Loganthinks

She says that she would like very much to go to the beach.

The screen door to the back porch is open, and our thermostat is set to 74. The neighbors across the alley are cooking chorizo sausages, accompanied by the wailing, trumpeting crescendos of narco corridos from the radio in their kitchen. The song playing at the moment is a slow ballad; the protagonist has killed his adulterous wife and is now running from the police in the family car, headed for the coast. He would also like to go to the beach.

Somehow it is unbearably hot in the apartment. Having cleared some space amongst our forever-unpacked boxes, I set down the groceries and allow the guilty chill of the refrigerator to dry my face and hands as I stow the snap peas and fat-free popsicles. The dog is very interested in what I have brought home from store, but he cannot find his way through the barrier of clutter that I have created - a tacky end table with a chipped mosaic surface, surrounded on all sides by piles of dishes, towers of obviously-essential tupperware, and one thousand extra forks. I wonder who chose to bring a hand-held electric mixer.

Both televisions sets in our house are on. The neighbors have brought a diminutive, battle-scarred television into their backyard and are setting up to watch Monday Night Football. In California, it seems it is Monday Afternoon Football. One of them has a B.B. rifle that looks suspiciously like a real .22, and is poking around the bushes along the fence for signs of our alley’s resident possum. All the dogs in the neighborhood have a nightly vocal discussion about this possum, but I’ve never seen it out in the daytime. It is far too hot out for possums.

As she tells me about her day – the tribulations of her job search – her voice wrestles for clarity over the static rush that is the background noise of life 50 yards from the freeway. You can judge the flow of traffic on the 10 by the speed of passing antennas, roof racks, and eighteen-wheeler cabs along the overpass. Today they stagger by lethargically. Untold millions of greasy metal beasts are on their way eastward, somewhere through the shit-mist and haze into the scorching breath of the Santa Ana Winds.

The dog is fidgety, and he is doing the ritual dance that announces his intention to go outside. We oblige, and I flick the air conditioning off on my way out the door, just as the opening kickoff elicits a clamor of cheers from the neighbors across the alley. Out front a man is washing his station wagon with a garden hose, and the dog begins to bark at him vigorously. She quickly walks over to the dog and holds his muzzle shut. I do nothing, watching the water pour off the soot-stained hubcaps into the gutter, pushing an ant-sized catastrophe of lawn clippings and detritus down the block. At my feet the grass has turned a sour, defeated yellow around the edges of our building’s yard. I suppose our sprinklers have died, and wonder what extraordinary effort might be needed to keep our poor grass alive.

they have the ability to mingle and socialize without being drunk and obnoxious, but even more so, they have the ability to socialize without really talking to anyone... just lingering and looking "intellectual" and "up to something"

so much to learn

or not