221B Con countdown and Watson is making me nervous.

Less than twenty-four hours before 221B Con, and I am sorely troubled.

It's Watson, you see.

Selena Buttons, the head of the John H. Watson Society, has tweeted a picture of the "Watsonian" badge ribbons she'll be carrying into the con, showing her society's Watson pride. And I'm making sure of a few Canonical facts for the panel I'll be on Sunday to talk about Watson's marital lives. Yes, "lives."

And Watson is troubling me. Back when we were all letting Nigel Bruce sway our thoughts about Watson, as well as Doyle's famous film quote that he was "a rather stupid fellow," it was easy to let the conflicting dates in Watson's case records slide. If the good doctor was a little bit of a doofus, those willy-nilly dates were no big deal. But times have changed.

These days, we understand that Watson was no dummy. He was a pretty bright guy. So when he goes to the trouble to specify a particular year and a particular month in a case, we now have to assume he knows what he's talking about. That he was either telling us these things because they were true, or because he wanted us to believe that they were true. And if those dates are anything close to true, John H. Watson had wives, plural. And not just a couple.

Like Selena Buttons and the stalwarts of her society, the Sherlockians of old were big fans of Watson. Thought he was a virtuous, monogamous chap and all that. But when you look at those case dates and the married/not married on-off switch that seems to be Watson's marital status, one starts to become suspicious of just how good a guy he was.

I mean, that wife in "The Man with the Twisted Lip" . . . the one who called him "James." We can say she was having an affair with Moriarty (because he was so cute, right?) or that his middle initial "H" was from the Scottish version of James, "Hamish," and his wife decided to pet-name him the translated-to-English version of it (Huh?), but that all seems like we're doing crazy justification gymnastics just to ignore the most obvious reason for it: "James" was what his wife thought his name truly was, as it was the name he used with her from day one.

Yes, I'm saying John H. Watson might have married at least one wife under an assumed name. Ever wonder why he was so excited to write a whole second novelette about Mormon bigamy in his first published work? Like maybe he was really fascinated by that possibility, to the point of trying it himself? Man, what kind of scoundrel would that guy be? Who would even have him for a room-mate, unless it was somebody who said things like "Women are never to be entirely trusted?" Dark rumors start to swirl around a guy like that. Dark rumors indeed.

What if Watson wasn't entirely a good guy with this whole wives thing? And I could potentially be discussing this in front of people with "WATSONIAN" ribbons proudly displayed on their con badges? This could turn as riotous as a Donald Trump rally! Where's my Secret Service protection!

High noon on Sunday, Sherlockians, Watsonians, and Morstanians. Oh, no. I had forgotten about the Morstanians. I am in so much trouble . . . .

And so it begins . . .

Of course, I'm not ready.

Well, 221B Con spring break is finally here. Is anybody ever actually completely ready for such things?

Nope. But they come anyway. Hopefully, you'll be hearing some happy reports on things soon.

The cultural timestamp called TJLC.

Catching up on podcasts in preparation for 221B Con, I came upon Three Patch Podcast's very in-depth discussion of that passionately discussed topic called "TJLC." I had heard of "The Johnlock Conspiracy" before, but not being a hardcore Sherlock fan, even though I had felt rumblings in the Force when that topic came up, I hadn't really understood how deep that fandom rabbit hole went.

Yes, over-50 white heterosexual male here. There's a lot I don't see until I look hard. (Have to go back to Holmes's Hound quote from this week's Grimm: "The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.") I can be horribly stupid in a lot of areas, so proceed with care. (In other words, don't hurt me. I'm a nice person. Really.)

From the moment the Three Patch discussion started out with the words, "TJLC can be a sensitive subject," my Sherlock-senses soon started tingling out their warning that this was not a topic to be approached lightly by anyone . . . I even had a memory of it being a hot button at the last 221B Con wrap-up session, even though I had no idea what it was. But here's the thing: the reason it's a hot button is because it's actually a very important cultural marker, both within Sherlockiana and without.

