Captain's Log: Southport Sector Activity

Captain's Log: Stardate 2026.182

Attention Federation Auditors: The GMS Coastal Voyager is holding position above the Southport Sector this morning for an on-site training exercise.

Intelligence reports indicate that a Federation-class production unit established a forward base in Southport overnight to create what the local population calls a "movie." 

Five of Five, our onboard Adaptive Intelligence system, reports the movie's code name refers to a cinematic adaptation of something called "The Summer I Turned Pretty."

Our mission parameters are simple: Ambassador Genome, supported by Communications Officer Joy, will observe and document the production from a respectful distance, then return without being noticed and without interfering.

Pre-Dawn Departure

Earlier that morning, Chief Anxiety ran the pre-mission checklist three times: once for assurance, twice to confirm the first run-through, and a third time because, why not?

"Captain Amy," said Five of Five, "the away team has left already."

"What the hell! Doesn't anyone on this mindship wait for my authorization anymore?"

"The chronometer records the team departed ahead of schedule," confirmed Officer Reason.

"Of course they did," replied the captain. "Especially with that airhead, Joy, on the away team."

"I suspect the Ambassador's Elevated Mission Anticipation had something to do with it," added Reason.

"At least we'll be ready when they arrive," the captain muttered. "Five of Five relocated the lower-deck remote sensor node to the Ambassador's equipment bag. Not my idea, but I approved it after the fact."

"The feed is coming in clean," reported Major Reason, "aside from what appears to be the edge of a granola bar that has, according to remote sensors, been in the bag long enough to achieve consciousness."

The Bridge Watches the Bridge

The Cape Fear Memorial Bridge appeared on the viewscreen as Coastal Voyager, a mile overhead, crossed the Cape Fear River.

"Beautiful," remarked Dr. Downer, who'd joined the bridge to watch the away team's work. She hummed a tune Five of Five couldn't find in its databanks, but it didn't question her; to do so would have been like diving headfirst into a rabbit hole on purpose.

"Morning light luminosity is nominal," said Major Reason, reviewing dawn-light spectra with the focus of a man who has found, at last, an assignment worthy of him.

"I've filed contingencies for fog, rain, equipment failure, crowd interference, and one specific scenario involving seagulls," said Chief Anxiety from belowdecks. "I'd like it noted I have computed no contingencies involving a ferret. The probability calculation was overtaxing the processors."

"Cadet Reginald has nothing to do with this mission, Chief."

"I'm aware, Captain. I'm simply establishing the record. I don't trust that ferret."

Captain Amy stared at the streaming video. Cables ran across the cobblestones like tributaries of an electrical river. Equipment cases were stacked with the logic of people who know exactly what they'll need. Crew members moved with the purposeful efficiency of specialists who've done this before and will find it no less meaningful for the repetition.

"It's perfect," Joy's voice was the first heard from the away team, and for once no one on the bridge could argue.

Perimeter Established

"Perimeter holding," Five of Five reported, mostly to itself, because presuming to be important is how Adaptive Intelligence systems stay sane.

"The Ambassador is filming," Reason confirmed. "Joy is providing…" he paused, choosing the word with visible care, "appreciative commentary. All readings nominal."

"Bag status?" asked the captain, who'd learned over countless reconnaissance missions to constantly check on the away equipment.

"Bag is secure," said Five of Five. "Bag contents are…" A pause is merely a pause, but a pause from an A-5 system is as concerning as a five-alarm fire. "Bag contents are in motion."

The Reginald Maneuver 

"Somebody check the bag!" The instruction was reasonable, logical, and useless, arriving several seconds after the bag had stopped moving.

On the view-screen, something small, furry, and determined emerged from the equipment bag, paused to assess the production team, then set off across fifteen meters of Southport waterfront with the unhurried confidence of something determined to see what's up.

"It's Reginald!" said Joy, sounding almost delighted.

"That's a violation of Federation Directive Section F4, paragraph 2B," Reason declared. "Hail the Ambassador!"

"I don't think it will help," said Anxiety, with the terrible calm of a man watching a chess clock run out.

He was right. A production assistant wearing a headset dropped her digital tablet.

"Is that…?“

"Dook," confirmed Reginald, unhelpfully, on every channel of the feed.

"RAT!" shouted the woman, and the perimeter popped like a soap bubble, all at once and without ceremony.

"Sensor data indicates the Ambassador is no longer on the perimeter," reported Five of Five.

"I can see that."

"He is, in fact, now part of the story."

"I can see that too."

After-Action

"I'd like it entered into the log that I predicted this," said Anxiety. "Not the ferret specifically. But this random fluctuation in the quantum wave."

“So noted, Chief," said Captain Amy without warmth. "I feel so much worse now."

On the main viewer, the Ambassador was no longer recording production activities. He was handling his unscheduled celebrity, not well, and yet with tremendous confidence. He was laughing with the production assistant while Reason's "optimal shot window" datastream showed the cameras recording the kind of footage that can't be scheduled, and can't be faked.
 
"Mission status," Captain Amy dictated for the record. "The away team has made unauthorized contact with the observed population. “The Prime Directive of non-interference has been…” She paused, stiffened her lip, and set her chin. “…revised. By Mindfleet Cadet Reginald.”

Captain's Log, Supplemental: 

Cadet Reginald's presence on the away mission was unauthorized. His methodology was unorthodox. His results were undeniable.

As per Federation protocol: Prime Directive has been compromised. The perimeter was breached, and unauthorized contact was made with the indigenous population. Mission TSITP is a failure.

Field Study Addendum:

Cadet Reginald, via MaT-1 Adaptive Translation System

The Captain logged the mission a failure, but what I do is merely my nature. It may be unorthodox, but failure is procedurally impossible.

