the waitress returned and said something about an appetizer they don’t serve anymore. alec said ‘why not?’ she said ‘they just couldn’t get it right this year. they kept trying.’ alec said ‘thank you for telling us.’ the waitress said ‘yeah a lot of people here, they’ll say [made a face] ‘we’re out of that,’ but i like to tell it like it is. they just couldn’t get it right this year, i don’t know why.’ alec said ‘that’s good, i appreciate that kind of honesty.’ she said ‘yeah i won’t lie to you.’ alec said ‘thank you, i won’t lie to you either. ever.’ i said ‘yeah thank you, i won’t lie either,’ smiling at alec. i ordered seaweed salad and a lobster roll with fries. allie ordered a lobster roll (comes with chips. there was…things were said about this, i think mostly between alec and the waitress). alec ordered clam chowder. surprised that was all he wanted, especially after ‘the grand lobster roll hunt.’ things were said about…how i had eaten seaweed salad last night…the seaweed salad they brought was really big.

had a somewhat involved conversation during dinner about humor and what makes things funny. allie talked about the part in ‘crimes and misdemeanors,’ i think, where a character says ‘comedy is just tragedy with timing.’ i tried to paraphrase a schopenhauer quote about humor, that i think is something like…‘the most tragic/problematic/important/serious-feeling things are the source of most humor, the ability to view serious-seeming things as funny is intelligent (or something), and people laugh as a reaction to feeling some degree of dissonance about a situation/topic.’ i did not do a good job of paraphrasing now or then. when i said it aloud it was probably something like, ‘well there’s that thing schopenhauer said…um…how all serious stuff can be viewed as funny…that’s kind of why it’s funny…or it’s just as…like the most controversial things are also the most laughed at…but then there’s that other thing, the two types of humor, the mean kind and the other…funny…um…the second type…what freud said [mumble/trailed off].’ somehow felt like i was annoying alec during this conversation. he left for the bathroom and i asked allie if he seemed annoyed and she said she didn’t know. we talked more about the humor thing. allie used the bathroom. i said ‘am i annoying you? i’m sorry if i’m being annoying, was something annoying about the humor thing?’ to alec. he said ‘no, no, not at all,’ not looking at me.