Owning a house is hard work. Actually, owning the house is pretty easy- you just write a check to the bank every month and occasionally moan to whoever will listen about your property taxes. Anyone can do that. It's MAINTAINING the house that's hard. Okay, correction. It's not the maintenance that we're struggling with, because we never seem to get to the actual point of doing any work, but the THINKING about the MAINTENANCE- well, that's positively draining.

Let's talk about my lawn for a second. The phrase "growing like a weed" doesn't make any sense until you have a yard that you notice only, say, once a week. My lawn and I are in that level of our relationship where we're somewhere between "perfect strangers" and "barely on speaking terms." Sometimes I glance over it while I'm pulling in or out of my driveway. Sometimes I do this and I think, "Someone should really do something about all that." But, most of the time, I'm too focused on getting out of or into the house that our lawn could be covered with trillion dollar bills and I'd walk right past it. While complaining about my property taxes.

This week, though, I happened to notice the lawn one day and was overtaken with a wild panic. Suddenly, my lawn had become like a neglected child that DCFS could come over and claim. Could my lawn be placed into protective custody? Be placed next to a better home with caring, thoughtful homeowners who would take time out of their action-packed, couch-laden evenings to actually mow the damn thing or pull out some - not even all, just some- of the weeds? Would I have visitation with my lawn? And, if they did grant visitation, would I ever actually go visit it? Of course I wouldn't. It's just a lawn, and one that I don't even care about that much.

It's disgusting, though, to think that our lawn may be the shame of the neighborhood. I always counted on having an unkempt lawn, because I knew landscaping could never possibly be a priority in my already rich and full life. But, I thought for sure that someone in the neighborhood, anywhere in the neighborhood, would have a worse lawn than us. To be fair, I haven't walked around the entire neighborhood, because I am pretty lazy. But, judging from what I've seen from my car, when I've bothered to look, everyone else has a neat and manicured lawn. Everyone cares, but us.

But, like I've said, it's hard work thinking about maintaining things. Hard work imagining mowing the lawn and yanking the weeds. It's exhausting, and nobody told me it would be this exhausting, and that's why I'm going straight for the couch when I get home, to unwind.

It's the little things that make me snap. Yesterday, Chris made himself a grilled cheese and pear sandwich for dinner. He did this after he came home to discover that I had purposefully, and gleefully, devoured his gourmet mac and cheese leftovers from TGI Fridays. I watched him make his grilled cheese and pear sandwich- watched as he layered the sandwich with two slices of cheese, some sliced pear, two more slices of cheese, some sliced pear, and then two more slices of cheese. Six slices of cheese and what amounted to about two-thirds of a whole pear on two flimsy slices of white bread. He did this layering calmly and methodically, and as I watched, I was overtaken with a kind of rage. THAT'S TOO MUCH CHEESE, I wanted to scream in his face. IT'S NOT EVEN GOING TO TASTE GOOD! IT'S GOING TO FALL APART! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL YOURSELF? I CAN HEAR YOUR ARTERIES CLOGGING EVEN AS YOU STAND THERE MAKING IT. YOU ARE SO UNBELIEVABLY STUPID.

I didn't scream any of that. I managed to refrain from screaming, because I have excellent self control, and instead, I simply stated all of the above in my regular, everyday, thinly coated with bitchiness, speaking voice. That's too much cheese. It's not even going to taste good. It's going to fall apart. Are you trying to kill yourself? I can hear your arteries clogging even as you stand there making it. You are so unbelievably stupid.

And Chris, good-natured as always, just responded, "No way, it's awesome." And he took the sandwich, in all of its disgusting, floppy, oozing glory, along with a gigantic glass of red wine, upstair so that he could enjoy his dinner in peace while he watched the Cubs game. I stayed downstairs thinking about him enjoying his dinner- enjoying life, really- and I just fumed. I got angry and angrier. It was partly that I thought he was digging his own grave with every extra, unneccessary slice of cheese. Partly because I love him and worry about him and want to make sure he's taking care of himself. But, mostly, it was because he seemed so happy preparing his delicious little dinner. And I couldn't stand it. How do people walk around on this planet being happy with such small things while all around us, the world is falling apart? How can you deal with all the idiots at work and in traffic and- let's face it- at home without just fucking losing it? And how can you not be pissed off that someone ate the leftovers that they knew you were specifically saving for yourself? HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO SO EASILY RECOVER FROM SUCH A THING?

Here are the things that you should take from today's blog entry.

