Captain's Log: Neural Network Joy Ride

I hope you enjoyed my previous post about the mysterious synchronicity involving the band, Electric Light Orchestra. I have an important follow-up to that story, but I hardly know where to begin. Forgive me if I ramble—my neurons are still recovering from last night's unexpected voyage.

Gaga for ELO

I was surprised to discover that I really do like the music of Electric Light Orchestra, a group I'd never really thought much about before now. When the song finished playing on the radio, the DJ announced, “People are going Gaga for ELO!”

He went on to say that he’d received countless emails from listeners demanding to hear more ELO, and then he mused that space aliens were involved, and that we were no longer in control of events around us.

As soon as I arrived home, I drafted an account of the bizarre story and scheduled it for publication on The Circular Journey. But that night, as I lay my head on the pillow, I felt that I hadn't captured the full story.

The Voyage Begins

As soon as I entered the alternate dimension of the dream world, I found myself walking down a bright corridor toward an aperture-like doorway. It dilated open with a soft whoosh, and I stepped out onto the control bridge of the GMS Coastal Voyager.

The bridge display panels had shifted to emergency protocols. Warning klaxons were silent, but status panels along the walls pulsed with flashing red warning lights.

Princess Amy was seated at the command console, staring at blank viewports as if in a trance. First Officer Reason was intently focused on a cascade of symbols scrolling across the displays of his science station. Lt. Joy was studying readouts from her communications channels. No one seemed to notice me.

I crossed the deck toward Captain Amy's chair with the notion of asking, "What the hell?"—my standard opening for dream conversations that take place in United Federation Mindspace.

"It's no good, Captain," Chief Engineer Anxiety’s voice crackled across the ship’s intercom with that blend of panic and resignation that only anxiety can muster.

"None of our auxiliary power systems is responding. The aliens are pulling us into an unmapped region of foreign neural networks."

Before I could question her, Amy began to speak in a shocked monotone.

"Captain's log: Stardate 2025.314: The GMS Coastal Voyager has been intercepted by an unknown alien intelligence during what should have been routine REM cycle operations. Chief Engineer Anxiety reports all ship systems are compromised."

Losing Control

Nothing upsets Amy like the loss of control, and she suddenly began shouting. "This is a violation of the Prime Directive—wait, are WE violating the Prime Directive? Can you violate the PD against yourself? Mr. Reason, check the regulations!"

"Captain," Reason interjected calmly, "we cannot violate the Prime Directive within our own neural networks."

"Well then, THEY'RE violating it!" Amy snapped, gesturing wildly at the viewscreen.

That’s when she became aware that I was on the bridge. Our eyes locked. The fury drained from her face, leaving behind an expression like that of someone who, in the middle of a passionate argument, suddenly forgot what it was all about.

"Why are you here, Ambassador?" Ambassador is what she calls me when my conscious mind shows up uninvited to the bridge.

"I was hoping you could tell me," I said.

Amy looked around as if the answer might be written on one of the control panels. The other officers looked my way, apparently expecting me to make some sort of announcement.

"We're dealing with..." Amy paused, searching for words, "...a situation right now. You shouldn't be here."

"I agree with you on that point," I said. "But I have no choice in the matter, do I? When my inner emotions are so intently focused on the same crisis, I'm pulled to the bridge whether I want to be or not--usually not."

"Perfectly correct, Ambassador." 

Those words came from First Officer Reason, and then to Amy, he said, "I believe we should brief the Ambassador on recent events. His presence here suggests this situation has escalated beyond standard dream protocol parameters."

"Welcome, Ambassador," said Communications Officer Joy, managing a smile despite the obvious tension on the bridge. "I wish your visit were during more pleasant circumstances, but I'm confident we'll have everything back to normal quickly. And perhaps, when it's all sorted out, it may provide an opportunity for cultural exchange."

"Lieutenant, Joy," Amy said through gritted teeth, "they've hijacked our ship!"

"Yes, but they were very polite about it in their own way."

"Ambassador!" Chief Anxiety's voice erupted from the intercom again, "You chose a terrible time to drop by! All our power systems are offline, and I'm getting readings that suggest—actually, no, forget that. You don't want to know.

Actually, you probably SHOULD know. But then you'll panic. Then again, you're probably already panicking. Are you panicking? Because I'm panicking!"

"Chief Anxiety, focus!" Amy commanded.

First Contact

"What's this all about?" I exclaimed. "Is it Klingons? Are they active again? I mean, this doesn't sound like a Romulan tactic."

"Not Klingons," said the captain, her voice tight with frustration. After a moment's pause, she closed her eyes and demanded, "Report!"

