i suppose you must have days like i did yesterday once in a while. nothing catastrophic, to be sure, but unsatisfying in everyway.

0) expecting to spend the entire day out with su-lin at library@esplanade, borders and long lunch and dinner and a late movie, i ring her up at 9 in the morning to find a family lunch had been sprung on her so before 2.30 didn't seem likely, though i had got up early and told the mater not to cook lunch for me.

1) if i had known a day earlier, i would have used the time to get my badly-needed haircut in town, but thinking not to waste time since i haven't seen her for ages i put off the appointment, and i can't get one now at such short notice.

2) of course i've missed my stop before, but only because i was reading. yesterday it was sardinian in the train and from the middle of the carriage i had to fight my way to the doors whereupon an onslaught of boarding passengers stampeded me and when i rallied back and struggled forward the doors closed. quite put out, and thinking very unsentimental thoughts about my fellow citizens when the train started with a lurch which was when the...

3) woman wearing stilettos (who should have been taking a cab with shoes like that) fell back and trod on me so hard that curses were upon my lips and a small but instant-blackening bruise was upon my foot

4) had lunch at the japanese riceball place in taka food court, and scalded my hand with boiling hot tea. what with my foot and the hand i am turning into an invalid.

5) su-lin arrives, we leave. little boy in yellow shirt and checkered pants answering to name of bryan is lost then found. haven't heard that sort of announcement for years. parents must have got good at not losing kids in shopping centres. make about turn and go back to rice place for left-behind bag of kino things.

6) pass voyage de rita - go wild. come upon dark grey wool skirt, with a row of grey buttons down one side, and bright red button holes. will die if i don't buy it. they're out in my size, not only at orchard but at tampines and scotts. heart-lacerated, we leave

7) at borders, we find we couldn't read night watch, in accordance to our devious ploy, because they were completely sold out already. that was the hugest disappointment of the day, for the skirt had been a matter of ignorance = bliss but i had been looking forward to night watch the whole weekend. consolation: there's a new fudge book out. got through 3 chapters before dinner. poor peter is very sweet, as always, and as always fudge is intolerable.

8) choonping, who had been offering to swoop down on us since about 5pm, still hadn't got away from work by 8.50, so we gave him up and went up to dinner at sakae, which was a mistake, because hardly anything good was coming along then, or else they were sniped by people upstream (we were at the furthest end of the belt) then, at 9.15 they stopped the belt, leaving us to order through the intercom. we order and streams of food arrive for the couple next to us and not for us. wedged in our corner no waiter paid us the slightest attention and the plates at the next table were mounting faster than my temper.

9) took the train back to angmokio quite in keeping with the kind of day i am having 165 goes by. i decide i would take a cab home and not wait for the next bus, and when i had gone 100 metres down the road and about to turn onto the next street for the taxi stand i see out of the corner of my eye another 165, a perfectly empty and air-conned one, zooming by. and then of course the taxistand, which usually has more cabs than people, had more people than cabs for a change, by about a factor of 3:1.

so, it was that kind of day. not much to read about, but not what you want to keep quiet about, but then not exactly leaving me livid enough as to write a smoking entry either. ah well