bitterdiva

Good Omens

It’s been a long couple of days filled with anticipation, excitement, and sleep deprivation. It all started on Tuesday when my roommate informed me that Neil Gaiman was going to be in the NYC area signing his new book Coraline. His only appearance on the east coast until the fall, I knew that I would be there no matter what.

Wednesday night I was preparing for my trip to the city, gathering all the songs and cd’s my sister had requested since I have the beauty of broadband. I didn’t fall asleep until pretty early in the morning and had to wake up in only a couple of hours. Bleary eyed and exhausted I dragged myself out of the comforts of my bed to install software and upload all the pictures in my digital camera to make room of those I would take of Mr. Gaiman.

We started off on the road in the morning, stopping for gas, treats and caffeine to juice myself up for the two and a half hour drive to my parent’s place. I arrived there with little time to spare to take the 10:59 train into GCT. My mother had been delayed due to the fact that today was her last day of her career and people wanted to see her and say their goodbyes. She’s finally retiring and will be able to spend time on herself and relax after all the years of stress taking a toll on her body.

The what would be a short journey to the train station turned into a test of patience as we got behind every slow-ass yuppie driving their convertible and then dancing with horrible traffic on the Q Bridge. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we would have to take the 11:59 train and arrive an hour later than expected.

The train ride was uneventful, the city of Bridgeport has never been so beautiful with their dilapidating warehouses, ghettoes, and the void of trees! I also realized whilst staring off into space at a Courage the Cowardly Dog poster that a woman my age was indeed a person with whom I attended high school. This realization came only after I saw her stare at me then turn to her friends and say, “she looks exactly the same.” What a pity I might say, I would think I look a little different, but overall I do look the same, just a little older. She also looked the same, still beautiful with her perfect features, beautiful long hair, good taste, and a gaggle of friends that most likely care more about their looks and relationships than engaging in stimulating conversation. This could just be my biased opinion; people do change personally after all.

My sister greeted us at the train station looking the most beautiful I have ever seen her; it must be the factor of being in her natural environment. We darted off on our journey to her apartment in SoHa, that’s South Harlem – a term used by the residents of the area. It was the first time I have ever been to her apartment, it was what one would expect from an apartment complex near Columbia University – a trendy upbeat version of a dorm suite. I was also eager to see her kitty in his natural element as well, I’m so used to seeing him at the country club back in Connecticut.

From her place we walked around, saw Virgin Record Store there, it’s amazingly huge and I don’t believe I could step inside another record store without belittling it’s poor selection after seeing it there. From there we wandered over to Coffee Shop, a trendy diner/bar where the waitresses are either models or drag queens dressed up. It’s claim to fame is it’s amazingly good food, atmosphere, and the fact on the weekends it only closes for one hour.

After reestablishing a normal blood sugar level after not having really eaten anything except less than half of a six inch sub, we wandered over to the Barnes and Noble. The building was incredibly large, four floors in all. Inside it looked deserted and I was breathing a sigh of relief, we had gotten there in time to get a good seat. Little did I know what I was going to be faced with when we reached the fourth floor.

There were about 300 seats set up which were already filled give or take a few that just didn’t get snatched up. The staff there were informing us that we were to buy our books first then take a place in the line that was forming behind the roped off area for those who didn’t expect such an incredible large turnout. So we run downstairs, buy our books while my sister snatched a place in line.

Once returning back to the fourth floor, fortune smiled upon us when my sister was allowed a seat in the ‘line number’ area. As a side note, when she called the bookstore on Wednesday they said that they were not giving line numbers, which turns out to be the biggest crock of shit. My number was 218. Very far back in the line, I was pondering how long it would take to finally get the books signed. I snatched a copy of Coraline for my roommate to have it signed in case he didn’t get a number.

Neil read a chapter out of Coraline, chapter three to be precise, and proceeded with a short Q&A section afterwards. He may have said on his journal that he thinks he lost some of his accent, but personally it’s just as beautiful as I imagined it would be, ranking up there with Alan Rickman’s. All the pictures I’ve seen of him do him no justice, he was more attractive than I could have imagined. This is the perfect example of the type of guy I lust after. Tall, thin, and with a head of hair you just want to spend an eternity running your fingers through.

The program started roughly around 6PM and the signing commenced only an hour later. Now came the endurance trial. They first started calling the numbers in increments of 15. His fans were able to get multiple books signed and were able to have a short conversation with their favorite author. Time seemed to go by just as slowly as the line did. It wasn’t until a little before 10 when my group of numbers were called, they bumped up the increments of 25 in order to alleviate some of the anxiousness of the fans.

It was rather unfortunate that the store closed then and my roommate, sister, and her friend were kicked out of the store, along with the number of people that optioned to wait in a line rather than watch Neil read and answer questions. I felt really horrible about the number of people that had seemingly wasted their time waiting in hopes of an autograph. As my sister left she wanted me to take her camera up with me so I could get a picture with him, but knowing the complexity of the manual Canon AE1, figured it would be best if I just grabbed a picture some other time. Hopefully I’ll have the ability to get one sometime in the future.

Finally I reached him. Tired from the five-hour journey, running low on blood sugar, and completely nervous what I would say to him, I greeted him with a smile. He asked how I was, the typical niceties of a stranger-stranger interaction. I related how I was good despite being tired from my journey from Albany. I handed him my books, which were set to the right page to be signed, and a post-it with the names of to whom it should be personalize. I remarked how I thought his journal was great, if it were not for that, I would’ve never known he would be within a traveling distance. I told him that I loved his work and how he’s a fantastic author. I apologized for being so jittery and shaking from the lack of blood sugar. He sympathized, someone before me handed him a box of Godiva chocolates to boost his sugar levels, there was a tin of star-shaped cookies someone else had given him. He slid the tin over towards me and offered me one. In complete shock, I accepted, I thanked him for his signature, he thanked me for traveling to the signing and I was off on my way to journey back home.

On the escalator ride down I saw one of the staff members, with whom I was chatting with over the long several hours, she greeted me and said, “are you happy?” I nodded, looked up at her, looked down at my cookie, and remarked, “He gave me a cookie.” I proceeded through the front doors with tears swelling up in my eyes as me sister took pictures of me walking out. I greeted her, my roommate, and her friend holding up my treasure that I received, the cookie. I started to cry hysterically, the emotions of the events getting to me compounded with the exhaustion I was experiencing. Several pictures of me were taken with the cookie, of me with my roommate and the cookie, and me, my roommate and my sister with the cookie. We hailed a cab and hurried off back to Grand Central to catch our train ride home.

Once on the train and situated we opened our respective books to read the greeting. Both of our Coraline’s were personalized to us along with a drawing of a rat. I opened my copy of Good Omens and read the personalization. I immediately began to cry. It was such a personal personalization and now that I think of it, in it’s own way, the entire day was filled with good omens.

We arrived back home at four in the morning and hurriedly wandered off to bed to get up in the morning for our jobs. I made it throughout the day drinking 40oz of coffee, mass quantities of soda, and Sudafed.

12:51 AM

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