The Southport sector is exciting. I plan to return. I'm not saying I have, but I may have already hidden something in the equipment locker.

Reginald out.

“Dook.”

Wonders of Wonder!

Ms. Wonder joined me for breakfast this morning, and it brightened my mood. This is the way to start a new year, I thought: a weekday breakfast with my alter ego, the one person guaranteed to tell me the truth. I knew she’d have something useful to say, and I was eager to hear it.

“I have a question for you,” she said.

“Let’s hear it,” I said without hesitation. A question from her is usually the gateway to some sage advice—something I don’t get enough of.

“Are you happy?” she asked.

I admit the question took me by surprise. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, and even less sure how to answer it. I paused, intending to give it mindful attention.

“Did you hear the question?” she said.

“I heard it,” I said, “but it’s not an easy question to answer. It requires careful thought.”

“It’s an easy question,” she said. “You’re either happy or you’re not.”

“Well, if it’s so easy,” I said, “what’s your answer? Are you happy?”

“No,” she said, “but we’re not talking about me. I asked you first. So what’s your answer?”

“No, I’m not,” I said, and I said it with some topspin.

“Why not?” she asked.

This was the part I hadn’t wanted to visit over breakfast. Still, I decided to take it to the limit. One more time.

“Frankly,” I said, “I’m madder than a wet hen. There, I’ve said it. I don’t like saying it, and I know you don’t like hearing it, but nothing else says it quite as well.”

“Rem acu tetigisti?” she said, remembering to stress the italics. “But why are you so highly peeved?”

“Why? You know why," I said, showing my agitation. "I constantly struggle with Princess Amy mucking about with my emotions. It’s maddening. Everyone keeps telling me to get help, but the only help I find is the fleeting kind. I don’t seem to make any real progress.

“I meditate, I exercise, I practice tai chi, I work with therapists, and each of the above makes me feel better temporarily. Then Amy tells her little minions to start randomly throwing switches on the neurotransmitters.”

“And what are you going to do about it?” she said.

“Do?” I shrugged. “By the way, very well done with that rem acu thing," I said. "How do you come up with these things?”

“It’s a knack,” she said, “but don’t change the subject. What are you doing about your problems?”

“I’m working on my Evil Plan,” I said. “That’s what I’m doing.”

“Ah,” she said, “but is working on the plan actually doing something about the problems?”

Right about now, if you're new to this blog, you’re probably thinking that living with someone like Ms. Wonder, who sees through the fog and cuts to the quick, isn't always as easy as it first seems. Talk about holding you responsible! Talk about taking you to task when the task must be taken. She works in mysterious ways her wonders to perform.

“I see now,” I said. “I see what you’re getting at. It’s that old thing about taking action rather than over-thinking it, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” she said. “Forming a plan may be important in the great scheme of things, but even more important is actually taking the steps.”

“But don’t I need the plan before I take action?”

“New plans usually don’t work very well at first and must be amended after some action. The planned events and results must be updated with the actuals.”

“And so taking action while I’m formulating a plan should result in a more efficient process—one feeds the other.”

“One informs the other,” she said.

“Yes,” I said, “that’s what I meant to say. It amazes me the way you can come up with these things on the spur of the moment.”

“And so what are you going to do?” she asked.

“I’m going to take action,” I said. “I can’t think of exactly what I’ll do, off the top of my head, but I can tell you that I’m taking some sort of action.”

“It’s not what you do that’s most important,” she said. “Doing something—anything—is more important than what you actually do.”

“Didn’t Wen the Eternally Surprised say that?”

“That’s what you told me,” she said.

I looked at her across the breakfast table, my coffee cooling, the day waiting just outside the window.

“Then stand back, Poopsie,” I said. “I’m taking action, and it just might get messy. Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes.”

She smiled. “I’d suggest proceeding with caution,” she said.

And that's how I came to begin writing and living the book, the one I call Genome's Book of Life, for lack of something better to call it. I've started the outline. Give it a quick look-over and let me know what you think in the comments:

The Book of Life

            The Meditation
            You are perfect the way you are...
            And you could use a little improvement.

~~ Shunryu Suziki

OK, I know it's not much, but it's a start, and Wonder assures me that's the most important part, and I had to begin somewhere. Wonder's words were a blessing: move forward, start small, keep going.

As I cleared the dishes and stood up to meet the day, I realized I might not be happy yet, but for the first time in a long time, I felt genuinely hopeful and already moving forward.

Greatest Rock Band of All Time

I should tell you upfront that the new Rolling Stones album, Foreign Tongues, hasn't been officially released yet. It's currently in the hands of reviewers only, professional critics, industry insiders, and, through a chain of contacts I'm not at liberty to identify, yours truly.

Princess Amy raised a questioning eyebrow when the tracks first appeared on my laptop.

"How exactly did you come by these?" she asked.

"I have people," I said.

You have one person, she said, and that’s Ms. Wonder who has no music industry connections. I’ve asked her.

I neither confirmed nor denied this, which is the mark of a professional.

“Foreign Tongues”: A Review by Someone Who Was There

I've been a fan of the Rolling Stones since the summer of 1965, when "Satisfaction" came out of a transistor radio and rearranged something in my central nervous system that has never quite settled back into place. I was young. The world was loud and new. Keith Richards had written that riff in his sleep,  on a bedside tape recorder, which tells you everything you need to know about a man who has lived as though tomorrow is someone else's problem.

That, in the end, is what I love most about them. Not the catalog, extraordinary as it is. Not the longevity, miraculous as that is. What I love is that for sixty years, these men have looked the future squarely in the eye and decided, collectively and without apparent discussion, to ignore it entirely. They have lived for today with a commitment that most of us can only admire from a safe distance.

Foreign Tongues, their 25th album, is proof that this philosophy has not wavered.