Ten years ago it wasn't a thing. Ten years from now it might not be a thing. But right now? It is most definitely a thing. Why?

Because Sherlock Holmes isn't always about Sherlock Holmes. Most times, he's about us.

"My Sherlock Holmes is . . . " Fill in your own blank here. He's your Sherlock Holmes. He touches something deep inside you and has been mentally customized to fit the inside of your head. You may think he's Basil Rathbone or Benedict Cumberbatch or a Sidney Paget drawing or Jonny Lee Miller, but that's just the coat of paint that covers the mix of personality traits that makes Sherlock Holmes meaningful to you. It could be the cool logic. It could be the bonds of friendship. It could be a tendency for addiction. Sliding scales of each of those and more can vary widely between what's behind your Cumberbatch coating and my Cumberbatch coating. But the key part of all that is this: Sherlock Holmes (or John H. Watson, if that's your key, and it is to some) is us.

And that's what one has to consider when observing the debates behind the Johnlock Conspiracy.

The Johnlock Conspiracy, as I understand it, is the deeply held and backed-up-by-all-sorts-of-evidence belief that BBC Sherlock's overarching tale is one of two same-sex lovers who will eventually find that in each other. And that the producers are secretly (or maybe not so secretly) writing it that way. It's more than just a theory to those who hold it most dear, it's a believed truth.

And one can see why they want it to be so. Gay couples in modern television are very hard to find. Lately a lot of them who come together on shows like CW's The 100 immediately have one of the pair get killed the minute they acknowledge their same-sex relationship. Just as society is struggling to accept that things aren't the same-old, same-old, our media story-telling is, too. And here come Sherlock and John, with such a chemistry between them, and such an obvious love as well.

Now, they could be like Xena, Warrior Princess and toy with the thought of a gay relationship for the entire show, never quite seem to get there, and come back in a rebooted version (as Xena seems to be doing) with it fully realized. Xena is a twenty-year-old show . . . for Sherlock and John to follow the same path seems a bit . . . old fashioned? And yet, if that was never truly the intent of the showrunners, one couldn't blame them for keeping Sherlock asexual and John hetero . . . unless you were blaming them for teasing something they never intended to do.

Very complex and murky waters indeed, when you bring intent of the writers and what meaning viewers pull out of a story up for comparision. My old high school English teacher used to go on about Hemingway's "theme of blood," and I always wondered if that was Hemingway's intent or just what my teacher and her academic class of folk wanted to see there. But those on the side of the Johnlock Conspiracy don't seem to just be pontificating English teachers. It sounds like they've done some pretty intense research to back up their theories . . . research on the BBC Sherlock Canon that hits a level of detail that the old school hits with the original Doyle Canon. And they hit the original Canon in their search as well. (The Criterion was a gay bar? To the Victorian Snopes site!)

At the core of The Johnlock Conspiracy, no matter how you slice it, is how our culture, our media, and our stories are dealing with non-traditional relationships. Right here. Right now. We've come a goodly way to even be able to have this discussion at this point, and we have a ways to go before it becomes something that doesn't need to be discussed. Like I said, Sherlock Holmes is about us.

You get to have your Holmes. I get to have mine. As individuals, these things may be just our personal opinions, as a culture, however, they show us what's happening in the world around us, even if we only want to talk about that guy named Sherlock Holmes.

Looking forward to 221B Con all the more after listening to Three Patch's latest. (I don't count, or listen to Spoilercasts, for the obvious reason. Hmm, why does the word "Spoilers!" always ring out in my head in Alex Kingston's voice?) I never come away from that weekend without learning quite at bit about Sherlock Holmes I never knew going in.

Calling upon Mrs. Watson again to see if she looks the same.

