Disoriented by the house when she got home from work today, by the little things out of place or rearranged by our cleaners, by some accumulated disorder and mess, B started feeling bad this evening. Normally, I'd have been defensive about my own perceived failing in keeping order. We both recognize that I'm to some extent an agent of chaos around here. At best, I keep her awake and alive. At worst, I prevent her from establishing routines and create friction. Tonight, I was able to get her to talk about how she felt, expand on her feelings to me. I just listened and tried to understand. We spent a lot of time just lying on the bed talking or being quiet and close.

One thing I realized is that B feels as hemmed in by responsibilities and obligations as I always do, even though she keeps up with them better than I do. We both have our own methods of avoidance, but now we're thinking in terms of how to make sure we have more fun, spend more time together, and devote our time the way we really want. We decided that this weekend (Saturday), we'll go into her office and deal with some problems with her computer setup and web tools. She wants to help me more with Enterzone and I want to help her realize some of her ideas about writing and the web (such as scanning and annotating her personal and family archives, or building a photographic California wildflower alert site). By the time we went to sleep she felt better.