2002-01-17 - 2:50 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: First movement from "Autumn" of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons"

Today I'm thinking about priorities.

Mainly, how a lot of clashes and disappointments in life can be traced to differing priorities.

This morning, f'r instance, I discovered something about my husband: "straightening up clutter" is just above "washing dishes" on his housework priority list.

It's funny, because "cleaning up clutter" is the ONE THING I really care about, where house work is concerned.

We discussed it in a bit more detail, and I discovered that one reason he doesn't like cleaning up clutter is that I "won't let him throw anything away" (this is an exaggeration, but with a lot of truth in it), so he has to clear stuff with me before he gets rid of it, so he feels like he can't get the job "done".

I suggested that he put my crap in a box and make me go through it when I get home from work. He said, "But then you have the box cluttering the room. There's no progress."

"It's not about progress, it's about AESTHETICS," I replied. "I don't like how it LOOKS. Even neat piles are better than crap scattered everywhere."

We've been together for six years and we're just now clarifying this. We haven't fought over it or anything -- up 'til he got laid off, clutter was my job in our equitable division of labor so it was moot. But since he has more time to clean than I do, I was wondering why clutter was so far down on his priority list. Now I know.

The other priority-related item on my mind is this: where I fall on other people's priority lists.

Do you know, I told two real-life friends from college about my online journal shortly after I started it, and to my knowledge, they have never once been by to visit it?

I'm not sure what happened, whether they lost the e-mail or what. It's weird for me, because if either of them had an online journal or other dynamic web page, I'd be ratcheting up their site meters on a near-hourly basis. I mean, there's no real effort involved there, like there would be in, say, writing me an e-mail. Writing e-mails can be hard to do. Lord knows I've put off enough of those.

Let me make this clear: this doesn't hurt my feelings. I'm a little disappointed, of course, but it's okay. I don't expect everyone to be interested in every part of me.

But it *does* make me feel that I must not be very high on their priority lists. Not just the journal thing, either. I have occasionally written long chatty e-mails and not gotten any response. One of them changed e-mail addresses and never told me, so I didn't find out until they thought, "Hey, I should check my old mailbox.". There's no interest in sustaining regular communication, I guess you could say. If they're upset with me about something, they're not telling me, so I can't do anything about that until they do.

As I said, this doesn't hurt my feelings. People get busy, people grow apart, blah blah blah. I have NO idea what's going on on their end, and they could have a REALLY good reason for all of it. Plus, there have been times in the past when I wasn't good about responding to e-mails either. Downright awful, actually.

Hm, maybe I'm getting what I deserve, here... I'll have to consider THAT one for a while.

Anyway, I'm thinking about this because I was thinking about asking one of these friends to get together soon. But it seems that I'm not very high on the priority list of this friend, so I'm debating whether to do it. I mean, why waste my time driving over there and dealing with the nervousness of wandering around an unfamiliar area if the person is take-it-or-leave-it where I'm concerned?

I guess I feel like, I don't want to waste time and energy that are precious to me on someone to whom I'm fairly low on their priority list. I'd rather spend the time with my husband, frankly. So I'm evaluating where to put this person on MY priority list based on where I am on THEIR priority list.

On the other hand, maybe e-mails and IM's and journal-reading aren't indicative of whether actually seeing me IN PERSON is important to this individual, so I should stop obsessing and just go. After all, there's another friend from college that I've been meaning to write to for about two years now, and keep forgetting (she has no e-mail, so I have to use snail mail), but if she were in town I'd definitely want to make time to see her.

What I'd like to be able to do is just ASK the person, flat-out. "Do you really want to see me or not?" But I don't think people are good at answering that question honestly when the answer is "no".

This whole thing is just stupid. I guess I feel like I've asked these people on "dates" and I've been turned down several times and I'm getting tired of asking. You know what I mean? I want one of them to ask ME on a date now, or I want to know that they're not interested in going on dates and are happy with the once-yearly e-mail and I can just adjust my priority list accordingly and move on.

I'm just whining. And I'm feeling guilty now because I'm sure I've presented this same dilemma to other people. Most of the time, I'm way too passive when it comes to making dates. This is karma, isn't it? My past behavior biting me on the ass?

And the truth is, I'll probably ask 'em out to lunch anyway. It's just one lunch, right? Plus you know me -- I'll turn the trip in unfamiliar territory into an adventure.

This leads to one more thing about my personality: I'm very demanding about having someone's full attention when we're having a conversation.

With Poindexter, even, if we start talking and he gets distracted by the TV (which is always on, on ESPN), I don't want to talk anymore. I don't mind that he'd rather watch TV at the time -- I can usually wait -- but I don't want to share his attention with the television.

When we were living on opposite coasts, we had a scheduled time to talk after 11 each evening when the rates were lower. I could tell when he was watching hockey on TV, because he'd answer my questions but wouldn't bounce the conversational ball back into my court. That made me batshit too. Amazingly, his sister and mom don't notice when he's doing it. Maybe they're doing the same thing. :)

There's probably a logical reason for my deep-seated dislike of this: talking to someone requires MY full attention. It is physically impossible for me to watch television and listen to someone at the same time. If I'm not concentrating fully, I'm not hearing, and can't effectively participate.

In other news:

Our vacation is planned. We got incredibly cheap flights on America West, and I got an incredible special internet rate -- $143/night weeknights, compared to $329 when you call! -- to stay at the Hyatt Sainte Claire. This is a gorgeous, opulent, Italian-style hotel, and is my favorite hotel in downtown San Jose. Plus it's RIGHT THERE in the middle of everything. We won't need the car at all except to drive up and see his sister.

I have my energy back, but I still have that weird feeling of pressure in my throat. It's barely perceptible, so I don't know whether I should ignore it or what. Maybe it's just because the weather is so dry. When I wake up in the night, my throat HURTS because it's so dry, even though we have a humidifier running full blast in the room.

I'm tired. I got up too early. And I've been angry all day. I just really, really can't function without a lot of sleep. Sigh. I'm sleeping away over 1/3 of my life, but if I don't do that, the other 2/3 of my life will be crap. No way out of it.

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