Oh, for crying out loud...
I didn't plan my evening ablutions very well, so I was left with about half an hour after I had done my reading for the night and before my melatonin kicked in. I have an album of Neil Gaiman reading some of his short stories, and he has a pleasant, soothing voice and rhythmic cadences when he reads, and I thought it would be nice to drift off after listening to him for a bit.
The first track I hadn't yet listened to was "The Day the Saucers Came," which is adorable and precious and amusing and more than a little poignant, but it is also quite short. So, I continued on to the next track, which turned out to be "Feminine Endings," which I had never heard before, and which I should have known from the title and the way he introduced it that it was NOT going to help me fall asleep. I am now terrified and hiccuping, and the headache I've had all day is back in full force, and the melatonin may never kick in, and I'll probably still be laying here when the sun comes up, frustrated, tossing and turning and periodically checking the corners of my room for Edward Cullen...
And, after all that, when I finally either wake up after sleeping all day or give up trying altogether, I'll still read the next issue of Sandman along with Mark*, I'll still listen to the next tracks on the album, and I'll still wish on all the stars that I could make words and ideas dance for me the way Neil Gaiman makes them dance for him.
* I know "24 Hours" is the commonly accepted Most Terrifying Thing Gaiman Has Ever Done, but "Calliope" disturbs me so very, very much more. But then, "24 Hours" is about fear of guilt and secrets and of unpredictable whims and cold detachment and boredom, while "Calliope" is about confinement and rape and creative anxieties and abasement and abandonment and hand mutilation. And, sweet baby gargoyles, but those latter things check boxes all the way down my list of personal squicks.
The first track I hadn't yet listened to was "The Day the Saucers Came," which is adorable and precious and amusing and more than a little poignant, but it is also quite short. So, I continued on to the next track, which turned out to be "Feminine Endings," which I had never heard before, and which I should have known from the title and the way he introduced it that it was NOT going to help me fall asleep. I am now terrified and hiccuping, and the headache I've had all day is back in full force, and the melatonin may never kick in, and I'll probably still be laying here when the sun comes up, frustrated, tossing and turning and periodically checking the corners of my room for Edward Cullen...
And, after all that, when I finally either wake up after sleeping all day or give up trying altogether, I'll still read the next issue of Sandman along with Mark*, I'll still listen to the next tracks on the album, and I'll still wish on all the stars that I could make words and ideas dance for me the way Neil Gaiman makes them dance for him.
* I know "24 Hours" is the commonly accepted Most Terrifying Thing Gaiman Has Ever Done, but "Calliope" disturbs me so very, very much more. But then, "24 Hours" is about fear of guilt and secrets and of unpredictable whims and cold detachment and boredom, while "Calliope" is about confinement and rape and creative anxieties and abasement and abandonment and hand mutilation. And, sweet baby gargoyles, but those latter things check boxes all the way down my list of personal squicks.