The opening notes of "Divine Intervention" made me sit up straight. It's a cheery song, and I mean genuinely cheery, about ignoring the apocalypse. In the song, Mick confesses he once consulted a Hollywood psychic about end times. 

"Through the gloom, I asked her, 'What's my future?' Well, she threw up." The chorus announces that even as the world ends, "Dystopian values are too hot to handle, and I'm going out in a blaze."

Princess Amy, who had been characteristically skeptical and critical of my review up to this point, said: Now THAT is a man who has his priorities straight.

I couldn't argue with her. Ronnie Wood's bluesy solo on that track is worth the price of admission by itself, and I've chosen it as the album's standout. Not bad for a band that some people, never me of course, suggested might be running out of road.

"Ringing Hollow" is a loping country rocker and, improbably, a love letter to America. "I was madly in love with you before we ever met," Jagger sings. "I saw all your movies. I smoked your cigarettes." But Lady Liberty, he notes, is wearing a frown these days. When the Stones see injustice, they're going to shout it down. It’s that brave and reckless spirit of the late 60s, and I love it.

Amy was speechless, her rarest characteristic, when I placed the Spotify needle in the groove of "Never Wanna Lose You," a disco heartbreaker featuring Bruno Mars on cowbell. Bruno Mars on cowbell. I want you to sit with that for a moment before reading more.

Is that Bruno Mars? she asked.

"On cowbell," I confirmed.

She considered this. And yet it works, she said with a dreamy look in her eye. That's the Stones for you.

The guest list runs deep across the album, just as it did in Hackney Diamonds: McCartney, Patti Smith, Steve Winwood, Benmont Tench of the Heartbreakers, but the most affecting appearance belongs to Charlie Watts, gone from us since 2021, who turns up on "Hit Me in the Head," recorded that same year. The late, great Charlie Watts, who was, in my firmly held opinion, the reason the Stones always sounded like themselves and not like anyone else. Hearing Charlie in the pocket one more time is the kind of gift you receive quietly and don't talk about too much afterward.

And then there is the ending.

The album closes with Mick and Keith,  friends since the age of five, inseparable across wars and decades and the particular chaos of being the Rolling Stones, singing Chuck Berry's "Beautiful Delilah."

It’s a full-circle moment of the highest order. Jagger was carrying Berry records under his arm when he ran into Richards at the Dartford train station all those years ago. Their very first single, as a band that barely existed yet, was a cover of Berry's "Come On." For four minutes, they were Blues Incorporated again. Their first band. The original spark.

Jagger has said that each new album might be the last. If Foreign Tongues turns out to be the final word, it’s a worthy one. It’s an album that lives up to everything they promised us back in 1965, when a guitar riff came out of a transistor radio and permanently altered the course of at least one young life.

Their fidelity to the blues, to R&B, to early rock and roll, remains intact. More than intact. Alive.

Ms. Wonder, when I told her about the review, said quietly, "They really are incredible, aren't they."

It wasn't a question.

"They really are," I said.

And then, because it was that kind of afternoon, I played "Satisfaction,” just to remember where it all began.

Downtown Camelot

Survival instinct drives a cat to seek safety in the high places far above the vague perils that lie hidden in lower levels. At least that’s the word on the street. Abbie Hoffman, for example, often views the world from a place of safety atop the kitchen cabinets, knowing that any hullabaloo arising below can't touch him.

For those who're new to The Circular Journey, I should explain that Abbie Hoffman in this story is not one of the Chicago Seven. This Abbie, a.k.a. Abracadabra, is a stylish cat, always dressed in black and white formal wear, who adds a dash of elegance to the laid back atmosphere of Chatsford Hall.

Downtown Wilma rises several feet as it climbs away from the Riverwalk and up into the middle of downtown. It must have been an instinct shared with Abbie that sent me up into the Brooklyn Arts District this morning

From Egret Café, the elevated view looks out over the shops and restaurants lining the Cape Fear River and continues out past Memorial Bridge until it reaches the gates of Chatsford Hall on the edge of Brunswick Forest.

The change in elevation did nothing to lighten my sultry, overcast mood. The drought that plagued the countryside in recent weeks was washed from memory by the current week-long string of thunderstorms that had rushed in from the Atlantic and now refused to leave. The lack of sunshine gives Princess Amy the pip. If you haven’t met her, you’re most fortunate. She’s that small cluster of brain cells, disturbing my sangfroid like a spoiled brat in a royal household.

As I was saying, the city was shrouded by a sullen sky and had taken on a brooding atmosphere, much like my mood, which was in the third act of a festering bipolar sketch.

I stepped into Egret Café, hoping the atmosphere inside was brighter than Princess Amy’s forecast. As I moved to the order here spot, Amy remarked, Pointless to try lifting the spirit on a day destined to end in frustration and anxiety.

Still, as I’m sure you’re aware, we Genomes are made of sterner stuff than the standard model.  Chilled Damascus steel is how my grandfather Claudus put it. I placed my order for a double cappuccino with a flourish I perfected learned in the caffès of the Holy City, near the Spanish Steps but not too near the fountain. Then I chose a small table near the window but not too near the door. I played Jimmy Buffett tunes on Spotify. 

I was the only customer in the cafe and the barista seemed bored with nothing to do other than watch the early morning dogs walking their people. She decided to take steps; the kind that generate diverting conversation. She wasn’t a buzzer, bless her heart, and lacked the skill to follow Michael Jackson’s advice to start something. 

"Out for a walk this morning," she said.

"Yes," I said. I knew it was lacking a certain something but I thought it best to warm up slowly.

"It's muggy out there, isn't it?" she said and her words stirred Amy to ask, What the hell is this? Conversation about weather? Again?

For my part, I was silently praying, Oh no! Please, God, deliver me. What I actually said was, "I try to get a good walk in every morning.”

