I was in the middle of a very strange dream, when Anne woke me up this morning. I was at the Concert for the Masses, but the Rose Bowl looked just like the Hollywood Bowl, and the backstage area was like Cal State LA. I was being chased by some guy who was a cross between Henry Rollins, Juggernaut, and The Thing.
Needless to say, even though today was a sleep in day for me, I was happy to be pulled away from that little bit of subconscious weirdness!
It was about 6.15 when she shook me awake.
“Wil! I just checked our donation page, and we’re over 2,000 dollars!”
“That’s great, honey,” I said, and rolled over.
“Wil! It hasn’t even been 24 hours! Kris is going to be so excited!!”
“That’s awesome!” I said, and pulled the covers over my head.
Around 7, she was back.
Shake, shake, shake. “Wil! Wil!”
“Muhfrght?”
“I just looked again, and it’s over 2500!” She had the excitement that I’ve seen in Ryan and Nolan on Christmas morning.
I don’t really know the best way to put it into words, but Anne is shaken to her very soul by Kris being sick. It’s more than the very real possibility of us losing a dear and loved friend . . . it’s a glimpse of our own mortality, and a very tangible reminder of how fragile our lives really are.
This walk is more than just raising money for research and care. It’s giving us a small way to help out our friend in her hour of need, it’s a way for all of you who read my lame website to be part of something that’s bigger than all of us. I know that this is also giving Kris something tangible to hold on to — it’s amazing moral support, you guys.
For international and privacy-concerned readers, I will set up a PayPal page where you can donate whatever you want. Your donations will go to me, and I’ll turn them right over to the Team in Training people. I wish there was some way to make me not be the middle man (I think that’s asking you all to put a little bit too much trust and faith in someone you don’t even know) but I don’t think there is. Maybe the TNT people will see how many folks are interested in using PayPal, and they’ll make PayPal an option for donations.
I just looked at our Team in Training Homepage, and right now we’re just over four thousand dollars!!!!
We kicked major ass in 2002, and I’m sure we’re going to blow that away in 2004.

Google News has this nifty feature that lets you subscribe to news alerts. You tell Google what to watch for, and when those key words are found, it will send you an e-mail alert. I use it to watch for “Jenna Jameson declares love for Wil Wheaton.” While it hasn’t found that particular story just yet, it lets me know when my name appears on one of the news sources Google crawls.
A few days ago, I got a Google News alert that linked me to an article called “Wil Wheaton is a Dick” that was posted to Alternet.

A year and a half ago, Wil and I participated in the Avon 3 day breast cancer walk. We didn’t know anyone with breast cancer. We just wanted to help raise money for research and be part of the walk-a thon. It was by far the most incredible experience of our lives. Between the two of us, we raised over $17,000. We always knew we’d do something like this again.
What I didn’t realize, was that I would be doing something like this because one of my very close friends, Kris, would be diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia. My 45 year old friend, a wife, a mother of two, an active, loved member of the community, was just diagnosed with a life threatening disease.
Kris went to the doctor just before Labor Day weekend to pick up some antibiotics before heading out of town with her family. She hadn’t been feeling well and just assumed it was some kind of infection. The doctor wanted to do a blood test just to make sure everything was alright. After the weekend, she was called by her doctor to come in immediately, and to bring her husband because something was wrong with her blood. A bone marrow test confirmed the doctor’s suspicion. Leukemia. She received the news and was told to be at the hospital by the end of the day to spend a month doing chemotherapy.
After the month of treatment, and two separate week long treatments, along with several blood and platelet transfusions, Kris is in remission. Her doctor at City of Hope Cancer Hospital wants to do a stem cell transplant on her now because she’s doing so well. This gives her a better chance of the leukemia not returning.
For the week prior to her stay at City of Hope, Kris was taking anti-seizure medication and going to her doctor to do chemotherapy tests before beginning her intensive treatment. When she begins her stay on February 13, she will be doing several days of chemotherapy followed by several days of full body radiation therapy. Then they will transplant the stem cells they harvested from her (she was not a match with her brother, children, or the National Donor Registry). This option gives her a better chance of her body not rejecting the transplant. Then the slow recovery begins.
It has been the most difficult thing in the world to see Kris go through this. She is a very strong person and I have no doubt this will just be another one of life’s obstacles she hurdles right over. But to feel so helpless at doing anything for her has been the hardest part.
Which is why Wil and I decided we would be part of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s marathon. We will be walking 26.2 miles in San Diego this June to help raise money for a cure. Since we can’t donate our blood (not the right type) we can at least donate our feet. Our goal is to raise $25,000. A very small percentage of the daily funding needed for research.
Kris is so happy we are doing this in her honor. She already plans on being at the finish line with us so we can all celebrate this huge victory.
Here’s a link to our Team In Training Homepage. Please visit it, and help us reach our goal. Kris, along with thousands of other people dealing with this disease, need our help and encouragement.
Wil here, with a final thought: We kicked massive ass in the Avon 3 Day, and raised over 17,000 dollars in about six months. My stats tell me that about half a million different people read this site each month. Even more read it through various forms of syndication. Can you imagine how much we could do if you all kicked in a dollar, or two dollars? If every person who visits this site were to collect change and stuff for a day, and sponsor us for that amount, we would, together, contribute over ONE MILLION DOLLARS to help fund research that could save Kris’s life.
Think about the power you have. Isn’t it wonderful?

I occasionally contribute to this fantastic online magazine called “The Cult of the One Eyed Cat.” It’s named after a real cat, who only has one eye, who once gave me half a look that chills me to this day.
This month’s issue is all about Valentine’s Day, so I wrote a snarky piece wherein I get frank about my true feelings for this annual tradition.
Here’s a little bit to get you started:

Valentine’s Day is upon us yet again, and husbands and boyfriends all over the country are trying to solve a fiendishly complex puzzle: what do we get our wives and girlfriends? If you’re dating, are you dating long enough for roses? What if you’re dating too long for roses? And what color? Should you get chocolates, because she’s so sweet, or should you stay away from chocolates because she will freak about how it’s going to make her fat?
The stakes are incredibly high. If we work out the Rube Goldberg machine that is the female psyche, we may just get that once-a-year blowjob . . . but if we fail to read the tea leaves correctly, we end up spending the evening alone in the bedroom with ESPN Classics while she watches Lifetime in the living room and talks on the phone with her bitter single friend who hates us.

You can read the rest of my story, and some other stories that are much better than mine, at The Cult of the One Eyed Cat

A messenger just dropped off a script for Teen Titans! I get to be Aqualad again on Friday!! Yes!
\m/
If you feel a great disturbance in The Force Friday afternoon, don’t worry. It’s just me geeking out so hard, I turn into some sort of Galaxy Being. Everything will be back to normal on Saturday.