People sometimes accuse me of having a man-crush on Neil Gaiman, and deservingly so.  I’ve never met him (I hope to in the next few years), and I suspect that if and when I do it will take a monumental effort of will—along with a huge dose of false coolness—not to go full-blown fanboy.  I feel entirely justified in this.  Not only because he gives literary awards away for Halloween (kids, be sure to hit the Gaiman house this year—you just might get a Newberry that ain’t chocolate); not only because he writes everything but the same thing he’s written before, and sells lots of copies of all of it, and nobody manages to stop him; not only because he has that dreamy Brit-boy articulation that makes some of the world’s great audiobooks.

But also because reading his stories makes me happy.  I’m not certain why, but just a moment ago it struck me how remarkable that is.  My philosophy is that when I’m not happy, it’s probably mostly my fault for looking at things the way I am.  I’m not terribly comfortable with the notion that exterior events have the power to dictate my contentment in life.  So it’s no mean statement to admit that something makes me happy.  But reading Gaiman’s stories does. 

It doesn’t matter if the story is happy or not.  Strike that.  Happy stories don’t make me happy, and Gaiman doesn’t tell happy stories.  (The Blueberry Girl is a bit different.)  He tells stories that end happy, often, but the stories themselves carry conflict and trauma to the gills.  Yet when I read him, I’m happy.  I can stop and think of all the other things I might be doing, or should be doing to be productive, and am still happy to be reading a story.  To me, that’s magic in the most literal sense.  It’s something outside the norms of reality. 

Any truly great story I read is a magical experience.  Most stories don’t qualify as great; even those I enjoy very much all too often aren’t great.  But those few that are break the bonds of expectation and reality and make me happy.  To such stories I am an object to be acted upon, and am content to remain so.         

*****

Today in the Writing Center we are celebrating the National Day on Writing with several contests.  Students come in and write according to prompts and win prizes, including Utah Jazz tickets totalling nearly $240 in value.  I don’t think we employees are eligible to win, but I had to post my favorite word anyway: lilliputian.  Yes, it really is a word, and we have Jonathan Swift and Gulliver’s Travels to thank for it (and most profuse thanks we owe them).  It means tiny and comes from the diminutive nation of Lilliput.  (In theory, we may as well say Blefuscian, which would be fun too.)  I don’t think proper names were allowed, so I couldn’t place Hippocampaelephantacamelos (see Cyrano de Bergerac), which if you ask me is possibly the most underutilized baby name ever.

Oh, and for those who are interested in fake colors, a lip gloss of a most peculiar hue came to my attention today: flirty pink.  As a male, I am genetically permitted to believe in only ten or so colors, and flirty pink is not among them.  So I must assume it is, instead, an allegorical representation of some sort.  I’m still trying to figure it out, so insight from others is most welcome.