I am packing, clothes and snacks and electronic gewgaws. I leave tonight for about eight weeks in India, where I'll keep an eye on my mom. This is not easy for me; I do not mind sitting on airplanes for long periods, but I love my husband and will miss him, and I will feel alien and sad and alone a lot. But thinking about it doesn't help me get up and pack and get on the plane and comfort my mom, so I am going to try being unthinking.

Chris Moriarty's Books column in the September/October 2010 Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction has a review of C.J. Cherryh's Regenesis. He says on page 57: "And Cherryh lovingly chronicles the bleed-through, creating a rich parable of the little deaths of the soul that we ignore in our own lives because... well... there are times when you just can't look life straight in the eye and still do what you have to do to get through it."

And in the same issue, in Alexandra Duncan's great "The Door in the Earth," a young man visiting his mother thinks of his girlfriend: "I needed to hear her voice, have her remind me that every day here was another I wouldn't have to do over again. Every day was bringing me back to the bearableness of routine."

Even writing this post, though I want to do it to explain to you how I'm feeling, isn't doing me any good. I just need to hit Post, grit my teeth, and go. So. See you on the net, now and then.