Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison, and Muppet-Fur

Wow, there's some craziness in the world right now. We're bombing people that really haven't much to bomb, and everyone is worried about anthrax. If you haven't ever looked at independant media, now might be a good time to check out http://www.commondreams.org or http://www.indymedia.org.

The Harlan Ellison/ Neil Gaiman talk at MIT Saturday night was darn cool. Peter David was there too, and he was a good speaker, so maybe I'll look up his last book in the library. Harlan Ellison was everything I'd always thought he'd be: loud, angry, and entertaining. Neil Gaiman lived up to his reputation of being terribly nice and also entertaining.

Ellison got up and yelled about the Internet and how most of our generation were thieves. He made quite a lot of atheist jokes, and pissed people off. He's Harlan Ellison, and that's what he does. Gaiman read a scary story about a fictional piece of Chicago as well as a nice poem he had written about his daughter. Then everyone agreed that Jerry Falwell and his ilk should be hurt badly, or at least imprisoned. A good time was had by all.

I managed to get a picture with Neil, but I couldn't get anywhere close to Ellison. There were 800 people there, I think. I don't have a lot of cash since my last computer died, so I had nothing to get signed. So I got my picture and hug from Neil Gaiman, and left very happy. I've worshipped Harlan Ellison since I was 10 and read my dad's copy of _Stalking_the_Nightmare_ without permission. But walking up there with nothing to sign, after his rant about how everybody my age just wants stuff for free...well...I'm a wimp. And the line was very, very long. So I left.

But that was still the best ending to my 25th birthday I could have asked for. The dinner at my favorite Indian restaurant with Simmons friends Friday night went well also, and then we all had chocolate cake at the apartment afterwards.

Boston decided it was winter Sunday. It's really windy and cold here, and Aral swears she saw light flurries at the T stop on Monday morning, making this the second year I've heard about snow on Columbus day. My head's all stopped up from the sudden shift in temperatures. My old green heavy coat died last winter, so I'm been scoping out a new one. I'm buying a long coat that's a little fake furry around the collar and sleeves, and when people ask me what kind of fur that is, I'm going to be honest. It's muppet fur. Yes sir, genuine muppet. Trapped the little buggers myself - wiley they are - had to sit on a brick wall all day pretending I couldn't tie my shoe or count to 12 to attract one.

A really nice sense of inner peace filled me up this weekend. I think this "aimless" idea is really going to work out. I am no longer an arrow headed towards a target, just sort of...Okay, I've never been good at personal analogies. I'm just sort of still me, only not aimed at anything. Which is a fine strategy, as long as I have neat debates to attend and the muppet hunting remains good.