* I'm a miserable person and do not deserve love.
* I am easily angered for no good reason.
* Chris should probably just divorce me and remarry someone nice and sweet while he's still young.
* I will eat your leftovers without feeling even remotely sorry about it.
* Six slices of cheese is too much cheese for one sandwich.

"My Sister's Keeper" is coming soon to a theater near me. The novel was one of the most heart-wrenching books I've ever read, right up there with that one Sweet Valley High saga that told the story of the Wakefields over several generations. There was something about that Young Adult novel that really turned my faucet. Anyway, in honor of "My Sister's Keeper" coming to theaters, there was an article about the author, Jodi Picoult, in the NY Times today. And the article ended with these two sentences:

"In so many of her books children seem like more work than most ordinary people can handle. If Picoult's fiction means to say anything, it is that parenting undoes us perhaps more than it fulfills, and it makes a thousand little promises it can never keep."

Man oh man. It is very true of her work, but is it very true of life? So many of Picoult's characters have children that they cannot handle or partially do not want. So many mothers abandon their babies in search of an easier life. And, as I enter the final year of my twenties, the year in which I hope to make a baby, I can't help but see these two sentences and think, "Am I fooling myself? Is there something to be learned in the fiction of Jodi Picoult?"

Probably not. I think, at moments, I may be talking myself out of this whole "thing" out of fear that something's going to go terribly wrong, or terribly right. So, reading those two sentences gave me pause. Yet again.

In other movie news, I watched a documentary over the weekend called "Helvetica." It's about the font, Helvetica. I'm not sure why I chose to watch it in the first place- it sounds terribly boring, doesn't it? In fact, it was wildly interesting. So interesting, that I'm eagerly awaiting the movie about Times New Roman that is coming out sometime next year. You think I'm joking. I'm not.

Since I'm on Facebook now and can record the inane minutiae of my life almost simultaneously with the occurrences of said minutiae, I haven't felt that much of a need to blog. Entire paragraphs and blog entries have now been whittled down to one or two quick sentence fragments. And there it is- what's going on in a nutshell without having to exert any actual, typerly effort. There you go.

The thing about Facebook is that I kind of love it, kind of hate it. The instant gratification of spying on my friends is pretty great, I will admit. Oh, look, so and so just closed on a house. So and so's sister made a real kick ass pasta salad. So and so seems to have gone from "in a relationship" to "just fucking around, yo." But the hate is there, strong as ever. The same quick updates that I love, I also hate. While I certainly have my fair share of boring "Jackie is doing her taxes" type posts, I get quickly irritated by everyone else's dashed off posts. There are things I need to know and things I don't. Here is a post I just read. Names and stuff have been changed, but you'll catch the drift.

Sarah Smith had a very productive day! Cleaned up the living room, went by Melanie's apartment, shopping at Dominicks, back to Melanie's place, then built a book shelf! Now chilling at home! Tomorrow: washing the windows, cable guy, and then shopping for a futon.

Seriously. At least make your Facebook updates mildly interesting. Snorefest, yo! Add a little something something to keep my interest. I don't give a fuck about cleaning up the living room, building the book shelf, and futon shopping. Not even in the slightest! But, here's something I might care about.

Sarah Smith hates her life and will likely seduce the cable guy tomorrow just as a way to break up the day.

Now that's worthy of my time! Or how about:

Sarah Smith is building a bookshelf while wearing a blindfold and having a stiff drink.

Sarah Smith slipped on a banana peel at Dominicks.

Sarah Smith had a very productive day but still feels the urge to choke herself a little.

I don't know. So, there's the super boring posts and then there are the posts designed to make others envious of how great you are. Such as:

Sarah Smith gets hit on all the time!

Sarah Smith just got complimented on how funny she is.

Which is ironic, due to the complete lack of humor in said post, wouldn't you say?

Then, the melancholic posts designed solely to beg further poking and prodded (pointed out in a succinct, interesting little post by my pal Brian).

Sarah Smith will be okay with time.

Sarah Smith is being strong. Today's a new day.

Sarah Smith is hanging in there and wishing upon a star.

Also, we can't forget song lyrics!

Sarah Smith This is radio nowhere. Is there anyone alive out there? This is radio nowhere.

Sarah Smith Goodbye ruby Tuesday. Who could hang a name on you?

There you go. Love, then hate. Then hate. Then love. But boy is Facebook convenient. I haven't spoken to any of my friends face to face in weeks! And there's no need to! My hermit ass is in seventh heaven.

Kind of.