"Do you like exercise?" she said and I remember thinking at the time, Where the hell is this conversation going?

 "Me?" I said. "Are you kidding? I don't know when to stop." I was sure the remark had given me the home field advantage.

"Are you a runner then?" she said. And if I was a little confused before, I was astounded now. What was this young geezer thinking? "I love running. Five miles every morning. What do you do for exercise?"

"Oh, exercise," I said. "That explains it then. I thought you asked me if I liked extra fries."

Her face took on an expression worn by someone who felt strongly and had much to say. I couldn't hold in the laughter. I came close to slapping my knee and shouting 'Huzzah!' This hard-working tiller of roasted coffee beans may not be a buzzer but she'd started something anyway.

"I can see why you were confused," said a voice behind me.

"Oh, I didn't hear you come in," I said.

"I overheard the conversation," she said. "And I'm like you. I run like a herd of turtles is chasing me."

This comic relief appealed to the barista and she burst into laughter like a paper bag exploding.

When she caught her breath, she asked the newcomer, "So you only run when you're being chased?"

"Let me put it this way," she said. "If you see me running, you better start running too because whatever is chasing me is nothing you want to be introduced to."

It was magical. Suddenly it mattered little that a storm was brewing outside. Inside it was sunny and set fair.

"I think I love you," said the barista.

"I know," said the newcomer.

In all of the Carolinas, there is no sweeter spot than the districts of downtown Camelot. Looking out on the world through the windows of Egret Café, I felt as safe and cozy as viewing the world with Abbie Hoffman from atop the kitchen cabinets.

Mindfleet Contagion

The dashboard metrics spiked in June of 2025, about one week after posting the first episode of Mindspace: Into the Melancholy Nebula. In my line of work, a sudden steep incline on a traffic chart usually means one of two things: a server script has gone rogue and is trapped in an infinite loop, or a botnet in Eastern Europe has developed an inexplicable, burning passion for my vintage vocabulary.

I waited for the page to freeze or the blog to crash. Neither happened. The number of viewers just kept rising, with the calm indifference of a tide with no particular place to go.

Naturally, an investigation was required. Why had all of you suddenly decided to congregate inside The Circular Journey Cafe? The forensic analysis confirmed the numbers were clean. It marked an organic, honest-to-goodness surge of actual human eyeballs. Viewers became followers. Followers became a real audience. Writing into the digital void is the accepted standard formula, but having the void respond with enthusiasm is a joyful plot twist that exceeded my expectations.

To those of you who hit the subscribe button, forwarded a link, or simply lingered long enough to finish a paragraph, I am over-the-top grateful. Thank you.

The Viral Spike

The analytic evidence points to episodes having a few recurring themes that seem to have done the heavy lifting. Here is how the numbers broke down, and the storylines that prompted the universe to ratchet up the viewer response.

The Captain’s Stardate Log

A massive portion of the new crowd arrived because of Captain Amy, the highly critical, easily alarmed commander of my internal mindship, the FMS Coastal Voyager. Amy is tasked with leading a volatile crew of Mindfleet Academy officers through the roiling emotional storms of the Melancholy Nebula. Think of this series as a mashup of the original Star Trek television series and Pixar's animated movie, Inside Out, and filtered through the sensibility of someone who has read far too much and slept far too little.

In a perfectly neuro-stable universe, the amygdala, that almond-shaped cluster of brain cells responsible for threat assessment, is supposed to maintain calm during emotional turbulence. Amy’s preferred protocol, however, is to bypass the logic gates entirely and open fire with emotional phasers on full scatter-shot.

Apparently, a remarkable number of you deeply identify with having a reactionary commander shrieking unhelpful, panicked orders from the command console while the ship-wide alert system flashes pink. Why pink? Because Amy decided it was a far more psychologically catastrophic color for an emergency than conventional red. None of the other bridge officers were consulted.

The Amazing Ms. Wonder

Then there is Ms. Wonder who maintains the calm, unflappable anchor of reason, logic, and absolute level-headedness to every crisis Amy touches. When the Captain screams Abandon ship!, Wonder quietly materializes and solves the problem.

She is, in every meaningful sense, the Jeeves to my utterly bewildered Bertie Wooster. She extracts me from whatever existential tight spot Amy drags me into and restores order with the composed efficiency of someone who has never once lost her car keys.

A legion of you came, and stayed, simply to watch her effortlessly clear the structural wreckage left behind by the rest of the internal crew.

Some of you, I suspect, are lingering in the comments section hoping to get the secret recipe for her magical restorative elixir. I am reasonably certain it contains Blenheim's ginger ale, a dash of citrus, and something else that cannot legally be named in a public forum.

Whimsical Wilmawood Logistics

You clearly enjoy the misadventures that Amy and I fall into while traipsing around Hollywood East, whether we’re hunting for production crews filming The Summer I Turned Pretty or blindly submitting to the low-to-the-ground chaos of a GPS that has made very different plans for our afternoon.

In my ongoing effort to satisfy your appetite for this particular brand of local mayhem, I’ve learned a profound literary truth: a rogue, stowaway ferret named Reginald is the ultimate narrative hook. If you are ever struggling to hold a reader's attention, just add a ferret. Amy says it “ups the stakes,” and I’m telling you, it works every time.

Addendum

This blog has always been an exercise in looking at the mundane through a slightly warped lens. Knowing that this particular cocktail exploring neurodivergent life, through observational irony, and creative non-fiction has actually found a permanent home in your inbox makes the late nights, the existential parsing, and the extra coffee entirely worth it.

The surge is organic. My gratitude is immense. The journey remains circular, and as Amy would say while white-knuckling the armrests of her captain’s chair, we’re just getting started. Engage!

