Malice Domestic

Home at last from another swell conference.

Sadly, I was unable to find my camera at the last minute when I was leaving for Malice Domestic early Friday morning. As a result I was not able to take any movies of the view from the Hyatt elevator as it goes up and down (one of the fun things I like to do in strange hotels with fancy glass elevators). Nor was I able to take any pictures of myself posed with any of the Big Guns of Traditional Mystery. Nor was I able to photograph my roommate, Robin Hathaway, and me in our elegant outfits for the Malice Domestic banquet on Saturday night. That was not because there was no camera, but because we never got into those outfits. They were in our hotel room at three-thirty in the afternoon when the lock on the door failed, sealing us out, sealing our possessions (including our outfits) in.

Nor was I able to take any pictures of the kindly West Indian locksmith who slaved over the lock for two and a half or three hours before digging it out (you should see the scars on the door). He replaced it with a new one just in time for us to come staggering out of the banquet, still dressed in our day clothes, our hands numb with clapping, our lips stiff with cheers for the honorees, our bellies stuffed with delicious food, and fall into bed.

It was swell. The Hyatt took serious money off the bill for our inconvenience, not all that inconvenient for us, maybe inconvenient for people who wanted to see us in our glad rags. Next day were our panels, perfectly successful. Mine was put up on Twitter by Criminal Element
@crimehq. Interesting to see that. (See how reading tweets makes your sentences shorter.)

But as I said, I'm home now, and dying to get into my own little bed. Alas, The Washington Post says that President Obama wants to speak to us all in the middle of the night, and he won't say what about. It could be a message about the end of the world for all I know. I dare not go to sleep. What if the world ended while I was sleeping?

Later:

Went to sleep anyway. Awoke to hear the joyful news that Osama Bin Laden is dead. Distressed to hear that we buried him at sea. I can understand where that would discourage the tendency of his supporters to gather at his gravesite and make trouble, but what about the ones who are going to deny that he's really dead? Couldn't we have saved his head or something? Put it on a pike in Lafayette park? Such a waste.