Neil and Me

[fredericks]

It's too late for me to be up. I swore before break that I'd start training for the 4:30AM wake-up calls that the spring semester's biweekly clinicals would call for. Oh well.

Tonight was awesome in all the right ways. I went to a reading/interview/signing by Neil Gaiman at the 92nd Street Y. It was the first time I'd seen him live and relatively upclose as I was in the third row from the stage. I'd seen him on an online vid clip and thought him not that attractive (or not as attractive as he looked on his jacket covers). After listening to him talk for an hour and 30 minutes my opinion has changed. He's hot in the same way Alan Rickman is hot - sure, he's cursed with British teeth and his voice was pitched higher than I thought it would be, but over time it grows on you (not the teeth, though; you just have to learn how to overlook those badboys). And he's a pretty good reader of his own work, I'll give him that much (he read a snippet from Anansi Boys). I did a lot of smiling during the whole thing. It was apparent that I don't use those muscles nearly enough, as my cheeks felt weird afterwards.

Prior to the Gaiman event I flashed back to only other reading/interview I attended, with Tad Williams. It was embarrassing, as I did my usual talk without thinking thing and more or less implied that his first work was a derivative of Watership Down which, yeah, it sort of was, but I don't think Tad took too kindly to my saying that. It's possible the only reason he ended up signing the copies of "Otherland" I lugged out there was because I was on crutches and in leg hardware. Anyway, this time I shut up and let other people do the talking. It was great fun. Afterwards I waited what seemed like forever to get him to sign my copy of Anansi Boys and Prelude and Nocturnes. If I'd had the funds I would have bought my two favorite Gaiman works for him to sign, Murder Mysteries (the illustrations by Craig Russell are wonderful) and the collection The Kindly Ones (or maybe The Wake - I have much affection for Daniel). Chatted with Neil for a minute (if that much) and managed not to make a fool out of myself too badly. I told him my mom loved Anansi Boys (slight fudge - she read maybe ten pages before using the book as a coupon repository) and she got a kick out of the West Indian references (totally true - I read the passage about Trinidadian women to her and we both got a good laugh). He seemed thrilled and shared with me the opinion that, from reviews he's read of the book, half of the readers don't realize the characters in it are black. Neil and fredericks = BFF. I didn't work up enough nerve to interrupt Neil's flow so I could get a picture in (I regret that now) but laughingirl was in attendance as well and snapped one of Neil with a cute lil bear which you'll most likely be able to check out here in a couple of days. You can also bid on it and do a good deed for a great cause.

I capped off the night by emptying my bladder and purchasing fat free ranch dressing. Good times.
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I'll be giving admission interviews for my alma mater and I'm extremely excited about the whole thing. Why? because I'm a simple simple woman. I want to meet these kids that are keen on going to Brown and tell them to run for the hills talk to the fresh blood. Interviews don't really count for much anyway; they're simply a way to weed out the REALLY weird stock. I can't see myself blasting anyone I meet.

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Simply loving the System of a Down disc I borrowed from the library. Who woulda thunk it? I haven't given Toxicity a spin since junior year.