The other night, walking from the L to the 2 at 14th Street, I passed a girl who’d been a few years ahead of me at college and whose Facebook statuses I occasionally notice and, I’m ashamed to admit, snort at derisively, I think stemming mostly from the fact that she once embarrassed me during a radio station board meeting.

She looked tired and overworked and her head was down and I wanted to say hello but I didn’t know what would come after that so I just hurried past and hoped to catch a local train, which I’m increasingly fond of doing in the summer evenings.