Jed and I headed down to the SFY meeting around 1. Got there on time, around 2. As it turned out, people were running late, and by the time they arrived and we ate Avi's yummy food (hummus and falafel and lavosh and tahini and baba ganoush and next time I'm going to make him make dolmas 'cause that was the only thing missing and I love them to distraction) and goofed off, it was 4. So we started critiquing. People were generally kind to my "Bodies in Motion", which was sort of to be expected since it was the third draft (I never do this many drafts. It's going to need at least one more. Oof. It better be worth it.), except for Zed who was not kind but who was right on the money in his critiques. Cut the easy romance novel claptrap. Ground my damn characters. As Nicola says, "Do the work." I am such a lazy bum sometimes...
When I finally got home, it was almost 8, and I didn't do much other than call Kevin and talk to him. The conversation was a little frustrating 'cause he's in Chicago for a bit doing some work with some other mathematicians which means that he's using his cell phone which means that every twenty minutes or so it would decide to just cut out and he'd have to call me back. It was frustrating in lots of other ways too, but we managed to resolve some things a little, so that when I finally got off the phone at 11:30 I felt more at peace than I have in a while.
I had forwarded Todd's latest journal entries to him, and he had read them (though not responded because he doesn't like using e-mail for anything other than brief notes, and you can just imagine how nuts that drives me when I send him long convoluted letters, but anyway), so we talked about similarities and differences. He started by saying that the situations weren't that similar and if he felt the way Todd felt, he would have just broken up with me. So after I recovered from my heart attack, I pointed out that Todd doesn't seem so sure of the way Todd feels on some of the major points, and he agreed, and somewhere in the muddle of conversation around that it became clear that there really are some pretty major differences between our relationship and Todd and Debbie's relationship. Which is really probably just as well. (And which is not, in any way, to be taken to mean that I think they shouldn't stay together -- I think they should most definitely stay together. I also think Todd should just do what I tell him to and stop worrying his pretty little head and he'd be much happier. :-)
Kev and I also rehashed the whole flowers thing, and oddly enough, might have actually made some progress on it. That's really bizarre to me, considering that this has been an issue, off and on, for seven years. Why in the world we'd figure out stuff about it now, I don't get. You would think it would have happened long ago. But I'm glad anyway. And we managed to clear up some misunderstandings from last Christmas, which was just a bonus. Interesting conversation. Well worth a couple of hours.
This morning I spent talking to city sanitation people (our sewer backed up again, oof!) and putting together my application to teach composition at Salt Lake Community College. I sent them my CV, my tech writing resume, their application form, and a letter to the division chair (which Cliff said looked pretty good), so keep your fingers crossed. I'm going to try to remember to call them Wednesday or Thursday and see if they got it okay. We'll see how it goes.
In case I haven't explained the significance of this, I'll recap -- I'm planning on spending at least July in Salt Lake with Kevin, more probably mid-June to mid-August, and possibly all of June through August (though that last is not so likely). It would be exceedingly nice to be teaching for some of that time; as y'all know, I've been missing teaching something fierce, and the experience would be interesting and worthwhile (though undoubtedly terrifying too (Watch Mary Anne panic. Panic, Mary Anne, panic)). University of Utah doesn't have any summer teaching left, so this is really my one shot for it in Salt Lake. If I don't get it, then I'll almost certainly go anyway and spend the time with Kevin, do tech writing and temping to earn my daily bread, and continue to look for teaching work for the next academic year. Oof. Okay, I think that covers it.
And my boss just beeped me, so I gotta run off to meet with the engineers. Talk to y'all later...