All That’s Fit to Fetch

The morning was one of those that arrive with a sense of divine instruction. The Universe, speaking in the language of blue skies and a light southerly breeze off the lagoon, said plainly: Come out of the house, Genome, and be among my people.  

It seemed an odd phrasing but, as someone once said in a previous century, ours is not to question but to obey. Shakespeare perhaps?

I obeyed by ankled down to Brunswick lagoon, the one with the gazebo, not the fountain. A great blue heron stood motionless in the shallows with the serenity of a monk who has achieved enlightenment and no longer requires breakfast. 

Two Mockingbirds conducted a bilateral summit in the Live Oaks. Somewhere behind me, a dog was offering its unsolicited opinion about, what I presumed was squirrel business.

It was the kind of morning that seems to have had me in mind when the new day dawned.

And then I noticed someone coming toward me on the path. He was of a certain target demographic age, purposeful in his stride, wearing the expression of a man who has recently come to a decision and feels quite happy about it. As he drew closer, he looked up. His eyes met mine. His face broke into a wide, warm smile.

"Hey!" he said. "Here he is!"

Well, I ask you.What was I supposed to do? I’m not made of stone. The man was smiling at me and had announced our meeting as though he’d been looking forward to the moment for some time. 

"Good morning!" I said, matching his energy and perhaps raising it slightly. "Wonderful day, isn't it?

He didn’t slow down and strode on past me as though I were the idle wind.

"No, no," he continued, gesturing broadly, "I told you already, the eleven o'clock doesn't work for me." 

I noticed, as he passed within arm's reach, the small white capsule lodged in his left ear, trailing a wire so fine it was nearly invisible in the morning light.

I processed this. I recalibrated. He was not talking to me. He had never been talking to me.

That ‘Here he is’ remark was intended for someone on the other end of a telephone call, someone who apparently was hoping for an eleven o'clock appointment; someone, decidedly, not me.

I watched him continue down the path, still talking, still gesturing, entirely unaware that he had just caused the internal clockwork to slip a gear in a man who had come out specifically to feel connected to the human race.

Well, said Amy, from somewhere in the vicinity of my left temple. That was something.

"Not a word, Amy" I said to that snarky little cluster of gray cells that serves as my limbic system.

I'm just saying, you really committed to it, didn’t you? 

She seemed to be enjoying herself enormously.

"Anyone could have made that mistake," I said. "The man smiled and made direct eye contact with me. Mine was a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the available evidence."

She giggled when she said, I want to make sure I have this right. You said to him, ‘Beautiful day, isn’t it?’

I made no immediate reply, which she correctly identified as a victory and celebrated accordingly.

The heron had not moved. It occurred to me that herons never have this problem. They simply stand quietly in the shallows, magnificent and unbothered, and let the world conduct its business at a safe distance.

Perhaps, I thought, the correct response to a world full of people talking to invisible companions is to become more heron-like.

I considered how the philosophy might be developed into something that could anchor a short TED Talk.

"Excuse me,” said a small voice.

I looked up. A woman with an expression of silver-haired wisdom, walking a small dog that appeared to be mostly ears, had stopped on the path. She was looking directly at me. Both ears were empty of electronic capsules. Her ears, I mean, not the dog’s.

"I couldn't help noticing," she said, nodding at the lagoon, "that heron has been standing in exactly the same spot for the past twenty minutes. I find it here every morning. Just thought you might find it interesting; you seem to be another admirer."

And there it was.

Not a grand revelation. Just a woman and a dog stopping to share a heron, the way people have always shared herons, when they happen to find themselves in the same place and time, paying attention.

"I did find it interesting," I said. "Very interesting."

She nodded, smiled and walked on. The dog looked back once, with the expression of a creature that thinks he’s seen it all and reckons it’s time to draft the memoir.

When I got home, Ms. Wonder was in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, wearing the expression she reserves for my return from a morning constitutional.

"How was the walk?" she asked.

"Instructive," I said, settling onto the stool at the counter,"I think the problem with modern life is not that people have stopped talking to each other. It's that they've made it difficult to tell who they're talking to."

She considered this with the focused attention she brings to all my announcements, however dubious their origins.

"Either that," she said, "or just maybe not everyone, smiling in your direction is making a personal connection."

"Wonder,” I said dispprovingly, “I am simply eager to engage with the world. I prefer to think of myself as enthusiastically available.”

She smiled and handed me a steaming cup of Jah’s mercy. It was, I noted with relief, the correct temperature.

Some days, that's all we need.

Faithfully

Every morning I stand where we once stood,

Waiting for the wheels that go round and round.

Bringing the big yellow school bus to a stop

And spilling sudden, noisy life into the street.

And for a moment, I feel the joy of finding you again.

The Morning Commute

There is a particular kind of silence that exists only in the blue-grey light of a coastal morning. It’s the hour when the world is still holding its breath, trying to delay the bustle of the coming day. In our house, that sleepy hour doesn’t belong to the dawn nor to the bird chorus in the backyard. It belongs to a very small, very determined, very senior lady.

She is Uma Maya, Queen of Cats and Empress of Chatsford Hall. She is sovereign; I am merely her footman.

Each weekday morning, she calls to me about ten minutes before the big yellow school bus arrives on the corner where we live. And, as always, I find her waiting for me at the foot of the staircase.

She doesn’t pace, and she doesn’t fret. She simply occupies the space with the gravity of a queen awaiting her carriage. She knows the neighborhood schedule better than I do; she knows that somewhere, several blocks away, a yellow school bus is warming its engine, preparing to make its grand entrance into our little theater of the everyday.

She looks at me, then at the stairs. Scientists call this referential signaling, but in the quiet of the hallway, it feels more like a shared secret. I am ready, her gaze says. The bus is coming, and I'm ready to take my place at the upstairs window.

