This yard, this newfound, leaf-infested, sticky, wet and blundering brown, yellow, green and poop rectangle of halfhearted grass: This is my problem. This is the new responsibility that has fallen upon my garage and my fire pit that’s filled with rainwater, between the fences and outside my window. This is bitter responsibility that tires my right arm, on a Saturday afternoon in October when I should be…being elsewhere.
I say that I’ve other things to do when in fact, raking the leaves with a broom on a Saturday afternoon is all that I’ve got going on. The cars will pass and I’ll hide the end beneath the rather impressive, sopping pile of fall that I’ve amassed, so as not to let the passerby know I’m raking with a broom. And this broom is blue, and its screams ‘SHE’S RAKING WITH A BROOM’ to the tune of ‘Heigh-Ho, the Merry-O!’; she’s raking with a broom.
The pumpkin on the porch is laughing at me. He’s not quite a Jack-O-Lantern yet, but I can feel his beady stare upon me as I rake with a broom. And the neighbor is looking out his window, I can feel his eyes shifting through the blinds and over the bushes covered in faux spiderwebs and festive Halloween lights. There’s an afternoon get-together on the other side, I see the cars lined along the street and trickling to the curb in front of my house. Maybe, perhaps, and with any luck at all the world will think that I’ve got a friend over, and that I’m not outside, here, today on this Saturday afternoon, raking the leaves with a broom.
The mail is for the old tenants, not even a Macy’s ad with a good-looking fella. The afternoon has taken a turn toward ‘I’ve-got-to-go-to-work’, so I put on my black pants and meaty smile. Today I’m going to slice a dozen types of cheeses and fondle turkey, corned beef, maple ham; all the usual suspects. The Havarti cheese on the bottom shelf boasts Denmark’s Finest, and I contemplate a suspecting vision of this place: sunlight, green grass, windmills. Everything that I don’t have and didn’t see today in my yard, as I was raking with a broom.
Then I washed, and rinsed, and sanitized the polluted surface of the slicer, brazen with beef and provolone alike. The clock hit my number and I punched out, went home.
Two candles were lit at the kitchen table. In front of me were reheats and apple slices, one of them smiling at me. The music flowed in a dull clamor—something depressing, like Dashboard Confessional, Death Cab for Cutie—and I watched the shadows from the flickering flames. Down to my smiling apples, up to the dancing contours on the wall, down to my apples. It’s Saturday night and I’m done raking my yard with a broom. Now I’ve created this sappy, romantic milieu—willingly—and it’s making me feel downright pathetic. It’s Saturday night. There’s a four-pack of Seagram’s Fuzzy Navels in the fridge, actually a three-and-a-half pack now. I’m drinking milk.
As I walk out the door, on my way to do homework at school, I see the card I started writing to my 94-year old boyfriend. I see my sister’s boyfriend’s shoes. I see my work shoes, caked in grease, and beef, with a giant, nerdy tongue. And I see that my landlord as mowed over all the piles of leaves that I swept today, every last mound that I raked with a broom.
I continue to walk sideways.
approximatelyes.com 
Jenny, I read your blog religiously and think of your beautiful curly head often.
And then I was trying to become a famous musician and hiring someone to create my myspace more professionally. When they needed ideas of what I wanted it to look like, I searched for your myspace…but was unable to find it.
You did all your own html work when you had a myspace, yes? Would you consider making my myspace more beautiful for me in a few months? I will be releasing an album in January…etc…etc.
There is lots of catching up to do, my old friend.
Love,
Sarah Winters