One of the pleasures of summertime in a city like Seattle, where many apartment-dwellers spend an entire season with their windows wide open, is walking down the sidewalk and occasionally hearing someone having a loud orgasm. (The orgasms I hear always seem to come from women. Maybe men have quieter orgasms. Or maybe, as a heterosexual dude, my ears are more pricked—so to speak—for the lady-orgasms than the man-orgasms.)

That sounds a little pervy and prurient on its surface, but the pleasure is more like watching a person get a present and seeing in their eyes that they really, truly appreciate it. It's just nice to be reminded that someone nearby is, if only for a moment, genuinely happy with life.