First Officer Reason spoke with Vulcan eloquence. "Ambassador, the energy signature is unlike anything in our database. Lt. Joy is attempting to process their communication protocols, but the linguistic patterns are... highly irregular, even fascinating.”

"Fascinating," Amy repeated, but not with any real chirpiness.

"Irregular how?" I asked.

Lt. Joy answered, "They appear to be using cultural references and idiomatic expressions from multiple Earth time periods simultaneously. It's as if they learned our language from television sitcoms rather than diplomatic channels."

"Do we have any ideas at all?" I asked, moving closer to the main viewscreen.

After a moment of silence, Amy finally spoke. "On screen!" she barked with a voice filled with exasperation. "We have no way of knowing if this is what they actually want or if it's a catastrophically faulty translation..."

The words on the display were a jumble of silly pop culture references that required more interpretation than translation.

"As best we can determine, they want to place a small group of their officers on our ship for..." she took a breath, "...for a bit of rest and relaxation on Earth. At a nightspot they've apparently heard about through some cosmic grapevine. It's supposedly located in the Wudang Mountains of central China."

She looked at me with an expression that combined disbelief, exhaustion, and the faint hope that I might have some related experience in the external world.

"The establishment is called Klang Ho's Klap Trap. Ever heard of it?"

"I'm sorry," I said, "did you say Klang Ho's KLAP TRAP?"

"That's what the translator says," responded Lt. Joy.

"And they want... shore leave?"

"For 'rest and relaxation,' according to their request, which they've submitted in triplicate. Very bureaucratic, these aliens."

Back to Reality?

Not only had I not heard of Klang Ho's Klap Trap—a name that sounded like an avant-garde jazz club—but the sheer shock of hearing Princess Amy mention it in my dream jolted me awake with the force of a photon torpedo to the consciousness.

I sat bolt upright in bed, my heart racing, trying to reconcile the image of alien beings demanding that Sirius XM’s disk jockey play ‘More ELO.’

Captain's Log, Supplemental: 

The Ambassador has returned to his waking state, terminating the dream sequence as abruptly as a warp core breach. The GMS Coastal Voyager has restored primary systems and returned to stable orbit in familiar mindspace. Communication with Mindfleet headquarters has been re-established.

Chief Anxiety reports that all systems have returned to a normal functional state. Lieutenant Joy has recorded the episode in her formal report as "a character-building experience." First Officer Reason admits the encounter defies logical interpretation.

Everything Changes

Nothing stays the same; everything changes. It's a simple truth that becomes more visceral with each passing year.

I believe it was the Buddha who came up with that one. He thought of it one day, while sitting around, doing nothing beneath the bodhi tree. Boredom will do that to a person.

When we're young, change arrives like a slow tide—barely perceptible and yet undeniable. A childhood summer can seem like a small eternity, each day filled with new discoveries and seemingly infinite hours. 

Like a River Flowing to the Sea

But as we enjoy more and more of those days, time begins to strangely accelerate, like a river that flows faster as it approaches the sea. The changes that once took decades now unfold in what feels like mere moments.

This speeding up isn't just perception—it's the mathematics of experience. When you're ten years old, a single year represents ten percent of your entire existence. At fifty, that same year is merely two percent of your life. Each additional year becomes a smaller proportion of the total, and so time seems to quicken. One day, almost suddenly, we find ourselves standing in a world that looks nothing like the one we remember.

Like a Favorite Cafe

Life is a bit like a favorite cafe, a familiar place with people and rituals that give our days their shape and meaning. It's more than a caffeine den; it's a reliable haven where we know the faces of every patron, the names of all the dogs that accompany them, and where the barista starts making your drink before you reach your table, near the windows but not too near the door.

It isn't just about the coffee or the faces or the wagging tails of the furry customers; it's about having a small corner of the world that remains safe, known, and understood while everything else shifts around you.

Then one day, after being away for a short while, you arrive to find new management has repainted the walls, replaced the furniture, and reorganized the entire space. The barista who knew your backstory doesn't work there anymore. The music is wrong. Your drink tastes slightly different. Even though you're sitting in the same physical location, the place you loved has vanished as completely as if it had been demolished.

Who We Become

We build our identities partly through external touchstones: the café where we met our best friend, the park bench where we read on Sunday mornings, the family member who always calls on our birthday, the job that gives our weeks their structure. We don't realize how much we lean on these reference points until they begin to shift.

The real challenge isn't acknowledging that change happens—intellectually, we all know this. The challenge is learning to live gracefully with that awareness, to build a self that isn't dependent on the world remaining frozen in place. 

Perhaps wisdom lies in loving things fully while holding them lightly, but it's easier said than practiced. It means savoring your favorite cafe, really tasting that perfectly made drink, really listening to the barista's stories, but recognizing that the beauty isn't just in the people and places, but in our capacity to develop meaningful connections wherever we are.

