Neil Gaiman is 32 flavors of awesome

It was a very very nice event.

Neil read from WHO KILLED AMANDA PALMER (which I overnight Saturday deliveried a case of copies in -- I should have had THREE cases, damn it; I'll be restocking those, for sure!) for about a half hour, then we did the signing itself.

Despite the fact that he had lunch plans with Daniel Handler, he still took the time to talk to each and every person in line for five minutes or so, and did little head sketches for most of them. He was utterly gracious with his time and attention, and sat through scores of photos, and everything else.

We were scheduled to end at 12:30, and, instead, wrapped at something closer to an hour late because Neil wanted to talk to each and every person there -- now that's pure class!

Thank you to all of the attendees, all of whom seemed to leave the store with huge glowing smiles on their faces (and, in one case, what ended up 20 minutes later as a permanent tattoo) (Seriously, she came back with permanent ink, and got a big smooch from Neil as a secondary reward)

Thanks to my god-damn good staff: Carissa, Matt and Susan. They totally rocked it.

Thanks to the generous volunteers who helped with line control and keeping people happy and moving: Seth & Skye, Tim & Lisa, Matt N., James, Shannon and Antoine. We literally could not have done it without all of you, and you've got a lot more than just my thanks coming.

And thanks most of all to Neil Gaiman for being such a generous guy with his time and being a master of charm and enthusiasm. Let's do this again for the store's FORTIETH anniversary, aye?

-B