“You’ll want to change the sheets before you use my bed,” she said. And told me where they were, and that there were probably some in the dryer, and so on and so forth.

But I haven’t even thought of doing that. Sleeping in her bed just feels so incredibly wrong. Instead I’m sleeping on the fold-out bed in the love seat that I usually sleep on when I visit her. It used to be in the library; now it’s in the living room. I had to make a bit of a mess by moving her exercise bike back to make room to open it up. I’ll have to move it around again when I leave. I don’t care. I just feel like her bed is not a thing I should sleep in while she’s still alive. Or maybe ever.

Right now, she’s in the ICU at the hospital. I’m hoping I’ll be able to see her tomorrow. I was too late to see her before she went in for surgery this morning; I’m really glad I went directly from the airport to the hospital and talked with her last night.

I’m sitting on the love seat. In a few minutes I’m going to open it out into a bed again and go to sleep.

I spent some time today making a sigil to hopefully help her out. Yeah, the inner Rationalist is all ‘magic is bullshit’ but a few things have happened after the Magician has done that kind of thing that the Rationalist has to admit are impressive coincidences, even when accounting for confirmation bias, so, y’know, it can’t hurt, and at least it let me feel like I was doing something for her besides just wandering around stressing out. I shared it on Twitter and Tumblr with a request to charge and/or share it, because why the hell not crowdsource a magic spell? It worked for Grant Morrison’s career.

Then I hooked up with Lewis with the intent of going out to see my old high school friend Dave Vaszquez’s band playing for Cinco De Mayo, but the place was insanely overflowing, so we just went out and had some beer and suchlike instead and talked about Lewis’ tv show pitch, Doctor Who, and lots of other stuff that were not The Current State Of My Mother.

Relatives and friends of my mother are now phoning me asking for updates. I think I am going to have to get their e-mail addresses and send out mass mails because I really hate talking on the telephone, and I really don’t want to have to dwell on things by saying them again and again and again.

It is not until I am lying naked atop the unfolded sofa-bed in my mother’s apartment, in the dark, that I let myself cry.

And only briefly at that.

An hour or so ago, I was sitting in a hospital room talking to her. This morning, I was getting onto a plane in Seattle. I’m stressed and tired and worried and did I mention I’m tired and should go to bed because she’s having minor surgery tomorrow morning and wants to see me before then.

Three weeks ago she fell and couldn’t get up, and went to the hospital. She’s been lying in a bed being prodded and poked. She’s quite coherent and in pretty good spirits all things considered.

That, it seems, was the first time she’d left the apartment in six months due to her slowly growing mobility issues and the three steep steps between her and the car. I only found out the “six months” part over the phone a couple days ago, when talking to Jennie, who heard it from my mom’s friend Ellen. My mom has been getting increasingly stir-crazy and lonely due to this.

I’m mostly hopeful that she’s got a lot of time left. She’s pushing for physical therapy and such to get her moving again once some other more pressing things are resolved. She still gives a fuck about living, which is important in these kinds of situations.

But I’m pretty much a giant bag of raw nerves right now, and I should close this computer, and curl up with my plush t-rex and sleep. And maybe cry. I probably need to do that, a lot.

I’ve really never been at all good at crying when I need to.