The old cafe earned its place in our hearts, and we honor it by allowing ourselves to miss it, to feel the full weight of its absence. But we also honor it by remembering that we created that magic together—the cafe with its atmosphere, and our attention to the people and relationships that developed.

Everything Changes

Nothing stays the same; everything changes. The river only flows in one direction, and we're traveling with it whether we resist or surrender. Perhaps the art of living well is learning to navigate that current with grace, grief, and an openness to whatever shore we're approaching next.

Sometimes putting words to melancholy doesn't cure it, but it can make it feel less solitary somehow. Though I imagine on some mornings, when you're feeling the weight of all that change, the philosophical perspective doesn't ease the longing for what used to be. Sometimes you just miss your old cafe and wish you could be there again, if only for an hour.

Not A Tourist Attraction

"Not like a watermelon?" I said to myself, looking at my reflection in the mirror as I got ready for my Sunday morning coffee klatch with the Luna Cafe crowd. I was having one of those moments where the bathroom lighting conspires with gravity to reveal truths best left unexamined before 9 AM.

From the depths of my mind, if I can still call it that, came a soft, soothing voice. "Certainly not," said Princess Amy, and I felt much of my anxiety fade away as soon as she said it.

"Not like a watermelon at all," she continued with the reassuring tone of a doctor delivering a prognosis. "If anything, it's more like a honeydew."

I knew she meant well and was trying her best to reassure me because this little geezer and I have come to a sort of truce lately. You may have read about it in a previous post, and if you haven't, I recommend it highly. Search for 'A Glimmer of Hope.' It marks what I believe is called a turning point in our relationship—the kind where your inner critic stops hurling insults and graduates to gentle fruit-based observations.

Although she spoke from a place of goodness and light, and I was favorably touched by her words, they still left me nonplussed for the moment. I mean, it isn't every day that one of the nearest and dearest tells you, in a soft, caring voice, that your head resembles one melon more than another. It's the sort of compliment that makes you wonder if you should call your dermatologist.

When I entered the kitchen, I found Ms. Wonder preparing her breakfast with the methodical precision of someone who has learned not to ask about my conversations with invisible princesses. If you're new to The Circular Journey, I should point out that Wonder is one of those whip-smart urban girls who works in mysterious ways her wonders to perform, and she always knows just the right thing to say in any situation.

She didn't fail me. Apparently, having overheard the conversation that opened this blog post, she took my hand in hers and gave it a reassuring pat as if to say, 'There, there.'

What she actually said was, "Not at all like a melon of any kind."

"No, not like a melon?" I said, and I hoped the question would lead to more encouragement from her. Perhaps something along the lines of "distinguished" or "noble" or even just "adequately shaped for containing an artificial intelligence."

A small, caring smile touched her lips, and she dipped her head slightly when she said, "Not like a melon at all. More like the dome of St. Mary's."

I was struck mute at her words and could only return her look, which immediately softened and took on something resembling what I've heard described as that hangdog look of a native English speaker who is about to attempt French for the first time in Paris.

"Are you familiar?" she asked, and then clarified, "With the Basilica of St. Mary, I mean."

"Of course," I said, "it's the cathedral on Fifth Avenue. The one with the distinctive dome that has crowned the downtown skyline since 1912 and can be seen from several blocks away. The large, prominent, impossible-to-miss dome."

I cringed when I said those words--large, prominent, impossible-to-miss--but, as the meme makes clear, the cringe will set you free.

She brightened when she heard my words—clearly relieved I'd made the architectural connection—and said, "Yes, that's the one! Good." With that, she patted my hand again with the satisfied air of someone who has successfully delivered difficult news, excused herself, and took her coffee out onto the lanai, where I assume she enjoyed watching the doves and squirrels compete for unsalted peanuts.

I followed her, with my own cup of Jah's Mercy, feeling that things always go better with caffeine and Ms. Wonder, even when they involve unsettling revelations about one's cranial topography.

As I settled into my chair, watching the morning light filter through the Spanish moss, I reflected on the curious journey that had brought me here: from watermelon to honeydew to cathedral dome, all before my first sip of coffee. 

It occurred to me that this is what passes for encouragement in Waterford Village—a gentle escalation from produce to historic architecture. At least we were trending upward in terms of grandeur, as we avoided conventional flattery.

Princess Amy, sensing my thoughts, offered one final observation: "You know, the dome of St. Mary's is considered one of the finest examples of Byzantine-inspired architecture in the Southeast. People travel from all over to admire it."

"Are you suggesting," I said aloud, causing a nearby mourning dove to pause mid-peck, "that my head may become a tourist attraction?"

