Still no phone line--but it isn't our fault! :) (Okay, so maybe you already assumed this.) Ever since the line went out last Wednesday, BT has been assuring us that the BT line was good, and any problems had to be the fault of our own internal wiring--which meant that, if they sent out an engineer to fix it, we'd have to pay a minimum of £60.00. Ouch. Well, last night a friend came over, took a look and said--there is no way our internal wiring could be messing this up! this is BT's fault! Better yet, adding even more conviction, we found out that the next-door neighbors who share our duplex-y house didn't have a dial tone last week. BT sent out an engineer, who fixed their line--you guessed it--Wednesday morning! The morning our line went out! Some spooky coincidence, huh? So I called BT again (standing with Nika in the pay phone outside the local pub for 25 minutes while I waited on hold, mostly), told them what I'd found out, the nice man put me back on hold...then came back to say, "Ms. Burgis, there seems to be a fault on the BT line." No, really?

But I am very happy. They are going to fix it, and we will not have to pay anything for the privilege. It was a good learning experience, to say the least. And someday--someday soon, even!--we'll have a dial tone again.

In the meantime... I sent out lots of copies of Masks & Shadows yesterday and this morning for critique, which always makes me cringe (aah, it's still so first-drafty, still so rough, what if people throw tomatoes at me????), but I celebrated last night with a shot of Baileys from the wedding-gift stash. I also wrote three more pages of the new short story yesterday, and one and a half more this morning. I'm kinda sorta on a roll. Whoo-ee!

Someday soon I may even find out whether I'm teaching any courses this fall. Since the term starts in about two weeks, it's probably not too soon to know...