03/20/13 - 8:57 a.m.

So, another fight with my girlfriend. This one ended with her slamming the door on her way out to work, screaming "F#@@ YOU!"

And yet oddly, I feel good. There was a fight because I spoke up about things that were bothering me. And we got through the first two just fine. It only really got heated when I complained that since I'm working from home, it's a real pain when my girlfriend has a housekeeper come by for two hours to vacuum right in the middle of my work day.

That was okay when I wasn't working, I explained, but now that I am -- well, that vacuum cleaner interferes with my workspace. Seemed like a reasonable position to me, except my girlfriend knows that the housekeeper can't come on the weekend, so there's no real solution - and, she also really likes having that housekeeper come and clean everything up. But that's almost beside the point, because my girlfriend is also just tired and low on energy and (she later conceded) hates that I can work from home while she can't. So the first thing she said in reply was just a cheap shot about that...

And I didn't let it go. I insisted we talk about that too. It's my life. It is what it is. (And yes, I am paying all my bills, as both she and I already knew.) So you don't really score any "argument points" just by stating "You work from home." Yeah -- what of it?

Now there's two things unresolved - my issue with the housekeeper, and her cheap shot about me working from home. She argues that she doesn't have the energy or the time to look for another housekeeper, and tries to insist that's my job if I want to change things. "I'll find you the worst housekeeper in town..." I said, with probably just a little too much of a smile. But by the end of the conversation, we agreed she'd look for a new housekeeper with a different schedule when her current contract ends.

And since we were already arguing, I brought up the fact that we aren't talking as much as we used to -- that we haven't really talked in the last 10 days. We agreed that we both wanted that, which was probably the high point of the discussion. But it was just minutes later that she was shouting at me and slamming the door as she headed off to work.

So, hooray to me for standing up for myself. Whatever she said or did - and she said and did a lot -- I still stood up for myself. I have to congratulate myself for that, because no one else will...