goosebumps

My bones shiver and shudder as the cool wind breezes through my window. The goosebumps peak through my skin but my hands are always clammy. Underneath the blanket I feel warm, almost uncomfortably warm and I wonder if the temperature changes are affecting my health, but more likely it’s my nerves, my moods. I’m cold and terrified, clammy and nervous. Always worrying, never thinking. Logical and rash, simultaneously. A shiver rises up my spine, I sneeze and think my soulmate is thinking of me. I forget if that’s a real saying or if I made it up. My soulmate must sneeze constantly, poor guy.

Piano music gives me shivers that are not uncomfortable. There is a song that I listen to that never fails to make my fingers itch to dance across some keys. Except that my fingers are just like me and are incapable of keeping time to a beat so I fail at that. But it makes me incredibly sad and also makes me realize how easily I'd be won over by the right song. I listen to this song (read: it's actually a dj mix...) every night before bed and I haven't gotten tired of it yet and I wonder how much longer that'll last.

I went through this Neil Gaiman phase (which I haven't actually left, yet) in which I was completely enamored with The Wake (issue 10 of The Sandman series) and Dream Hunters (a made-up folk story with an amazing Japanese artist). This was during the time of my break-up and I was completely and utterly heart-broken that I didn't have anybody to share the beauty of this story with. Come to think of it, I haven't met anyone yet that has been touched by it as much as I have.

So this one night I'm reading it and listening to Ed Harcourt and the lyrics fit together so perfectly, beautifully, so completely flawlessly that I decided I was going to have to get a tattoo of this made-up (at least I think so) mythological creature and the lyrics that correspond to it. I even went so far as to write to Ed Harcourt and ask for his blessing for the tattoo to which he replied! To my complete and utter joy, he replied and said yes of course. I adore him so, he's such a darling.

It's funny to think that was over a year ago and my skin remains completely untainted. ...Well, from unnatural causes. (Darn you, acne!)

The song is playing. I must dim the lights and shut my eyes and drown in the shivers it gives me. Ooh, it makes me ache how badly I want to play the piano.

Oh right. Neil Gaiman. So recently I wrote him a letter that I'd like to send to him. I think I will. A favorite author deserves to know he is such. I am on a lifelong quest to own everything of his that he has created. I have found works of his that have done absolutely nothing for me and I still cherish them because they are from the same mind who has saved me time and time again. Not just from boredom but heartache. Ah, I owe him a lot, a letter is the least I could do.