Just over fourteen years ago, I presented a paper at the Holmes/Doyle symposium in Dayton on the multiple wives of John H. Watson. At that time, I counted openings for six Mrs. Watsons by looking at the gaps in Watson's married life, when he was single and back at Baker Street. At that time, I based my conclusions entirely upon circumstantial evidence, and pulled my six Mrs. Watsons from whoever happened to be close at hand during Watson's bachelor period.

They were interesting choices, but were they definitive? Hardly.

Over the last fourteen years, I've had time to consider Watson's married life, and my thoughts have evolved a bit . . . heck, Sherlockiana itself has evolved a whole lot since I wrote that paper. At one point, I even came up with a sequel paper to that one for a visit to the Scintillation of Scions that didn't work out, and that one is still a work for which the world is not yet prepared (which is a very strange thing to say these days when the world seems to conjure up just about anything). But that train of thought goes down an entirely different path and not the subject at hand for this year's panel at 221B Con in Atlanta.

This time it's back to Watson's wives. And I really need to stop saying "Watson's wives" like he was the most important one. "Women willing to take John H. Watson as a husband" might be a better phrase. It wasn't like he was just plucking them out of a Canonical woman tree.

What sort of woman would want John H. Watson, doctor, writer (of various states of reknown at various times), ex-military man, adventurer, etc.?  Easy for a fan to say "Any woman!" but would Irene Adler have given him the time of day? Was she similar enough to Sherlock Holmes in mindset to find Watson an admirable enough companion for matrimony?

These are the sort of questions that need answering.

There are a veritable village of eligible candidates in the original Canon. Since we're talking legal marriage in the Victorian era, I am limiting the choices to females, but even that becomes something to consider . . . what if a "beard" was the sort of wife Watson needed? How does that affect the equation?

'Tis a bit more open-minded world that that of 2002, and one needs to open a mind up wind whenever contemplating the mystery that is John H. Watson.

High noon this Sunday, in the Jackson room at the Atlanta Marriott Perimeter Center, the discussion of just who would wind up married to such a man will take place in earnest at 221B Con, and I will eventually report the results back here.

Mrs. Watson. Hmmm.

The March of the Hound takes a Grimm turn.

You have to love the new on-demand phase of our television access.

Hear about a show you missed last week? All you have to do is hit a few menus and there it is.

Today I learned of a second non-Sherlockian show to have an episode inspired by The Hound of the Baskervilles this month: NBC's Grimm.

After a little bit of continued continuity (ahhhhh . . .), Grimm began its tale with a perfectly ominous quote settling on the screen with enough time for its words to sink in:

"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes."

I don't remember those words from Sherlock Holmes ever sounding so spooky before, but they are.

And then a car and driver, forests, rain, and a cell phone conversation that starts with: "Yeah, and go ahead and call Stapleton, let him know that I gave him him til start of business on Monday to counter our offer on the Baker Street property . . ."

Turns out the guys name is Doyle Bask, and after blowing a tire, something bad happens, he winds up messed up and bloody on the road, but alive, claiming he was attacked by a large dog.

Past that, the story goes off on kind of a basic werewolf-hunters tale, with a lot of Grimm mythos mixed in. Not being that familiar with the show, there was a lot I was working a bit of that out as it went, but it seemed to be moving their story along pretty well.

No Sherlock Holmes in Grimm world, but that's only the way things should be.

Still, nice to see a nod to a horror classic that Sherlock Holmes happens to be a part of, even he can't exactly show up to fix it, in that very non-supernatural way he's famous for.

(Thanks to @plexippa for the heads-up Tweet on this one.)

And the choosing begins . . .

The best thing about 221B Con, the absolute best thing, is that you rarely have to be bored for any given hour of the con. With usually four or five choices of programming going on at any moment, it's hard to find one's self without something of interest going on. And that's also the worst thing about 221B Con.

The schedule for the con has come out, so con-goers can start planning their days (and finding out if the panel they signed up to be on is at the very same time as the other panel they wanted to see). This year, as I only put in for one panel ("Old School Shipping: The Many Wives of Classic Watson"), I'll have to miss choosing between writing dilemmas, fanfiction, costuming on a budget, and trivia. Costuming would have been my go-to if I was free, and writing dilemmas sounded like fun, too. But then, as experience has shown, any panel at 221B Con is ripe with possibilities. The panel names are often quite . . . understated?