I approach, and we perform the ritual that animal behaviorists call the start button. I reach down, and she makes a slight, graceful squat; a tiny physical adjustment that signals her consent. It’s the feline equivalent of granting permission to begin the ascent. I slide my hand under her, and she settles her weight into my palm with a trust so complete it’s humbling.

As I move up the stairs with her, I’m no longer simply a blogger or a food guy. I'm a voice‑activated mobile platform. I am the hand‑elevator.

It was always you and me, right down the line,  

Two parts of a whole, inseparable.  

Now the world feels like circus life under a big top,  

A strange, loud show that goes on without us,  

And I find myself searching for a reason to smile. 

We move in a kind of fluid dance. She doesn’t stiffen; she leans into the lift. As my balance adjusts to climb the stairs, she shifts in my hand, mapping my movements as an extension of her own aging limbs. For these few seconds, we are a single unit; together, we negotiate a terrain she can no longer manage alone.

At the top of the stairs, I place her onto her throne, a padded oval bed with a raised border, perched just high enough in the window to give her a clear view of the street and the waiting school children.

The transformation is instantaneous.

The vocal Project Manager who meowed with increasing urgency until I appeared is gone. In her place sits the Silent Observer. She enters a state of sensory hyper‑focus; a feline flow state in which all would-be distractions are filtered out. She listens only for the squeal of tires and the hiss of air brakes.

When the bus finally appears, that giant, flashing, yellow IMAX event, she doesn’t move a muscle. She simply stares, a biological tripod recording the data of the morning and confirming that the world is operating exactly as she predicted. 

There is an intellectual satisfaction in her stillness: the bus is on time, the territory is secure, and her hypothesis of the universe remains intact.

I watch her watching the world, and I’m struck by the depth of the contract we’ve signed.

Being apart isn't easy on this old man.  

Without you, the days stretch out like an empty road,  

And I find myself drifting through space and time,  

Feeling a little lost in the quiet parts of the afternoon. 

But you are never truly far away;  

The critics and skeptics like to say that pets are merely creatures of instinct, driven by the simple gears of hunger and habit. But the critics aren’t there at 6:40 a.m. They don’t see the intentionality in her eyes or the way she “directs” me to solve the limitations of her aging limbs. They don’t feel the weight of a creature who has decided, after years of shared history, that your hands are the safest place in the world.

The bus pulls away, its lights fading in the distance, and the show is over. Uma exhales a deep, satisfied sigh. The mission is accomplished. She doesn’t need to stay for the credits; she simply nestles into the soft border of her bed and drifts off to a satisfied sleep, no doubt dreaming of big yellow school buses. 

And I am left standing in the hallway with the feeling that, at least for today, everything is as it should be. 

You are forever in my mind,  

A constant memory through the seasons.  

And so I keep my station here at the curb,  

Waiting for the morning sun on that big yellow school bus;  

Still yours, faithfully, forever.

About Faithfully

Faithfully is a song by the American rock band Journey, written by keyboardist Jonathan Cain. The song has enjoyed enduring popularity and has been hailed as one of the greatest power ballads ever recorded.

Ambassador's Log: Stardate 2026.133

Another unremarkable morning dawned in the Melancholy Nebula of my mind. Captain Amy was already reviewing a daily manifest that was less of a plan and more of a logistical hostage situation. While she droned on with the tonal persistence of a ceiling fan, I tuned her out. I let my awareness drift away from the command bridge and toward the lower decks of the limbic system, where the morning chatter was far more revealing than the official mission profile.

While Ensigns Regret and Anger were in the corner wrestling with a sentient toaster that refused to comply until they apologized for their "sub-optimal morning attitudes,” Ensign Doubt was facing her true nemesis: a standard-issue replicator menu.

I don’t know, Doubt thought, her finger hovering over the screen like a bomb technician. If I choose the tomato soup, am I rejecting the chicken noodle? Is the replicator sentient enough to feel that rejection?

“Doubt, it’s just soup,” Ensign Optimism chirped from the line behind her, practically vibrating with unearned cheer. “Pick one! The universe wants you to be hydrated and full of electrolytes!”

Doubt glanced back, her eyes wide with metaphysical panic. “Or is the universe testing my decision-making capacity before assigning me to the helm? What if this soup is a metaphor for my entire Mindfleet career? If I pick the wrong one, will I be passed over for promotion?”

She stood there mulling it over until the replicator sighed, flickered, and entered power-save mode, a behavior known as the digital eye-roll.

"Ensign Doubt.”

First Officer Reason had materialized at her shoulder, looking as though he were composed entirely of rigid geometry and cold telemetry. "Report to the bridge. I require you to calibrate the ship's internal latency sensors. The system is currently reporting a 0.04-millisecond lag in our emotional throughput.”

“Are you sure you want me, sir?” Doubt asked, a light sheen of sweat appearing on her brow. “Am I the most qualified? Or am I just the only one who didn’t run away when you walked in? What if I calibrate them to be too sensitive and the ship starts picking up the ghost of every regret I’ve had since the third grade?”

Reason stared at her for a long, clinical beat. “Ensign, just meet me on the blue bridge at 0830.”

“Which blue, sir?" interjected Ensign Nostalgia, who had just drifted into the cafe clutching a vintage, non-functional smartphone like a holy relic. "Are we talking sky blue? Cerulean? The blue of a dying star? The blue of a 'Manic Monday'? I love Bananarama, don't you, sir? Did you know Prince wrote that song for them?”

Reason walked away without a word, his stride suggesting he was mentally calculating the shortest route to a vacuum-sealed room. Doubt remained, considering whether her next move should be a tactical retreat or a full-scale existential crisis.

While she wrestled with the physics of moving her left foot, Ensign Nostalgia turned to a group of junior officers bussing their tables.

