a long line of Ancient Babylonian geeks

The phone rang at about eleven o'clock this morning. It was Claire, naturally, and I later realised we had this entire conversation through the Remembrance Day silence. Being a student makes you such a heathen, I swear. "How are you?" she asked.

"I'm still in bed," I said, because I was.

"Oh good, me too."

"So," I said carefully, "should I take it that you didn't go to the nine o'clock lecture this morning?"

"I'll go next week!" she said indignantly, and I sighed. Next week is sixth week, and she's never gone to her Friday nine o'clock in all this time. "I'm recovering from yesterday."

"Me too," I said fervently, and then Sky knocked at her door ("Am I gay?") and we left it there for a while. I am recovering from yesterday because it was terribly terribly busy, and began at some stupid hour of the morning for maths lectures. Once they were over, though, I went skipping merrily down to Gloucester Green to receive amchau from the coach. Despite the fact I had about half an hour before more maths, I managed to take her to the covered market and bring her up to my attic and generally be fannish. Rhiannon being one of my favourite people, of course, and it was just so good to see her. Sadly I had to depart for maths at Jowett, so I left her with my internet connection and books, and sprinted down there in a mostly horrible mood. I hate maths, and I hate maths classes more than I hate maths; I know nothing, so I'm struggling to keep up, while the class is full of the Maths A-level people who sack off every chance they can get, and draw ridiculously unfunny pictures of penises on lined paper what are you even doing here YOU FUCKING WANKERS.

Ahem. Sorry. Once it was over, and the end couldn't have come soon enough, I rang up to find out that Rhiannon had met hathy_col and zeta_of_s successfully and was currently feeding them coffee. I sprinted down Broad Street in manner of crazy person and arrived, breathless, at the door of the coffee shop.

And, omgyay. Colleen has been such a friend of mine for so long, and while she was working in Formby we saw each other lots and got much closer, and I've missed her, damn it. And Simon came too, and he is as disarmingly charming as ever. We drank coffee, and chatted, and they fed me chocolate, and at length I brought them back to college, there to meet with Maths!Adam, me_and, who's at Worcester.

The porters say that if you've got six or more people in your room, then by college statute, you're having a party. I had a party, so help me; I got Claire, Liya and Pat to come up and join it and generally a good time was had by all. We talked about rubbish (and Simon and Adam talked about maths), and looked at stupid stuff online and said "Gallifrey go boom!" a lot, and I've missed that so much. I even got Simon to sing the Elements Song for me, which he did grudgingly but perfectly in tune.

All good things, though. The others went down to queue for food while I took Rhiannon back to Gloucester Green, which was not of the fun. Once I got back, we got in for food fairly quickly, and Colleen made squeaky noises about the hall. The food wasn't fantastic, but the company was just perfect. Sky bitched about Dhruv, Simon compared us to Cambridge, Colleen and I were fannish, my college friends looked on in blank incomprehension.

Colleen and Simon took the last bus back to Cambridge, and I turned dolefully back towards home, and then towards the Social Sciences Library. I'm not saying the SSL isn't a nice place, because it is, but late at night when you've had such a nice day, it's not so fun. I gave up at ten, bought a bottle of wine on the way home and wended my way to the Staircase 22 Poker Night. Where they were all a little bit pissed.

I didn't play much; I just sat and drank the wine - my choice, so slightly less in need of Hazchem symbols - and enjoyed the company. Liya was getting somewhat drunk. "You know what?" she said suddenly. "Iona and her friends speak a different language."

"No, we don't," I said, and a hundred visions of conventions and geeking and yelling Gallifrey go boom! drifted into my mind. "Or maybe we do a bit."

Claire was laughing at me, a little bit. "I always thought it was just you," she said. "I mean, I'm used to being the geeky one. But you... and now there's more of you!"

I curled up on my chair and was happy.

After we finished the night's poker, Pat wanted to go out. Claire was against the idea, because of the nine o'clock lecture, but she caved. Apparently they went to Po Na Na, had a great time, and when they got back Pat started throwing up in the sink. Claire said she went to wake up Sky - at three am, this seemed like a good idea! - and they stayed with her. Pat apparently made it to nine o'clock tutorials! I'm impressed.

But it explains why both Claire and I were still in bed at eleven o'clock this morning. This afternoon, we're going to Borders for the Neil Gaiman signing. But first I've got a Philosophy tute. Boo!

Neil!

Heeee. After the nicest tute in the world - seriously; Kinch, my Mill tutor, is a lovely guy, and he was so nice and friendly and generally laid-back - I went back to my room for a bit to recover from a headache, and after a while I went to fetch Claire and we went to Borders. I thought the event started at six-thirty, and so did most people, but they'd redone the advertising to make it seven, which I thought was slightly unfair. That said, Claire and I were there at half five, and were lucky enough to get seats. Borders seemed to have got seats everywhere they could - ordinary plastic chairs, wooden stools and squidgy armchairs arranged randomly in rows - and we sat down to wait.

Which was no mean chore; there were lots of people, including jacinthsong and kuteki, and lots of chatting and general relaxing to be done. Life is so continuously hectic that it was actually nice to sit down for an hour and more and just not do much. After a while, they started playing something over the loudspeakers; the audio book of The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, which was just wonderful. I haven't sat and listened to a story like that since I was little. And it was lovely to see a room full of adults sitting back and listening to a kids' story being retold. Such fun.

We whiled away the time, somehow, and Claire retreived a copy of American Gods, and then just about on time, the nice people at Borders announced that lovely man, Neil Gaiman. And he really was lovely; all scruffy in his leather jacket and astonishingly irreverent. He started off by doing a reading from Anansi Boys, right from the beginning. I've never read it, and everyone was leaning back and listening and it was really like being four again. He reads very well. I was really sorry when he stopped reading, and started to take questions. He started by answering lots of FAQs right off the bat, and then opened the floor for interesting questions.

Someone then asked something about Morpheus, which I didn't quite get because of my lack of Sandman knowledge. I then put my hand nervously up, and he picked on me. I don't know what drove me to it, but I asked him: "What did you do with the satanic tomato?"

He grinned, told the story to everyone, and then gave me my answer: evil demonic salsa!

After that he didn't take many questions, but everything he said was interesting, and then came the signing. Claire, Katia and I blatantly pushed, but thankfully no-one noticed. We weren't far down the queue at all, and in about ten minutes we got to the front and I presented him with my copy of Good Omens and also Endless Nights. "Oh," I said after a minute of mute idiocy, "Terry Pratchett says hi."

"I'm very glad to hear it," he said, and signed my book. Beneath where Pterry wrote "Burn This Book", he's put "Apply match here", and signed below. I'm just gobsmacked that my Good Omens got signed by both authors in the space of three days. But I like Endless Nights better; in elegant handwriting in silver pen, he's written: "Iona - dream!"

Gleeeee.

Claire got American Gods signed (he wrote "believe!"), and then we took pictures of Katia and Katia took pictures of me and Claire. We now have another picture of us looking gleefully insane with an author!

Sigh. He was so nice. I love being a fan. Afterwards Claire and I went out for a sandwich, having missed dinner entirely, and went home to do essays! Groan. But we met Neil Gaiman, so yay. I am pleased.

Edited to add: daegaer! I went past the theatre on my way back, and there is a whole crowd of old ladies on deckchairs and in sleeping bags who have been queueing since Thursday for Daniel O'Donnell tickets. They go on sale tomorrow. I thought you should know.