palace of winds

Last night I dreamt I was back at school, taking a course taught by Neil Gaiman. It was held in this strange sort of multi-level room in his house with everyone just hanging about on various odd chairs and throw pillows. I started out in the loft but ended up lounging on the stairs. He had asked one girl to describe one of her most vivid memories about ice cream, and as she did he strolled among the students. She had a very short recollection, though, and he stopped at the bottom of the stairs and just stared off into space for a while, and we all waited for him to move on with class.

After a few long minutes he said that he wasn’t sure how we were going to have an entire class of discussion on just that, that she hadn’t given us much to go on, and then he meandered up the stairs. One of his cats, a small light orange tabby, leapt onto my chest and began purring madly, bowing sphinx-like to have the place just before her tail patted and generally twisting and rubbing at me with her face in cat ecstacy. Neil expressed some surprise, saying usually she took ages to warm up to people.