Reliable Sources Claim: BOW-cher-CAHN

This is a few days late... but Bouchercon was a lot of fun. Baltimore itself (shown above in a photograph I took last Friday) kind of reminds me of Philly, but with hills and much better crabcakes.

Poe Boy and I picked up Scott Phillips and made it down to B'Mo in record time. We didn't stay at the main B'Con hotel, but rather the overflow hotel next door--which turned out to be the former Lord Baltimore Hotel, a gorgeous vertical slab of 1920s swank.

As usual, B'Con is an insane swirl of people. People you've known for years. People you want to meet. People who want to meet you. People you've only met online. People you meet, and want to meet again. People you forgot you wanted to meet. People who meet by chance. All kinds of people.

Which means that it's really difficult to make your way to a panel down the hall without stopping and having a half-dozen conversations. This is not a bad thing; these are conversations with smart, cool, funny people. But it is an exhausting thing. After the first few hours, I really needed to go back to the room and just sit on my bed, stare at the weird gashes in the ceiling (no kidding, there were gashes in the ceiling, kind of like a rabid animal wanted to get up to the ninth floor in a hurry) and say absolutely nothing.

This is either evidence that I'm still the shy kid I was in grade school, or that I've been working freelance from my basement too long.

Some highlights:

* At a dinner for the DHS Galaxy of Stars (i.e., the clients of uber-stud agent David Hale Smith), a woman at the next table was convinced that I was someone famous. When I stepped outside to make a phone call, she even asked DHS if I was someone famous. I can only assume he laughed, and assured her that no, I was not someone famous. When I returned, DHS told me what I had happened, and I turned to look at the woman. The spell was broken; she told me I no longer looked like someone famous. Only my profile looked somewhat famous.

* I made Victor Gischler my last-minute plus one at the St. Martin's Minotaur cocktail party. I filled out my name tag with my real name; Gischler filled out his name tag with the word "Asshole." And he wore it the whole time. Gischler's my hero.

* During a lull in the St. Martin's party, I looked over to see DHS giving me the finger. I responded by grabbing my crotch. We have an awesome agent/client relationship.

* I would not bother with Fort Knox or some cash depository in the southwest. If I were to ever pull an 11-man group heist, I'd knock over Geppi's Entertainment Museum, which is packed with things that would look great on my office walls.

But the biggest highlight of all was meeting a lot of people who have enjoyed my books and comics or read this blog, and took the time to tell me. That means more to me than you may realize.

Even more than Gischler with "asshole" pasted to his shirt.