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" Like Brad Pitt... I always loan my table saw to the guy next door. I wheel in the oversized garbage can for the old woman across the street. I visit with the crabby bearded guy whose house faces mine just so he can bitch about property taxes and kick at the poor condition of city sidewalks. I simply let the guy talk. I don&amp;#039;t even know his name.  I used to assume this was all part of being a good neighbor. It always seemed to me: You owe the people around you a little of your time. You have to visit a little. Still, none of them, not a one, has done half that much in return. I&amp;#039;ve always said I have lousy neighbors. But favors, loans, plates of cookies, my drowsy attentions, none of that made me a particularly good neighbor, either. The real trick comes when you cross over \u2014 street, fence, property line \u2014 that&amp;#039;s when you turn around and figure out what you&amp;#039;re really showing them. Last fall, I stood in the yard of the house that faces mine and got a sense of how crappy my second-floor blinds looked, even in the light of day. Jesus. And my lawn, greener than those around me only because I&amp;#039;ve taken to lazily pumping it full of chemicals, was a boneyard of twigs and fallen branches. I&amp;#039;d forgotten, for weeks, the empty delivery box on my porch and left an unrepaired gate flapping in the breeze. There was an open can of latex house paint sitting in the pachysandra. It made me cringe. Everything about it signified that I didn&amp;#039;t care what my neighbors thought. That&amp;#039;s when I realized: I was a piss-poor neighbor myself. So I went home and did the work. I repainted, repaired, replanted. I swept, trimmed, and paid attention to details that generally mean nothing to me \u2014 shapes of fruit trees, the condition of my porch, the way lamplight fell in my windows at night. I planted a tree, laid down a border or two. I started planning on replacing the porch deck. I even fussed with the weeds. Things improved.  You don&amp;#039;t have to garden obsessively to be a good neighbor, or break yourself building pergolas. Step across the street, check the angles on your life, then give it what it takes. And forget pat sentiments \u2014 good fences don&amp;#039;t particularly make good neighbors \u2014 and showy, overzealous displays \u2014 no need to wave wildly from the porch or organize block parties. Do the work. The trick is to take care of your share of the mutual proposition, to leave those around you untroubled by your presence as much as they are reassured by it. PLUS: How to Be a Better Husband &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/a10043/good-neighbors-0611/>