Ms. Wonder, without looking up from her coffee, replied serenely, "Only for very cultured tourists, dear."

And so, I raised my cup in salute to the morning, to Ms. Wonder, and to Princess Amy. Here's to turning points, architectural comparisons, and the strange comfort of knowing that at least my head is more than a common tourist attraction.

My Kingdom for Wind Horse

I love my car. This is not some casual affection, mind you, like one might have for a particularly agreeable houseplant or a favorite coffee mug. No, this is a deep, abiding appreciation for the independence and freedom that four wheels and an internal combustion engine provide.

 

But my love for driving goes beyond convenience and control. As I'm sure you know, I live with a mood disorder. I manage it reasonably well, thank you very much, but there are moments when anxiety, depression, or an inexplicable wave of grief descends like an unexpected houseguest who's overstayed their welcome by approximately three decades. 

In those moments, I'm overcome by an urgent, almost primal need to be somewhere else; anywhere else, really. I just need to get out on the open road and get away! Without a car, I feel trapped, caged, like a particularly anxious hamster who's been denied access to his wheel.

All this brings me...(you knew it was leading somewhere, didn't you?) to last Tuesday afternoon and the curb at Princess Street and 3rd Avenue—a curb that apparently was possessed by demon sewer harpies.

One moment of inattention, one slight miscalculation of spatial geometry, and suddenly I found myself staring at a tire that looked like it had been through a particularly brutal round of reality television. 

What followed was nearly four days without proper automotive mobility, a period I can only describe as my descent into madness, and what Princess Amy called "a perfectly reasonable consequence of my inability to navigate street corners." She’s been in a snit since I called her a menace to civilised society and then told her she’s never going to be a reality TV star.

By Friday morning--and I don't like having to say it--I found myself at Starbucks! The caffeine habit must be satisfied, my friend, and I'd somehow convinced Island Irv to meet me somewhere off Castle Street.

"I've been searching everywhere for a replacement tire," I said, with the weary air of one of Arthur's knights who's just returned from an unsuccessful grail quest.

"That does sound stressful," Irv said with his characteristic reasonableness, which I found irritating in my current agitated state.

"Stressful doesn't begin to cover it," I said. "I've contacted every tire store in Leland. The affordable options must be ordered and have a ten-day wait for delivery."

"Ten days?" Irv repeated, his expression sympathetic in that perfectly reasonable way that made me want to overturn the pastry display.

One of the customers at a nearby table, we’ll call him Buddy, who'd been scrolling through his phone during our conversation, finally looked up and offered, "You know what you should have done?"

"Too late for that now,” I said, hoping to avoid a retrospective analysis."

"What I don't understand," the man said, returning to his phone with renewed interest in absolutely nothing, "is why you didn't just order the tire online. You should remember that next time.”

I counted to ten. Then to twenty. I briefly considered whether it would be socially acceptable to count to a thousand while making aggressive eye contact.

"Because, Buddy," I said with exaggerated patience, "call me old-fashioned, but I assumed that somewhere in this coastal paradise, at least one tire shop would have tires in my size sitting on a shelf, waiting for me to walk through the door with cash in hand."

Princess Amy's voice returned, because of course it did. "This is what happens when you don't plan ahead. Normal people keep a spare tire. Normal people don't drive into curbs like they're practicing for a demolition derby."

I pushed the voice away and focused on my coffee, which makes no judgments about my driving skills lest it be judged.

"So what did you do?" Irv asked, leaning forward with genuine interest.

"I finally found a shop in Leland that had the tire. It cost more than I wanted to pay but less than ransom prices, so I'm calling it a victory."

"Four days isn't too bad," Irv said encouragingly.

"Four days without a car feels like four years trapped in a house that feels three sizes too small."

"That's the anxiety talking," Irv said gently, with that reasonable tone I found mildly infuriating.

"Of course it's the anxiety talking," I agreed. "But knowing it's anxiety doesn't make it feel any less real."

The guy at the neighboring table looked up one final time. "You know, they make run-flat tires now. Next time you buy tires, you should really consider—"

I interrupted him, "If you say 'next time' one more time, I'm going to scream."

He shrugged and returned to his phone, apparently satisfied that he'd fulfilled his advisory quota for the morning.

Princess Amy, never one to miss an opportunity for commentary, whispered one final observation: "You do realize this entire crisis could have been avoided if you'd just paid attention to where you were driving."

I finished my coffee and made a mental note to thank the universe—or whoever was in charge of such things—that the tire would arrive by Monday. Until then, I would practice patience, manage my anxiety, and try very hard not to think about all the places I couldn't go.

And maybe, just maybe, I'd look into that roadside assistance program Buddy mentioned. You know. For next time.