I thought the woman standing in front of me on the train—I was sitting, she was standing—was pregnant. I would have given her my seat if I noticed earlier, but I didn’t, not until it was almost time for me to get up. Then again, when she sat down, when another seat became available, I couldn’t tell if she was knocked up or merely plump. It would've, of course, been a gamble to say, “Oh, please sit down. A woman in your condition should not be standing on the subway.”

I did not notice her bulge perhaps because her constant newspaper flicking and folding annoyed me and kept hitting my book as I tried to read. What book? Artificial Respiration by Ricardo Piglia. I’m only a few pages in, so nothing close to a review yet is written yet, but I did, last night, finish Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa, which is a strange little book. I can’t say much else. It was enjoyable, in a sense, and I was interested through its brief 180 pages, or I think I was—I have scant memory of the book and I just read it yesterday. I can employ the usual types of (non)descriptors such as “dreamlike” which is true, but it hardly goes any length toward assessing the thing. Good thing I am not on this earth to explain works of art, even if I pretend that I am.

The boss just called. He wants coffee.