“Do you remember internal combustion engines?” she sighed, her eyes going dreamy. “The noise! The smell of burning dinosaur remains! I wish I could return to the early 21st century. Those were the most exciting days to be a cadet in Mindfleet Academy.”

“Nostalgia, we have teleportation systems that can brew your coffee and have it waiting for you when you reach your destination nanosecs later,” Ensign Indifference pointed out, staring blankly at a wall. “Why would you want a machine that needs an oil change and a prayer to start?”

“Because in 2025, things had soul,” Nostalgia replied, stroking the 'Is it Friday yet?' sticker on her dead phone. “We had things called 'apps.' We had 'buffering.' We had the constant, low-grade fear of a global pandemic. Life was vibrant! Now everything is just… ‘Satisfactory.’”

“‘Satisfactory’? That’s your grievance?” Doubt countered, momentarily distracted from her own neurosis. “Think about when you were lost during that planetary survey in the Calabash Sector.”

“Don’t bring that up again.”

“You insisted on using your... what was it?”

“Intuition,” Nostalgia snapped. “It’s a 21st-century legacy skill. You wouldn't understand.”

“Whatever. You insisted you could find mineral deposits by wandering around a sand dune complaining about the ‘Wi‑Fi signal’.” Doubt made frantic air quotes. “You had to be rescued by a drone.”

“That drone was incredibly smug, Doubt. It reprimanded me for my 'lack of spatial awareness.' In 2025, the rescue would have taken three days and involved at least two helicopter mishaps! I would have been breaking news on television! I would have been an internet meme! I might even have been cast in a reality TV show titled Where’s Nosa?”

Ensign Indifference walked into the galley and approached the replicator. “Make me some kind of sugary soda,” he muttered. The machine complied with a depressed hum.

Nostalgia turned and walked away, her heels clicking a rhythmic, wistful beat. Doubt turned to Indifference, her brow furrowed. "Television? Internet? What is she talking about?”

Indifference only shrugged and followed Nostalgia out, leaving Doubt alone with her orders to report to the bridge.

After several more minutes of weighing the pros and cons of the blue bridge versus the cerulean bridge, Doubt settled on a third option. She reported to Dr. Downer in sickbay, complaining of a sudden onset of acute “unauthorized hesitation.”

TSITP : Pretty Summer in Cousins Beach

"You live twenty minutes from Cousins Beach," Amy announced that morning, her voice carrying the tone of a prosecutor reading charges.

"Lola Tung is there. Chris Briney is there. The entire cast of The Summer I Turned Pretty is there, filming on the waterfront as we speak, and you're sitting here, eating cereal."

"It's a complicated cereal, Amy. "The toasted coconut granola requires special attention before adding the milk."

"Genome?"

"Amy?"

"Go!"

She's not exactly wrong. I live close enough to Southport, aka Cousins Beach, to hear the seagulls arguing over the yacht basin. The movie production, hiding behind the working title The Exactuals, began filming there a week ago. Everyone knows the production is really the movie version of TSITP.

"Belly and Conrad," Amy said, ticking them off on imaginary fingers. "Steven and Taylor. Jeremiah with a mystery blonde who is decidedly not Denise. And Belly...pay attention, this is the detail everyone is talking about...Belly was wearing a noticeably larger ring on her finger.”

“I know, Amy,” I said. “The internet lost its mind over that little detail.”

“And you were in Leland, watching the internet lose its mind over a movie that was literally filming just down the street.”

The Exactuals

"They've asked fans to stay away entirely," she continued. "WWAY reported it. The production put out a statement saying, 'We love the excitement, but sharing locations and visiting the set disrupts filming and creates real safety concerns.'

They're calling it a protected bubble," she added. "They're building a bubble specifically to keep set jetters and other civilians out."

After a short pause, a theatrical one, she said, "You are, in case it needs saying, a civilian."

"I'm a documentarian," I said.

"They especially want to keep people like you out. They're concerned about crew safety."

"That feels personal."

"It isn't personal. They don't know you exist. Which, given everything, is probably for the best."

I let that settle for a moment before asking the question that had been nagging at me throughout the entire briefing.

"How do you know all of this, Amy? You're my amygdala. You can only read what I read. You should only know what I know."

She was quiet for a moment. Not the ammunition-gathering quiet. Something more considered.

"I read everything you read," she said finally. "Every fan account. Every StarNews article. Every WWAY report. The question isn't how I know, Genome. The question is why you don't remember any of it."

I had no answer for that.

"We really should work on our communication," she added, in the tone of someone with no intention of working on anything.

The Attempt That Wasn't

I had a plan. Amy had been monitoring the fan accounts on TikTok, where she uncovered a post that Brunswick Street near the Southport marina had been barricaded.

"We go today," she said. "The production window runs through June, but they'll move through Southport's downtown core, the waterfront, and into Wilmington proper as the weeks go on. Every day you wait is a day they might not be where you think they are."

We boarded Wind Horse and headed south.

"Why aren't we taking the exit to Highway 87? It's the closest route to Southport?" Amy asked.

"Did you see that traffic?"

"Is it set-jetters clogging up the highways? You know that article in WWAY News is only going to fan the flames of gawkers."

I heard her snicker at her own attempt at humor. "I doubt it's set jetters. Just the normal tourist deluge."

She was quiet for a moment. The kind of quiet that, with Amy, is never actually quiet so much as the gathering of ammunition.

"You know," she said finally, "Conrad Fisher would not let a little traffic stop him."

"Conrad Fisher is a fictional character."

"Maybe so," she said, with the serenity of someone who has made this point before and is perfectly prepared to make it again, "but he's currently on a boat in the Southport yacht basin, and you’re not."

