Hanging with Neil

MORNING OF FEBRUARY 7, 2010

As I type this, some friends and I have plans to attend an event at which author extraordinaire, Neil Gaiman, will be speaking on February 18th. We're all excited about it, and it obviously inspired this dream:

Neil Gaiman was in town for his speaking engagement, and for some reason I was hanging out with him. More or less like I was his "host" for the day. I have vague memories of the two of us just talking, and being really impressed that he was just a very funny and affable person.

My one disappointment was that I had forgotten to bring a copy of any of my Neil Gaiman books for him to sign for me. His solution to this problem was that we'd stop by the local bookstore and buy a copy of one. So my next memory is of being in the bookstore. He was the first to locate a copy of Neverwhere, which is my favorite of his novels. I was looking around for other various ones of his books as well.

Eventually I remember him signing the Neverwhere book and he signed a ceramic mug that somehow was tied in with something of his.

Later I was in my car, which was for some reason the old Chevrolet Corsica that was my actual first vehicle. I'd just parked somewhere, and was going to remove my newly signed book and mug from the backseat. They were in a paper sack, and the mug slipped out and fell as I was removing it. Only one chip came out of the mug when it cracked against the ground, but, naturally, the chip was from the part with the autograph.

I vaguely remember going into some store nearby and looking for superglue with which I could attempt to fix the mug. I got in line with a tube of the stuff but as I was waiting I realized it was actually a type of lip balm, so I had to go back and keep looking for superglue.

Note: It turns out Neil Gaiman didn't sign anything at the actual event...which was okay, because I knew it was a long shot with a crowd that huge. It did turn out to be a great night, though, as briefly reviewed on my other blog.