It's no big secret I don't blog very often. Mainly, I'm just lazy. Also, whenever I write, I tend to wander off on tangents with no end in sight. But most embarassing of all, I always start to get all moody and depressive like a teenager writing in a diary. Mortified anyone? In spite of all of that, I thought I'd just take the plunge and put up some thoughts that have been rambling around my head the last few weeks.

I've been married now for one and a half years, and have been with my wife for over five. We started dating in October 2001. So I thought it might be appropriate to mention some of the small differences I've noticed in the way men and women approach planning. I thought this might be appropriate given the impending holidays and the stresses they generally bring.

My wife is so much more on the ball about planning social activities than I am. Seriously, it's ridiculous. For example, she'll set up lunch dates with people weeks in advance. Lunch dates! These lunches must be set up so far in advance because both women actually know their schedules and have conflicts that far out. Meanwhile, do you know what I'm going to be doing for lunch today? Going to the gym. And tomorrow? Going to the gym. And probably the day after that, too. But if I don't I'll think of something. I definitely don't have any plans. If you need to meet me for lunch today, that's fine. Tomorrow's good, too. It's just that, if it's two guys, let's not call it a date, ok?

She not just organized for lunch. She's organized about everything. We've literally set up dinners with friends two months into the future. It boggles my mind how someone can now where they will be in two months. And I don't think it's just my wife and I who exhibit this dynamic.

One Saturday about two years ago when I was still in school I was studying in a cafe, or more accurately, sort of studying but mostly people watching. This was a beautiful morning in early May. I had been there about half an hour when a man and a woman came in, obviously a couple. What struck me was that they had this huge calendar with them. Literally like the old-school kind you used to see at work that took up the entire desktop. Anyway, she then proceeded to go through the calendar week by week and plan out their entire summer. She was planning out who they were going to visit and what they were going to do for every weekend between May and September. Every vacation, every trip to see old friends, where they would be at each and every moment for the next four months. It was horrifying. I can still see the look of abject terror on the guys face. Even now I get the willies just thinking about it. Seriously, I'm pretty sure this is a scary story scout masters tell their cub scouts around the campfire. "...And he never got to have a free weekend again for the rest of his life! Hahahaha!"

Ok, ok that's a little extreme, but I do know that while it scared me to death, when I went home to tell my now-wife about it she thought for a second and said, "Well that's not a bad idea." I want to stress that nothing like this has ever happened in our own home, but I think it helps to show my point. Also, please understand, my wife is actually very mellow when it comes to planning... just not as mellow as me.

Of course, there are some men who are the planners and some women who are more sponatneous. Remember, this is about our marriage.

I also understand the benefits of planning. Really I do. It's just that I am constitutionally incapable of laying out my daily life like that. I can plan vacations and special occassions, but much prefer to have some wiggle room to do spur of the moment things if something strikes my fancy.

The benefits of planning are that the planner usually gets to set the agenda for the couple. I don't think this is done intentionally, it just happens that way. Also, contrary to my wishful thinking you actually can get much more done if it's all planned out.

However, in closing I have noticed my wife tends to get more stressed out for example when it comes to big holiday weekends with many events packed into an extremely short time-span. It usually plays out that she is feeling quite a bit of anxiety while I am cheerfully telling her, "Don't worry honey, it will all work out. We have plenty of time." In these cases although she is usually right, all I can say in my own defense is that this is a situation where ignorance is bliss.

There are other topics to cover here; checkbook balancing, cold weather, what is "sweet" and what is "too sweet", and many others. Hopefully, I'll get around to publishing them, but considering how disorganized and spur of the moment my time is, I tend to doubt it.