A good weekend

I just bought an annual multi-trip travel insurance plan for the first time ever, which is pretty much a commitment to what I want to do in the next 12 months. The insurance kicks in next month when I leave for the International Writers Program at the University of Iowa, and sets me up for some other travel plans I'm hatching for November and part of 2016.

Now all I have to do, theoretically, is find the money and willpower to make those plans happen.

I blame all this firmly on Adri, by the way. We had drinks on Tuesday night and while she didn't say anything directly, something about hanging out with her must've nudged my brain cells in a certain direction, which is how I ended up saying out loud, "Maybe I should go to Cuba."

Buying the travel insurance, mundane as it sounds, caps off a pretty unexpectedly top-notch holiday weekend. Nothing earth-shatteringly special, but the simple pleasures of spending time with family, friends and an indulgent amount of Lana cake.


Other achievements unlocked during this weekend:

• Went for a morning run for the first time in over a decade --- admittedly, only because I was already awake to got visit Sungei Buloh, and then the friends who'd organised the outing had to bail because one of them was sick. But hey: I went for a 2.6 km run anyway.
• Spoke for about an hour about the social history of Capitol Theatre to an almost full-house audience, who'd turned up for my talk at the right place and the right time (the Urban Redevelopment Authority function room at 10 a.m.), even though I'd cheekily titled the talk "Meet at Capitol Lobby, 6 p.m.". I might've used the word atas too many times in the talk without explaining it for the benefit of non-Singlish speakers, though (it's Malay for "upper", used to connote "high-class" or "snobbish").
• Learned about Schera's Algerian-American Restaurant in Elkader, Iowa, which so far sounds like the most interesting place to stop for lunch on my way to Iowa City.

I seem to be tweeting a lot more lately, so follow me there while I still try to figure out what this blog might be good for.