Just returned from Boston...

...after attending a narrative journalism conference there.

Loved two of the speakers. Met one nice, unassuming and self-deprecating journalist.

As for most of the other people there, well -- confession: I really do not care for the reporters and editors I meet at these things.

Arrogant. Pretentious. Pontificating.

Thank God my friends Amy and Austin were there. Otherwise, I would have spent much of my time skulking from one session to the next, praying I wouldn't be obligated to make nice.

My usual conference practice goes something like this: I go to the sessions. I pick out which people are likely to be most obnoxious during the Q & A portion. Then I make fun of them at dinner. Few of these people -- many of them conference junkies -- bother to actually ASK anything. No, they approach the microphone and begin with something like this: "I once worked on this 90-part, one-million word series in 1990 that was nominated for xxx number of national awards, and I've always thought that..."

Let's put it this way: There are no hotels I know of that are big enough to contain all that ego.

In my spare time, I walked the Freedom Trail, visited the JFK Presidential Library and gorged on the best seafood I've had in years.

I also missed my kids like crazy, a point highlighted by an incident on a train that nearly brought me to tears.

As this little girl — 2ish, maybe? -- climbed up the steps, her shoe came off and fell onto the tracks. Everyone was looking out the window, her parents were telling her they couldn't get the shoe, and this toddler just sobbed and sobbed — from one station to the next.

Heartwrenching. Mainly because I could imagine Tootie's heartbreak on losing a prized piece of footwear.

Hell, I've owned shoes whose parting would have caused me to weep. (Although I loved them for their comfort, not their style, sadly. I'm sure this child's shoe was much more fetching than any of mine.)