Let the word go forth from this place & time: today I met Neil Gaiman. Well, maybe, "met" is a bit of an overstatement. After all, it's not like I went to a party where a friend of mine pulled me over to a couch. "Neil, this is Rocketbride, the one I was telling you about. Rocketbride, this is Neil." It's also not like he's staying on my couch next time he's in town. But it was certainly more substantial than the time in 1996 when I "met" Scott Thompson.

(A couple friends & I tried to get into a press screening for "Crash," but we were turned away as there were no more seats. As I put on my many cheap undergraduate coats on the elevator ride down, I got my ankh ring hopelessly tangled in the sleeve of my black knit cardigan. "You guys go on without me," I said heroically as my friends realized that I was still behind them in the elevator. Two guys got on. "I'll just ride up with these guys & then come back down when I get my jacket on."

(One of the guys held the elevator door, rendering my sacrifice unnecessary. As I finally freed myself from the wool, I realized that it was Scott Thompson. (I suppose the unconscious Brampton hometown pheromones I exude prompted his chivalrous response. Or, you know. Maybe he just thought I was a random dipstick.) I said, 'hi.' He looked deeply uncomfortable.)

As I said, Neil was better. The Boy & I got up at 8 a.m. to make Stacy's morning shoot. I wasn't going to be in it (whoever heard of a pregnant ninja? They're always going to the bathroom during raids, and they can't do acrobatics without getting shot down with round ligament pain), but the Boy is eminently sneaky & looks good in black. I took special care with my dress.

"You look really nice, sweetie," said the Boy.

"Yes, I'm hoping that Neil Gaiman will take me away from all this sordidness," I responded dryly, gesturing to the clutter of clothes on the bedroom floor.

He thought that was funny.

The shoot went very well, and soon Phil (a.k.a. Grinning Skull) & I set off for the signing. I hadn't ever talked to Phil outside of Game, so this was a nice chance to use my mad social skeelz. We met Jeff (a.k.a. WouldBePoet...sigh...people and their Livejournal names. (Right, 'Belphoebe'?)) at the nearby Second Cup, and settled ourselves in the little line. At that point we had more than an hour and a half to go before the signing's official beginning, so we amused ourselves with various geekery. I quite enjoyed myself; they're nice guys to spend a morning with. There were many jokes, both made & received. I spent a lot of this time sitting on the ground with the Pink Bag of Justice between my legs, as my right leg is showing a disturbing tendency to go completely numb whenever I stand for extended periods of time. (By the time I got to the front of the line, this had occurred. "How are you?" asked Neil. "Pretty good, except that my right leg is numb." He sighed. "I know what you mean.")

As the line wound interminably forward, the Boy showed up, as did Ian in his official capacity as roving scifi cameradude for the CityTV complex. I love seeing Ian at these gigs - he's one of the very few people I know as an adult whose tastes run so similar to mine that I still run into him randomly at various entertainments (a.k.a. Nine Inch Nails, Convergence, the Dance Cave, Neil Gaiman signings). He turned the camera on me for a clip, and I got to babble about my plan to get "The Wolves in the Walls" signed to the Sprout. This is another reason why I love Ian - he thinks I'm broadcast material.

When I finally got to the author's table, I explained the whole Sprout thing to Neil and asked if he had a boy's name to suggest. He responded that it's best to wait and see what they look like; he and his wife had a name all picked out for their daughter, but when she arrived, "she didn't look like a Gemma. It's like cats," he concluded with a smile. Later, Ian told me that that clip was just charming enough to be a filler bit on the Space Channel.

Other than that, I did a lot of smiling, and told him about reading the Viking interlude to my Grade 7 class last year. "How did that go?" He asked. "It kept a remedial class spellbound," I said grimly, "it doesn't get much better than that." I posed for a picture (taken by the gracious Phil) and Neil told me he liked my fork. And that, as they say, was that.

Booty Call: Day 176 - Ask your partner or a friend to listen to your belly. Your baby's heartbeat can be heard against the side where baby's back (a firm ridge) can be felt.