Tuesday
I should be doing production or something, but today is the first day of the new schedule to allow the Boss to take his baby to her clinic. I'm not complaining. Except that no one wants to call me back. I've been doing plenty of nothin'.
But this weekend... It was wonderful. Matt and I went out in the afternoon - took a stroll around the mall and took photos in the booth, had dinner - and then we went to the university to see a storytelling show. He showed me his notebook and all the things he'd been writing about me. It's beautiful. A little scary, but wonderful. Afterwards, we drove around town and I said I would rather go back to his place. We barely left all weekend. Sigh..
Okay, so we did leave. We went to breakfast with his roommate and then we went for a drive because it was too hot to sit around or walk on dark country roads, which is what we always do. We also went to the video store, and he cooked me dinner.
I miss him right now. I'm just waiting for his cell to get into range so I can call him. It's good that the boss isn't here or I wouldn't get to talk to him this morning. And this is on the sly. We haven't told anyone what's going on, at least not here at the paper.
I'm a little worried about what the boss might think if he finds out Matt took the job because he wanted to be near me.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
My cousin told his parents I was seeing Matt and they freaked. So since they warned us, I called my parents and told them. They're not happy.
A crappy ending to a wonderful night and day Matt and I had spent together.
I know, it's crazy, but I'm in love with Matt. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth it to have my parents tell me I'm insane for even considering dating Matt. I don't know what's going to happen. My mother will try to talk me out of it, maybe my father will threaten to hurt Matt. Then again maybe my father will be the rational one. I have a feeling he might be. There's this bad story about THE former boyfriend. The last little bit we were together, he came to a party at the boat club. My dad introduced him as his son-in-law. Ha ha ha. But I think maybe this thing could be okay with him. It's just my mom and her parents I have to worry about.
But Matt is so amazing. He hates the fact that he's causing this problem with my family, but it's not his fault. My cousin is happy for us, which is why he told his parents, but the rest of my family might be another story. But he says I'm the brave one for just calling my parents like that. If he weren't worth it...
I told him this morning on the phone that I'm happy he and I are going through this now, while we're together, instead of in September when I'm stuck at home or once I'm at school and hours and hours and hours away from him.
I didn't come here looking for a summer fling, and I didn't find one. My mother asked if this was a summer fling, but it's not.
I love Matt. I didn't know it would feel this way. I thought I was in love before, but it was a first love and that's so different from this. Mom said Matt comes with baggage. I wouldn't want him any other way.
Oh, and Matt and I have discussed whether the boss knows about he and I with many of the people we know. Matt's roommate says Ross is canny (cannier than a can doing the can-can in Cannes) and must know. He's just being like the US Military: don't ask, don't tell. Fine with me. I wish I could have done that with my parents.
Friday. The "inspector" came to talk about the program that pays for me to be here. She was young, and very chatty, but it was nice to have this be some stressful inspection of every little thing. And we gave her a copy of the paper at the end and sent her on her way. I'm glad it didn't go as badly as it could have. I talked about culture shock (for instance, the fact that people sell the sheets communion wafers are punched out of as snacks... huh?) and the fact that I've been pretty lonely (though I have people now - Matt, and his *hip* (as Laurie would say) friends.
And the rest of the week went well enough. Production was easy - I did Matt's pages and it was a breeze, even when all of his photos turned out to be the wrong shape and printed too darkly. Oops. Probably partly my fault. Though the rest of them said that the screen I was using probably wasn't configured properly. We just got a new toner cartridge, so things came out really dark, which means the prints came out even darker. Oops.
Oh well, it's only a newspaper, right?
© lily keller 2001
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