Do you know....
I met Neil Gaiman at a DragonCon sometime in the early 90s. I impressed him with a puppet of Morpheus that I had made. I still have Morphy in my collection although he doesn’t go to conventions anymore due to puppet aging. I made a grand total of one more Morpheus and gave it to Neil. Since then I have done a few more of the Endless in Puppet form. Neil has them as I slowly work my way to the last puppet which will be Death.
A year or so after I sent Neil his Puppet Sandman, I was at a gathering of either the Atlanta Science Fiction Society or Terminus TARDIS (the local Dr. Who group). A friend of a friend come up to me with an unkind look in her eye and said, “So&So told me that you met Neil Gaiman.”
“Yes, I met him at DragonCon.” I replied unsure where this conversation was going. The woman was not on my favorite people to chat with list. She was someone who seem to live through other people she had met. She was always complaining about her job and how she really wanted to be a writer or an artist. I had seen her art and read a couple of her short stories and my opinion, which I kept to myself, was that she needed to keep her day job.
“So&So says that Neil knows who you are.” came the accusing tone.
“Well I have sent him a couple of puppets.” I said in a measured tone. I was then rescued by a friend who could see how the conversation was going.
I though nothing of it except ‘What a B--ch” and she went lower on my people to talk to list.
A couple of months later, Neil was doing a series of signings for something through out the southeast. Closest he was going to get to Atlanta was somewhere in South Carolina. I didn’t go because I was in the middle of stage managing a show, but I knew a group of my friends were going. When they got back they had a tale to tell me.
The woman who had accused me of meeting Neil was in line about 2 people in front of them. When she went up to get her books signed, she said to Neil, “Kathleen O’Shea said to say Hello.”
Neil looked up from what he was signing and said, ‘How is Kathleen? Has she made any more puppets?”
To which the woman stammered some sort of reply. My friends were trying hard not to laugh since it would not have made much sense at the time.
This came rushing back to me because of an e-mail I received the other day asking me if Peter and I knew a person. Random names don’t work well with me since I meet a lot of people. Fortunately, the e-mailer put it into context of where I would have met this person and I could reply that yes we had met this person on several occasions at various conventions and he was a friend of a friend. The person asking the question was not someone I knew which brought back that lovely conversation so many years ago.
A year or so after I sent Neil his Puppet Sandman, I was at a gathering of either the Atlanta Science Fiction Society or Terminus TARDIS (the local Dr. Who group). A friend of a friend come up to me with an unkind look in her eye and said, “So&So told me that you met Neil Gaiman.”
“Yes, I met him at DragonCon.” I replied unsure where this conversation was going. The woman was not on my favorite people to chat with list. She was someone who seem to live through other people she had met. She was always complaining about her job and how she really wanted to be a writer or an artist. I had seen her art and read a couple of her short stories and my opinion, which I kept to myself, was that she needed to keep her day job.
“So&So says that Neil knows who you are.” came the accusing tone.
“Well I have sent him a couple of puppets.” I said in a measured tone. I was then rescued by a friend who could see how the conversation was going.
I though nothing of it except ‘What a B--ch” and she went lower on my people to talk to list.
A couple of months later, Neil was doing a series of signings for something through out the southeast. Closest he was going to get to Atlanta was somewhere in South Carolina. I didn’t go because I was in the middle of stage managing a show, but I knew a group of my friends were going. When they got back they had a tale to tell me.
The woman who had accused me of meeting Neil was in line about 2 people in front of them. When she went up to get her books signed, she said to Neil, “Kathleen O’Shea said to say Hello.”
Neil looked up from what he was signing and said, ‘How is Kathleen? Has she made any more puppets?”
To which the woman stammered some sort of reply. My friends were trying hard not to laugh since it would not have made much sense at the time.
This came rushing back to me because of an e-mail I received the other day asking me if Peter and I knew a person. Random names don’t work well with me since I meet a lot of people. Fortunately, the e-mailer put it into context of where I would have met this person and I could reply that yes we had met this person on several occasions at various conventions and he was a friend of a friend. The person asking the question was not someone I knew which brought back that lovely conversation so many years ago.