Day 1, Writing from The Heart workshop, Monday, May 29, 2017.

Sitting on the balcony to have coffee and a few cigarettes after a heavy, buffet breakfast. The caterer is there, also smoking a cigarette, and recognizes me from the last two years. He informs me that the breakfast room is being renovated next month, after which the hotel will take on another caterer. It is quite sad that I may never see him again. He has a Filipino waiter in his employ.

I figure out how to use the hotel computers on the second floor but decide not to go on-line except to post my guidelines on Google+ and on facebook, until I get back home. It is wonderful to take a long rest from computers.

I read Clara's play, then deliver Tay Tong's oil portrait, which is in an art carrier tube. The varnish is not completely dry and I advise him not to take out and unroll the canvas out of curiosity but to bring it to the framers and have them do it.

Lunch is bak kut teh with rice and a root beer at a coffee shop.

W. brings me food early this evening, and it occurs to me that Tanet is already taking care of me. I am glad that we are both rabbits, and that he waited for me to come and claim him.

I meet the workshop participants for the first time. The exercises I give them are a representative preview of what else is to come for them within the week.