What a long, strange trip it's been

It takes a year for the earth to revolve around the sun, or so I'm told.

Apparently, it also takes a year for Moon to revolve around my group of friends.

I bought Duncan Jones' masterpiece (my favorite film of 2009) in January of 2010 -- the very day it became available for purchase, if memory serves. (I remember debating whether I should take the plunge for BluRay, even though I wouldn't own a BluRay player for another seven months. Wanting to watch it right away, I opted for DVD.)

But I only had it in my possession for about three weeks, which did involve that one viewing, before I sent it on a journey that just ended this past Sunday.

Last Super Bowl Sunday, I loaned it out to my friend (let's call him "Steve"), so eager was I to spread the gospel of Moon. He took it away with a smile of anticipation on his face, ready to be converted.

Only, it was a pretty slow conversion. When I asked him about it a couple months later, he hadn't watched it yet. When I checked again a couple months after that, he had watched half of it. Not a good sign. He'd watched half of it and it hadn't grabbed him. He wasn't giving up -- he just got distracted. Believe me, I understand how parenthood distracts. Still, I know he'd watched dozens of other movies to completion during the same time.

By September, he finished it, handing it over to me at a poker game, with muted positive things to say about it.

But at this same poker game was Daddy Geek Boy. He also hadn't seen it. Undaunted by the time Moon had already been away from me, I held it in my hands for about 15 seconds before handing it over to DGB.

Well, unlike Steve, Daddy Geek Boy has two kids. (Steve's second didn't arrive until December.) You can pretty much guess where this is going.

As it was coming up on a year since I loaned out Moon, I considered nudging DGB a few weeks back, in part because I thought it would be funny to write the very post I'm writing now. See, the annual Super Bowl party is at his house, and as I discussed briefly yesterday, he and his wife stuff us with amazing edibles during the game. I thought, if he could watch Moon in time for me to get it back at the next Super Bowl party, that in itself would make a funny post, about how Moon was gone from me for exactly a year. (Hey, when you write nearly every day, your standards for what makes a good post are necessarily a bit lower.)

But I ultimately decided I didn't want to "fudge it" -- I didn't want to meddle with real life for the purposes of my blog.

Fortunately, the email came in from Daddy about a week ago saying he'd gotten the chance to watch it, and that it was "awesome." I wanted to discuss it more with him at the party, but he usually had an oven mitt in one hand and a spatula in the other.

So Moon returns home after a year's journey, in which it was received with moderate appreciation at one location and more unreserved praise at the next.

Now that it leaves Daddy and comes home to Papa, it'll get watched for the fourth time since it was purchased. Soon.

Soon, Moon, soon.