Not sure if that's the word I want (a writing dilemma), but that's the thing about looking over the con schedule. A lot of it looks like the map of Silver Dollar City I saw when I was thirteen . . . being a little humble in showing the wild rides that awaited at each location.

This year, my goal is to attend some things that are outside my bubble, maybe not go for too many repeats of last year's favorites, and try to expand my Sherlockian universe a little bit more, as every 221B Con has done for me. The web series showings are hard to pass up, as are the podcast recordings . . . even though they are the one part of the con you can get to later. Fortunately the con never does too much counter-programming against the podcasts. The David Nellist session is also probably a must-see, with only "Con Etiquette" and a craft session going against it. (Nellist fans, I'm assuming, must be considered well behaved folks by the con organizers.)

But even with a rough guideline in mind, there are a lot of hard choices ahead. From the very first session, "AU and Crossover" versus "Watson's Colleagues: Doctors in the Canon" versus "Mary Watson nee Morstan," I can see I'm going to be missing something. Luckily, I'm taking the good Carter with me this year, so in some cases we can cover double the territory and I can at least get first-hand reports on some of what I miss.

It would be interesting to someday see an actual consortium of web-reporters coordinate to do write-ups of every single panel at a 221B Con. Perhaps I'm betraying a writer's bias here, but recordings of the whole thing will always be problematic, as not everyone wants to have their words, vocal reactions, and occasional slips locked in for posterity. But a simple report of the more interesting points out of each session, collected together? Might be a worthwhile reference.

So many great thoughts and ideas pop up at these conventions that it's impossible to catch them all, of course, just as it's impossible to get to even great session that will happen next weekend. But as Sherlock Holmes once said in his Stan Lee moment:

"Excellent, Watson! Compound of the Busy Bee and Excelsior. We can but try -- the motto of the firm."

And it doesn't get more "Busy Bee and Excelsior" than rolling through a 221B Con.

A solid 800.

My Sherlockian library has a few books in it with the word "encyclopedia" in the title. It lends a certain authority to the work, and they come in handy now and then . . . some moreso than others, of course . . . but useful all the same. Each of them represents a good amount of work on the part of the author, and I've always appreciated those willing to do that work.

Christopher Redmond's new book Lives Beyond Baker Street does not have that word, "encyclopedia," in the title. It has a different word in its subtitle, "A Biographical Dictionary of Sherlock Holmes's Contemporaries." But whatever word best for this excellent reference work, it belongs on every Sherlockian's shelf next to all of those others.

If you arranged the contents of Lives Beyond Baker Street in columns next to the text of the original Sherlock Holmes Canon, it would make a fine annotated of sorts. If you pulled random folks out of its pages, you could create Holmes-and-historical-figure crossover pastiches for the rest of your life. And if all you want is to get a first look at some name you've seen in Doyle's original works or otherwise connected to Sherlock Holmes from his own period, well, check the index . . . they are surely in here.

The key points of eight hundred lives are compiled in Lives Beyond Baker Street all tied in some way to our friend Sherlock Holmes. Eight hundred, all from over a hundred years ago. It's a fascinating thing, and the sort of book you can dive into at any point in its pages and find someone you'll want to find out more about. As Chris Redmond writes in his introduction, the eight hundred capsule lives of his book are just starting points for future reading.

But these aren't just vanilla little summary bios. I've already learned several new facts about some of my favorites from Chris's write-ups of these folk. This is plainly a work that wasn't just conceived and compiled in the last year or so on a whim. And Sherlockiana will be all the better for it.

No matter what direction your Sherlockian path will eventually take you, I think Chris Redmond's Lives Beyond Baker Street is a book you might want to have on your bookshelf.