so okay, I had a pretty weird Good Friday. freakish, even.

see, in like October or something, I went to this thing/discussion/talk/rant with Neil Gaiman and Harlan Ellison and some comic book guy (he was nice enough in his own way, but he wasn't the other two, and I forget his name).

Ellison's an asshole, but I guess you knew that already.

Anyway, this girl asks Gaiman, 'I think my dungeon master is going to kill me if I don't find out what the 'vicar' joke is about from that episode of Sandman'. Gaiman says he doesn't know either, and that's the joke. Later, I find myself standing in line for an autogrpahed book with her, and we get to talking.

Talking is really like verbal ice skating. Because I'm kinda hyper about meeting Gaiman, and because I'm actually talking to someone (and they don't share my gender even), I slip and fall on my ass. She wanders off, and about a half hour later the line still isn't moving, and so do I.

Forward to today. I'm on a flight to Newark, NJ, and because I have this freaky free airfare thing with Continental, I don't get to find out whether or not I get on the plane until 20 minutes before it takes off. It's really weird, but it does beat paying for airfare.

She's sitting in the row behind me. Someone else spots her origami book and asks her about it. We get to talking about our experiences in Japan. She doesn't remember me from six months ago. This is key.

Now, Japan's pretty freaky, lemme tell you. Any country that can invent a reason to meditate in church and pachinko is pretty out there. That doesn't matter. What does matter is that this time I score the triple lutz.

Her: 'Where are you going?'

Me: 'I'm going to Washington DC to view the cherry blossoms.' (For those of you in the audience, this is actually true)

Cherry blossoms are key. Her name is Heidi, and she lives where I do.

Didn't I tell you this day was gonna be weird? I mean, I haven't known anything like a girlfriend for 10 years now, and this up and happens. I've actually counted the days between when women would accidentally touch me on the sidewalk, much less talk to me outside of work, which always makes my friends laugh at me when I tell them about it. I mean, screw the lottery, screw lightning bolts or rains of fish or blue moons (did I just name the new marshmellows in Lucky Charms?) or whatever! Damn I'm lucky!

So, now it's been three days since a women touched me, I got a bad sunburn from enjoying too many cherry blossoms, and I wasn't tempted to push people holding each others' hands into the Tidal Basin around which all the trees are planted. I also learned a whole lot about Georgia the country (or Sakartvelo), but that's an entirely different story.

I'm going with her to Kaiju Big Battel on Saturday. ^-^