ladysprite (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladysprite) wrote2015-05-02 07:07 pm
ladysprite) wrote2015-05-02 07:07 pm
Better Things
Things are a little bit better now.
My bike (and me, and my husband) has had an 11th-hour rescue - yesterday <lj user="umbran"> got a job offer; this makes *everything* easier. Trying to get by on about 2/3 of one income was making me panic and fall apart at the seams; now we'll have a little bit of breathing room.
We managed to get in touch with someone reasonable at the gas company, who figured out that the fact that we had called, and that we had never missed a payment in over a decade, suggested that the error was on their part and got our gas turned back on within about 24 hours of it being turned off. It doesn't erase the humiliation of having the police come to our door, but it was a lot better than it could have been.
And today.... today I finally got to meet one of my heroes, and thank him.
I've mentioned here before just how important 'The Last Unicorn' was to me when I was growing up, both the book and the movie. It's one of my few happy memories from childhood, and it was a safe imaginary space that I could escape to. I watched that movie more times than I could count, and when I found the novel I fell in love with that too.
Today I went to the Last Unicorn Screening Tour. I saw the movie on the big screen for the first time in my life, and then I waited for about an hour outside until I made it through the autograph line to meet Peter Beagle, and I told him just how much his story meant to me, growing up in an abusive household, and thanked him for giving me a world that I could escape into when I needed to.
....and he thanked me. I don't know quite what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. And I promised myself I wouldn't cry, but I did anyway, and I am so grateful I got the chance to meet him, and say that. And now my battered and broken-spined copy of the book is a battered, broken-spined, signed copy. And I have a whole new set of positive memories to go along with it.
My bike (and me, and my husband) has had an 11th-hour rescue - yesterday <lj user="umbran"> got a job offer; this makes *everything* easier. Trying to get by on about 2/3 of one income was making me panic and fall apart at the seams; now we'll have a little bit of breathing room.
We managed to get in touch with someone reasonable at the gas company, who figured out that the fact that we had called, and that we had never missed a payment in over a decade, suggested that the error was on their part and got our gas turned back on within about 24 hours of it being turned off. It doesn't erase the humiliation of having the police come to our door, but it was a lot better than it could have been.
And today.... today I finally got to meet one of my heroes, and thank him.
I've mentioned here before just how important 'The Last Unicorn' was to me when I was growing up, both the book and the movie. It's one of my few happy memories from childhood, and it was a safe imaginary space that I could escape to. I watched that movie more times than I could count, and when I found the novel I fell in love with that too.
Today I went to the Last Unicorn Screening Tour. I saw the movie on the big screen for the first time in my life, and then I waited for about an hour outside until I made it through the autograph line to meet Peter Beagle, and I told him just how much his story meant to me, growing up in an abusive household, and thanked him for giving me a world that I could escape into when I needed to.
....and he thanked me. I don't know quite what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. And I promised myself I wouldn't cry, but I did anyway, and I am so grateful I got the chance to meet him, and say that. And now my battered and broken-spined copy of the book is a battered, broken-spined, signed copy. And I have a whole new set of positive memories to go along with it.
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I know that as an author, if somebody said to me that what I wrote had changed their life for the better, or given them hope in dark places, it would be tremendously affirming and honoring. I'm glad he seemed to think so too.
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At a local reading/signing in a small venue a few years back, I got to tell him the story of when my mother had A Fine and Private Place on Talking Book, and she came to the crow stealing a sandwich part just as the mailman was at the door to bring more books. She was laughing uncontrollably (which, with my mother, never ever happened), and the mailman was worried about her to the point that he stayed until she became semi-coherent again. It was a fluke that she got that book; she didn't enjoy fantasy/sf at all, but that book...
Happy memory, shared. There must be thousands of us with good memories, safe places, that he created.
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Glad things are on the mend.
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I love that book so much, too. <3