Editing 1141: Two Years

This comic marks the second year of [[Randall Munroe]]'s wife's battle with cancer, and appears to depict actual events from those two years. Randall is depicted as [[Cueball]] and his wife as [[Megan]], as usual for both.

 

This comic later became part of a [[:Category:X Years|series of comics]] directly continued in [[1928: Seven Years]] and later continued in [[2386: Ten Years]]. The first eight panels of this comic are included in the next two, although  slightly grayed out.

The title text is referring to a possible {{w|Chemotherapy#Neurological adverse effects|side-effect of chemotherapy drugs}}, the inability to concentrate. It could also just be the fact that the chemo can make you feel just terrible. When whatever effect kicks in, she loses the rest of their Scrabble games for that day. However, as we see in panel 5, there is a reason why she wins ''all'' of the first half of their games. But this is not enough, or she even forgets to play on the cancer, when the drugs take effect.

The use of the asterisk in the title text for "*dominated*" might be a reference to the 1999 game {{w|Unreal Tournament}}  in which the game announcer voice would from time to time use the words "dominating" or "dominated" in a deep tone when a player is doing really well in the game (for example being on a multi-kill strike). Example sound [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miS5lh9xq_g here].

:Friend: So next year you should come visit us up in the mounta [final 'A' partly obscured, but distinctive enough to suggest the whole word as being "mountain(s)"]

::a [end of that line, end of word, follows obscured character best matching either an 'E' or 'F']

::and [obscured next word starts with a upper near-vertical, similar to edge of 'V'/’W' but could match the style of 'H' or other characters]

While it is known that Randall's wife has since survived more than two years past the date of the invitation in Panel 6, it is unknown whether the invitation was later accepted. The followup comic [[Seven Years]] does not seem to include a visit "up in the mountains" among its various other recreational activities, but the one after it, [[Ten Years]], does. However, since it is possible that the invitation was made up for the comic in order to represent the worry over any invitation envisioning the future at that time, it is possible that it was never proposed as depicted in the comic. Therefore, the real life invitation(s) which inspired the inclusion of Panel 6 in the comic could perhaps have referred in real life to an activity that is actually depicted in [[Seven Years]] or [[Ten Years]], or to some other activity, which then may or may not have been realized.