The Sherlock Holmes Birthday Stayweekend begins!

Well, I didn't get any selfies of my fresh haircut as I boarded the car to make my way to the start of my Sherlock Holmes Birthday Stayweekend, the book release party as I released Lyndsay Faye's The Paragon Hotel from it's corrugated cardboard shipping case, the happy e-mail encounter with a Sherlockian friend, but that's okay. The Keefauver selfie skills seem to have skipped a generation, because I know my nieces and nephews have it down.

So here we are. Even if one doesn't feel too envious of those travelers gathering in New York this week for Sherlockian purposes, one definitely can get a feeling that one isn't keeping up with one's Sherlockian "duties." It's not that Sherlockian life has any requirements that can only be met by attending the New York weekend, but it's the focal point for enough Sherlock Holmes fans of the old school that it can come to feel like that way.

For those of us who, for whatever reason, are doing the Sherlock Holmes Birthday Stayweekend this week, however, it might be good to do something a little special to enjoy the week in a Sherlockian way. This year, for example, (DON'T SAY IT! DON'T SAY IT! THEY'RE GOING TO THINK YOU'RE OBSESSED!) Holmes and Watson is hanging on in theaters until at least Thursday, and possibly longer. (I CAN'T HELP IT! THE LOA POSSESSED ME!)

This early in the year, however, those of us with fresh Sherlockian goals can look at this as a fertile time to put our excitement toward breaking ground on new projects. This is such an exciting time to be into Sherlock Holmes, with paths available to us that our forebears didn't even see coming and would have loved to have at their fingertips. There may be a really good party or four, some good folks to meet, some good books to buy, and other diversions in NYC, but we're not exactly adrift in a void if we're not there.

(And those who are there have to have somebody to send their social media postcards to!)

So, if you're Stayweekending like me this week, have a little Sherlock fun of the kind you love most and know that you're not the only one. Our numbers are greater than ever before, I'd wager, and one of these days somebody'll get a virtual equivalent figured out. But in the meantime, there's a lot of Sherlock to be grateful for, even in the place you're at right now.

Let me know if you have any good Sherlock Holmes Birthday Stayweekend ideas to share, because it's starting now!