Subjective

I found a book on a brownstone stoop - a book of humor essays from The New Yorker magazine, literally one of the most New York things ever - and took it home with me.

I carried it down the summer streets of Brooklyn, feeling very pleased with myself, and wondering how many times this particular book had changed hands: had the person who left it on the stoop for me to pick up, picked it up when she found it, years ago, from someone who had, years before that, picked it up from yet someone else's stoop, etc., going back to some ur-purchaser who grabbed it as a gift for a friend back when it first came out and gave it to his friend at a party with a card that was a little sentimental, but still kind of funny?

Later, I sat in the bathroom and read to Katie what I thought was a particularly clever essay by Woody Allen while she showered and periodically asked me to repeat myself over the noisy plashing of the falling water.

"Is that supposed to be funny?" she asks after yet another joke abjectly fails to land.