chris Baron), I do feel like I’m having more engagement on BlueSky.

I also continued freelancing – mostly for The Geekiary, but I also was contacted by an old boss to do some video editing. Speaking of The Geekiary, in September they brought me on as part of their staff, primarily to help onboard new writers and help out with social media.

For writing highlights, not only did I get the above-mentioned interview with Chuck Tingle (I’m still a little freaked out that it happened), but I also got to interview John Moe. I’ve been a fan of his since 2014, when The Thrilling Adventure Hour did a crossover with his (then currently broadcasting) show Wits (which, despite it having ended in 2015, I still highly recommend). When he started the podcast The Hilarious World of Depression, I gladly followed. (In fact, in the review I wrote of the podcast, I write about my being a fan of the man.) And then when (after THWOD ended) he started up his current Depresh Mode (basically THWOD round 2), I was there for the first episode. So in early February, when he announced in the official Facebook group (called “Preshies”) that he was looking for questions and possibly people to ask them for the fund drive they do every year, I put myself forward, mentioning my own podcast and offering to ask a question or two. Well, I got a message that I was one of the ones selected and we set up a time. Readers, not only did I get ‘a question or two’, I got close to 40 minutes – and was told I had “good questions”. When the bonus episode came out, I joined specifically so I could listen to it. I patiently waited through the episode as one person, then another, then another asked him questions. Just when I was telling myself that they probably just didn’t have time to use my stuff, they transition to my interview – and it’s almost half the episode. Needless to say, I squeed.

In July, we switched our car and renter insurance to Geico. Kate had a very minor fender bender (there wasn’t even any damage), and despite us being with them since 2010, they raised our rates 100%. While we’re on the subject of changing services, I had consistent problems with Google Drive throughout the year. I use Drive as both a backup for my various files as well as a way to access the files from both my PC and my laptop. But the sync on the PC wouldn’t always work. And then one day, the files were just … gone. Thankfully I was able to recover them (they were somehow all in the Google Drive trash file), but then somehow I got multiple copies of several of the files, meaning I had to go through each folder and make sure to delete JUST the duplicates. So I’m switching over to OneDrive. We also increased our internet speed in June.

And this leads into my horrible experience with Travelocity and Expedia. I actually plan on writing up a full article about it, but let’s just say that from October to early December, I was dealing with issues caused by me trying to book a trip to St. Louis to visit family over Thanksgiving.

Finally, we voted both in the March primaries as well as the November main, and because of the results, I’ve decided to become more vocally political. I’ve started doing Resistbot and interacting with petitions and emailing representatives more often. I’m damn tired of living in unprecedented times.

Conclusion

And that is 2024 (sort of) wrapped up. I’m looking forward to the final season/episode of Good Omens, the second ‘half’ of Wicked, Del Toro’s Frankenstein, the screening of the stage recording of David Tennant/Cush Jumbo Macbeth, and both Severance and Agatha All Along season 2. Of course, the world will be a dumpster fire, but not much I can do to change that. What are YOU looking forward to in 2025?