The problem with the book I currently read on the train is that the pseudo-water-coloured stylized-skinny-people line drawing on the cover, combined with the title (Tender is the Night), has all the hallmarks of a supermarket romance.

I am a reading snob, I'll admit it. I pride myself on being able to digest Philip Roth and Virginia Woolf before 7:30 am on the way to work. But with this cheap, and alas cheap-looking, copy of Tender is the Night, I fear that carefully honed reputation has been plainly undermined.

***

As it turns out, I'm not reading Fitzgerald but writing my journal [in my Palm] on my way to work today. It's an experiment that may result in a highly disjointed and incoherent entry, but it may also prove to be a more accurate record of my thoughts. When I used to keep an old-fashioned handwritten journal, it was always recorded in a handy-sized blank book --- albeit usually a bourgeois tome from Borders --- that I could carry around with me and stick/staple stuff into. It's harder to do that with a web journal.

You know, I had so many other thoughts during the five-minute walk to the train station, but I've forgotten them all in the struggle with Jot's handwriting-recognition foibles and with people who insist on pushing past me instead of just saying "Excuse me". Bloody Singaporeans.

(No, I don't love my countrymen too much.)

On the bright side, I finally got a seat at 7:10 am. And I remain amused by people who stare at PDA-writing folks like they've mastered an alien language --- which I suppose we have, to a certain extent. If only they knew how much of this scribbling was frustrated backspacing.

I knew this day would come: my Palm is now an expensive, glorified journal.