jaina

This is long, so I shall put behind a cut my night with Joss Whedon. Well, sort of.

sirrogue, James, Whitney and I took off from San Diego precisely at 3 pm. It's about an hour and forty-five minutes to Riverside by Mapquest, but we figured that it'd be about an hour longer with traffic. That turned out to be pretty much right-- there were a couple accidents, plus the usual going-home traffic up the 15. We started off singing along to the "Once More, With Feeling" soundtrack, and then we introduced James and Whitney to Luke Ski and they reciprocated with their Strongbad CD.

We got to the theater around 5:30 and found that we were the third group there. We quickly staked out a spot big enough for the ten of us who were eventually going to show up. Our neighbors just in front of us, Sandy and Tan (Tam?) graciously shared their blankets and cookies, because Browncoats are inherently awesome. We went off one by one to get dinner at the nearby fast food places, and the line continued to grow. Somewhere in the six o'clock hour, the girls with the Joss birthday banner showed up. At that point it was completely blank, so I popped down the line (leaving the rest of our group, including recently-arrived Thomas, Alex, and

tjbraine, playing their pirate-ship game) and made friends with Rosalie, the girl in charge of the banner. (I didn't catch her friend's name! Ack!) I wrote "JOSS IS BOSS!" and signed my name, adding some glitter, because hey, glitter. I was looking at the outline of Serenity on the banner and said, "You know, it really looks like we ought to color that in." Rosalie said, "Oh, I'm so glad someone else thinks so!" and went at it with all the pink, yellow, red, and orange markers we had. Plus stickers (happy-star comets coming out of the engine and a cheerful astronaut-River on top of the ship). We christened it a Kaylee-ship.

It was after seven by now and the sun was starting to go down, so

sirrogue and I decided it was time to change into costume. (Most of mine is either polyester or vinyl, so it's reeeeeally hot to wear out in the sun.) People seemed to like the costumes. I went down the line, handing out the birthday hats

sirrogue had bought, and encountered a couple of preteen kids. "I know who you're dressed as!" shrieked one. We managed to hand out all 32 hats we'd gotten (although we saved one for later use). I also found Cathy, the nice lady who taught me to knit the Jayne hats, and gave her the two I'd finished for the raffle. I completely forgot to take pictures, though. Oops.

About this time, a couple of camera crews showed up. One was, I think, getting footage for possible inclusion on the DVD, and the other was made up of fans (one or more of whom worked for Entertainment Tonight). It wasn't precisely clear what the second group was filming for. Anyway, I got interviewed for both, which was fun, and

sirrogue performed Wash's opening scene from "Serenity" (the pilot ep, not the movie), complete with dinosaurs, for the second camera crew. Meanwhile, the line had really grown, the banner was filling up, and our group (which now included Matt, Dan, and

blusurfer wearing blue latex gloves) was playing Catchphrase and roping our line-neighbors into joining. We kept running into people who'd been at the 5/26 Vegas screening, and the general consensus was that this one was *much* more fun than that one had been! I thought I saw

voleuse a couple of times but I wasn't *sure* it was her, so I didn't go and say hi. Because I'm lame.

The time was just flying by, and it was shortly after nine when I was nudged by the girl next to me. "I think that's Joss over there." Now, we'd heard rumors that Joss was going to show up at our screening, but I hadn't *quite* believed them. "No way," I replied. "Yeah, he's right there," she said again. So I went closer, to look. And yep, there he was, Joss, surrounded by a small group of fans asking questions and getting autographs. Wow. I joined the group, which was getting bigger by the moment. Joss looked up and noticed my costume, and he smiled and nodded at me. After a few more autographs, Rosalie and her friend, trailed by a much bigger group of people, arrived holding the banner. Rosalie explained that we had all signed the banner, and the 34 other cities had all signed their own banners. Joss said some suitably funny things that I can't remember at all now, and then we sang him Happy Birthday while he looked slightly embarrassed.

sirrogue handed him the birthday hat we had saved, and he even put it on for about eight seconds. (I have yet to see a picture, though. Wah.)

Then we discovered the theater was going to start letting us in, so most everyone scurried back to line. I, however, was the designated take-the-stuff-back-to-the-car person for our group (no cameras allowed), so I stuck around in the dwindling crowd to see if I could talk to Joss. Eventually, it was my turn and I said, "Well, I have no foresight and nothing for you to sign, but I just wanted to say I hope to see you at Comic-Con, and I hope you come to Masquerade!" He said he was planning to be there, but he'd probably be very drunk. Heh. And he also said "Nice costume!" Eeee! So then I ran back to the car and back inside, where I found that Joss was now signing for everyone as they entered the theater! Yay. The Universal-types were handing out the little Serenity posters, so

sirrogue and I had him sign ours, and said, "Thank you for Firefly!" James, however, had the BEST. IDEA. EVER: he got one of the theater workers to give him a Star Wars "Who's Your Daddy?" poster and had Joss sign that! That got a huge reaction when he showed it around inside the theater.

Once we were all inside the theater, Joss came in and everyone started clapping and cheering. And one random person yelled "DOOM!" which was hysterically funny. Joss came up to the front and stood on top of the table he was presumably supposed to sit behind, and said, "My ego is so huge right now!" :-D He said that the score was being recorded that day and he'd been there the whole time so he was super-tired. Then we sang him Happy Birthday again (since not everyone had been there last time) and finally the movie got started.

Afterward, Joss said he'd take five questions. I got to ask one of them! I asked what his favorite line in the script is, which sounded much cooler and more sophisticated in my head than when I actually said it. (He wrote the script! I wanted to know what he liked the best! Don't look at me like that!) Oh well, hopefully everyone forgave me for asking a dumb question. And then he left. And then we left. And that was that!

I didn't take many pics, but the ones I did are here. It was awesome, awesome, awesome. And hanging out with my fellow Browncoats would have been awesome enough, even without Joss. I'm really torn-- if they do more screenings, I feel like I should let someone who hasn't seen it yet get tickets instead, but I really want to hang out with everyone again! It's not really worth the drive just to hang out, though.

ETA: I found a pic in Kat and Walla's gallery where you can sort of see me near Joss! Click here.