She’s sick and tired of cooking, housecleaning, getting older and having to die

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Please help me. I am tired of exerting the effort necessary to complete the steady flow of unpleasant tasks inherent to running a small home with children and dogs in it. I do not want to launder things, or cook vegetables, or wipe surfaces. I would prefer to lounge in bed, snacking on chocolatey deserts, while making fun of people on the television.

Also? I am growing older lately and less attractive. This is unacceptable! I would rather be younger, and more attractive. I asked my mom about it and she told me that’s just how it is, you grow older and older and less and less attractive UNTIL YOU DIE! What is she talking about? Why does she have to be so negative? Please advise — Rabbit.

Dear Rabbit,

Christ, I know. My own home is filled with children and dogs, some apparently mine and some strays who just won’t leave. They require walks, baths, meals, play, medical attention and obedience training. And when they’re not requiring something, they’re digging up the plants outside or jumping on the sofa or dumping plastic tubs of microscopic Lego pieces in every room of the house.

The easy way out is to set the house on fire while they’re all asleep inside, and then shoot yourself, preferably in the driver’s seat of your dented-up Cheerios-crusted SUV that’s got another eighteen months before it’s paid off. But of course you will not do that, because when have all the kids and dogs ever gone to sleep at the same time?

Another option is to take up a narcotic addiction, something overwhelming like crack or oxycontin or World of Warcraft, and let the kids and canines fend for themselves in the filthy house. Child services will come one day, or not, and meanwhile you can just enjoy the teevee in the eternal darkness of your rancid bedchamber. Most kids in America grow up in something approaching these conditions, so you don’t need to “feel bad” about not doing better.

You’re not going to do any of these terrible things, of course. When Obama was lecturing parents against feeding their kids “cold Popeyes” for breakfast and paying no attention to homework, he wasn’t really talking to a yuppie honky like you. No matter how worn out you are by the constant dull frenzy of caring for your herd, you’ll do it. And then, like your mom says, one day you’ll be really old and then you’ll be dead, the end.

Only the Very Rich can afford full-time live-in nannies and maids and cooks and gardeners and dog whisperers. The rest of us improvise, and this is where we Fail.

You can’t just stumble through years of banal housekeeping and child-rearing hoping that the moments of spontaneous novelty and fun will keep your brain from melting and your soul from flying away forever. Here is something the mythology historian Joseph Campbell said about the need for a “sacred place,” and he wasn’t talking about an ugly-ass stucco megachurch with its own Quiznos and foreclosure seminars inside:

This is an absolute necessity for anybody today. You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.

Every day, whether it’s a hundred-degree scorcher or there’s freezing rain coming down, I leave my little office at the end of the house and walk for an hour or so in the open desert. No iPod, the cell phone silenced. My dog takes care of himself on these outings, chasing after jackrabbits while I wander around for a couple of miles. If I sit too long under this particular juniper, the dog will come remind me it’s time to turn around and go home.

Six years after beginning this happy routine, I read somebody describe it as “walking meditation.” Fine, call it whatever you like — “Daily Not-Killing Everybody” works for me. And on those rare days when I don’t get out of my chair and away from work, from my friends and annoyances on the Internet, I feel exhausted and dumb, empty of real thoughts. Try it — if it’s not for you, you can always turn to prescription drugs and domestic violence and excessive Twitter use.

Send your important questions to ask.layne@gmail.com. But if you have a REAL problem, call the police or something, as Ken Layne will not really help you at all. This is just a web page on the Internet.