Damnit. My brain keeps on reminding me that I haven't called my mom in a while and it's long past time to tell her what I'm up to and see how she's doing; we talked every week or two.
I want to tell her that hey! I applied to deal at this year's Worldcon far too late, and got in, isn't that cool? And then tell her a bit about the whole “Sad/Rabid Puppies” Hugo vote-stuffing thing going on this year, and my hope that this will have Worldcon attendees aggressively looking for the kinds of stories that group was reacting against, which is a thing “Rita” definitely is, and even aside from that it's a chance for me to get my stuff in front of the audience that's going to vote for next year's Hugo with the final volume of the story well on its way to completion, and, well, just wow, I've gotten to a point in my life where I feel like a major award like that is actually something I have a modest chance of getting and that's pretty cool.
And then I'd hear about whatever she might have been reading or watching and doing, maybe a bit about her surrogate grandchildren, maybe explain some bit of technology she was curious about, whatever.
But I can't have that conversation with her. I can never have this kind of conversation again. And every time my habits poke me to pick up the phone and call her, I have to remember that, and I get to miss her all over again. I'm sitting in bed getting tears all over the iPad as I write this.
Anyway. I'll be at this year's Worldcon in eastern Washington, selling the usual stuff.