Sakura of DOOM

I went and saw Neil Gaiman on Friday instead of seeing Serenity or MirrorMask. I've only been to one other author signing. This one was much, much larger, and in a church, which was rather funny, given that Gaiman was reading from Anansi Boys ("God is dead. Meet the kids."). (I feel rather awkward calling him Gaiman and even more awkward calling him Neil, so I guess the only answer is to squiggle in awkwardness when I write this.)

I also now have a horrendous and embarrassing author crush.

Gaiman seems like a nice person. He seemed like a nice person from his blog, and he seemed like a nice person from his reading and Q&A session, and it was a great relief. The other author signing I went to before was Orson Scott Card, and the less I say about how I feel about his politics, the better.

Anyhow, Gaiman looks just like his pictures, except maybe a little more worn around the edges, and he seemed very British, with a nice, unassuming but sly sense of humor. He's also really good at doing readings. Despite having the ARC of Anansi Boys on my shelf for a few months, I haven't been tempted to read it until hearing bits read out on Friday.

He also made brief mentions of Aziraphale/Crowley slash, MirrorMask (so glad it's playing nearby here!), National Geek Day and assorted other things.

Anyway, he just seemed really, really nice!

Stood in line for an endless three hours for the signing, and by the time I got there, I was falling asleep on my feet. I was also sort of trying to figure out if there was anything to say that wouldn't sound too obnoxious and rabid fangirly. And then I was trying to juggle my books, so of course the first thing that slipped out of my mouth when I got up there was, "Oooo, chocolate!"

There was chocolate there, at least, or else I would have looked like a complete idiot.

At which Gaiman nicely said I could have some (I resisted), or to try the nice tea biscuits there (which I didn't resist but should have), which were apparently tasty but dry. So I was standing there all confused with a biscuit in one hand and scrap paper I was desperately trying not to drop in the other, and he was signing my stuff really fast and getting it right back to me, except I wasn't sure what to do because I had no free hands. Stuff biscuit in mouth and look like chipmunk? Briefly hold biscuit in mouth and risk drool? Drop all papers and try to one-handedly gather books and pray I didn't drop everything and bonk my head on the table?

I ended up doing the latter and luckily not bonking my head on the table and exited the line in a flurry and probably forgot to thank him.

Stood by while the people I came with got their stuff signed and decided it was then safe to eat the biscuit, which was indeed very, very dry. I swear, the thing sucked all the saliva out of my mouth, so I stood there and tried really hard not to move my mouth for fear of spewing crumbs everywhere. Swallowed the giant lump of dry cracker and said, "Wow, that's very dry" a little too loudly, which caused some heads in the row (Gaiman's included) to swivel. "Er. The biscuit. Yeah. It's very dry," I explained to no one in particular.

After which, I promptly decided that I should really go away and shut up before I did anything even worse, like pitch forward onto the table and collapse, crumbs everywhere.