View of St. Clair, as seen from my living room window

Patchy grass, cigarettes littered along the steps, white paint curling off the overhand above the door ? details I perpetually miss as I come and go distractedly every day. The front yard protecting my apartment building from the busy traffic in the street has a steep slope that almost propels you into passing cars.

Fifteen steps take you up to the front door ? it seems like too many for the 10-foot-wide strip of grass trying to pass as a yard. Every other step is home to tiny ants hurrying back and forth ? carrying food, not carrying food, running into monstrous feet, running away from monstrous feet.

A sad tree stump sits dejected ? missing the trunk and large leafy tree that once extended from its base. A recent murder, the evidence known as sawdust still sits littered around the stump.

An aqua-turquoise Pontiac Sunfire sits in front of my building, seemingly belonging to one of my neighbors. Tonight it is on the south end of the street. My neighbor must have been arriving home from the west, perhaps coming from work in Minneapolis?

A blonde woman in a grass green T-shirt and slouchy dark gray shorts runs by with a curious terrier. She calls to him encouragingly to keep him running. A teenage girl talks excitedly on her cell phone as she meanders along the cracked sidewalk in the opposite direction ? her fluffy pint-sized pooch trotting excitedly in front of her, dog walking girl along the neighborhood street.

Every few minutes a car, van, truck or motorcycle rumbles down the street throwing engine sounds up at me into my apartment. As the sun sets behind the stucco tan and white siding houses across the street I uncurl from my arm chair, close the blinds, and head to bed.