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I decided it was time to move on, and I told him I no longer wanted to pursue a relationship with him. I had a blast visiting the record stores and used bookstores, but Tom wanted to do other things, like check out the various monuments and other historical sites. I flew there from Detroit, and Tom and I rented a hotel room in Cambridge, very close to the Harvard campus.
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I continued doing instruction and reference, and also continued on the Diversity Council, helping to coordinate the annual diversity film festival series and doing more exhibits. I was given more responsibility as manager of the student reference assistant program, and I was pretty happy with the work. Things got better by the Fall, as my supervisor, “the southern belle from hell,” had moved on to the Library School, where she was pursuing a PhD. Nothing materialized, however, so I stayed at Michigan the entire year, and continued to work at the Undergraduate Library. I was really disappointed, but decided to continue job hunting. My presentation was well received, however, but in the end the job went to someone else. I had to give a presentation and meet with lots of different groups, and I was a nervous wreck. In the Spring I applied for a new job, that of “diversity librarian” at the University of Michigan. The book was titled, “Latino Librariaship: A Handbook for Professionals” and was edited by Sal Guerena, an archivist from Santa Barbara, California and former REFORMA president. In March, I had another book review published. I swore after I had tested negative that I would never do anything risky again, and while I can’t say I’ve always been faithful to that promise, I never did get HIV, even while sexually active. I didn’t want to have to die the way so many people around me had died, from a disease that was unstoppable and merciless. I worried that I would hurt myself if I had tested positive. I had been very careful the last several years (Brent and I had an open relationship), but I still was sexually active, and there was a time or two when I took some risks that I should not have taken. I got an AIDS test in February and tested negative. We went to Hartford and Mystic Seaport, visited antique stores and flea markets, and even drove up to Rhode Island. He was a librarian and had a job as a cataloger at the University of Connecticut. Tom picked me up in Springfield and we drove to Storrs, Connecticut where he lived. The train went through upstate New York, and I got to see a lot of beautiful country side. Later in the month, I took a train to Springfield, Massachusetts to visit Tom. We had a lot of fun, and got to go to Hollywood and walk around a bit. All I have are some photos we took and an abstract from the program. We did alright, but I didn’t save any of my notes or other written material. In late January I was traveling again, and this time I flew with my friend Karen to Long Beach, CA to give a presentation on diversity at the Freshman Year Experience Conference.
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I was lonely and thought we could make things work, but they didn’t after all. I think I was on the rebound, and Tom was the first guy after my breakup with Brent to show any interest in me.
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We spent time together in February and April, and in May we split up. Once the conference ended, we agreed to stay in touch and to see each other whenever possible, and we got along great for a while, visiting each other whenever we could, but then I got restless, and he turned out to not be the kind of guy I wanted to be with after all. However, he lived in Connecticut, several hundred miles away. He was quite liberal and a very good conversationalist. I also met a guy named Tom at a GLBT social gathering, and we hit it off. I believe I went with Karen, Linda and Barb this time around. The last leg of the trip was through Gary, Indiana and south Chicago, and it all looked like one big industrial wasteland. It sure was an interesting ride, with lots of scenery along the way, some of it not so pretty, in all honesty. I also got to travel to Chicago again for yet another ALA conference. On the bright side, however, I was promoted to Associate Librarian, effective January 1, 1991, and I got to create another Martin Luther King, Jr. Getting through the holidays was difficult. I started out the year alone as Brent and I had just split up the previous month.