The Circular Comfort

Even if the trip to Southport doesn't locate the crew, it's still a trip to Southport. The yacht basin is still beautiful. The seagulls are still arguing. Fishy Fishy Cafe is still there, even if Netflix turned it into The Waterfront for a season.

The production crew will be here through June, but Ms. Wonder and I will be away on our tour of the Georgia and Florida coast for most of that month. If I'm going to get footage of TSITP, it has to happen in the next two weeks.

"You still have time," Amy said, having read my thoughts. Her tone was softening half a degree, which, for Amy, is the emotional equivalent of a standing ovation.

"You have 18 days, minus travel time, minus the time you spend building bespoke granola bowls, minus whatever other emergencies the universe has scheduled for you that you don't know about yet."

"That's not encouraging."

"I'm not finished. There's also the matter of RJ Decker."

"I looked it up,” she said. “ABC has renewed Decker for a second season, and filming is expected to begin in Wilmington soon."

"What that means for you is don't waste time with breakfast cereal. If the day's shoot is scheduled for 6:30 AM, we need to be there at 4:30."

"Noted."

"And Genome?"

"Yes, Amy."

"When you finally get there, and I'm saying 'when' purely to be encouraging, you understand, don't stand behind a dumpster again. That R J Decker fiasco at CineSpace Studios was embarrassing. I've got a reputation to safeguard."

Keep watching this space for updates on The Summer I Turned Pretty, R J Decker, and whatever the universe has scheduled for me that I don't know about yet.

The Summer Turning Pretty

I'd waited a long time for this day. I'd planned it for two years, an eternity for someone who usually can't focus on anything for more than a couple of days without being distracted by a squirrel circus or a particularly compelling thought.

So it won't be surprising, as Shakespeare once said, that I was thrilled when my intelligence operation finally "broke the code" on Netflix security surrounding the filming of The Summer I Turned Pretty.

Amy laughs at the thought of my intelligence operation, pointing out that Ms. Wonder found our intel in a Facebook post from Edgewater 122, the same Southport Yacht Basin restaurant where I'd filmed behind-the-scenes footage of The Waterfront.

So yes, Poopsie handed us the key to the kingdom, once more. The woman's brain is like no other. I'm sure it comes from eating so much wild-caught Alaskan salmon. With a brain like hers, I genuinely wonder how she finds a hat large enough to fit.

At any rate, when a restaurant announces it's "closed for filming," a production crew is sure to be filming nearby. Amy and I instantly looked at each other in my imagination and said in a single voice, "Summer I Turned Pretty!" If you don't know what that means, crawl out from under that rock and join the rest of society. Also, please follow us.

Thanks to our Waterfront experience two years prior, I was familiar with the set location and the little-known sneak-arounds. After my repeated inability to capture a single frame of The Runarounds, I was ecstatic to finally get some b-roll.

"I'm not merely ready," I told Amy. "I'm seasoned."

"Seasoned like a cast-iron skillet left out in the rain."

"A seasoned professional, Amy."

"We'll see about that when we get to Southport," she grumbled.

The next day, I parked outside Port City Java and walked toward the Yacht Basin, buzzing with anticipation. The buzz dimmed when I reached the production truck labeled Summer LLC and saw the lighting equipment still covered.

I reasoned that the crew had set up the night before and, with the current overcast skies, would likely start rolling around four in the afternoon, the magic hour for filming. That meant a long, beautiful day in Southport, waiting for the crew to materialize.

After wandering the set, chatting with a nearby vendor, and generally soaking up the atmosphere, we retreated to Port City Java for an early lunch. Two coffees, several podcasts, and a good deal of Amy's commentary later, I was restless and thoroughly tired of waiting.

"No big deal," I said. "I'm feeling particularly confident about doing a professional job when the film crew arrives."

"You walked into a sandwich board," Amy noted.

"That was the wind," I said.

"Sure it was," she said, with the enthusiasm of someone counting ceiling tiles. "And now we have hours of waiting to enjoy."

She had a point, so I proposed we drive home, freshen up, and return when things were underway.

"Anything to stop your whining," Amy said.

"It's a simple, elegant plan," I said.

"Famous last words," she said.

We headed for Ocean Highway and drove directly into a traffic jam of geological patience stretching from the junction to the horizon.

"So much for simple and elegant," Amy observed.

I decided to divert through the small municipality of Half Hell. I'm not joking; that's the name of the place. The plan was to take Port City Highway and get around the backup, a longer route, but quicker than sitting in what had become a monument to automotive despair.

The drive was pleasant enough. Light traffic, Wind Horse performing admirably, Steely Dan on SiriusXM. Then came the small matter of the exit.

I missed it, and not narrowly, but in the manner of someone who didn't know the exit existed. Eight miles into the countryside, I spotted a grain storage facility and stopped for directions. The operator was helpful and issued one memorable warning: "If you come to the road through the swamp, you've gone too far."

"Put that in the notes," Amy said.

I put it in the notes. Shortly thereafter, Wind Horse was skimming along the road deep into the swamp.

"You used the notes as a suggestion," Amy said. "Always taking it to the next level, Bucko."

In what seemed much longer than it actually was, we found ourselves back in Half Hell for the second time that afternoon, a distinction that qualifies, mathematically, as Complete Hell. We pointed Wind Horse toward home, and Amy went mostly quiet, in the way a fire goes mostly out.

We agreed, in the way of two people who have been through all of Hell together, that the return trip to Southport would wait for another day.

"Next time," Amy said, as we pulled into the driveway, "we'll ask Ms. Wonder before leaving Waterville."

She wasn't wrong.

The Summer I Turned Pretty will film at Southport again. The production has a schedule, a crew, and several more locations to get through. Amy and I have experience, determination, and, thanks to the grain storage operator, a working knowledge of swamp-road geography.

Surpassing all that is a bit of intel I picked up from a fellow just outside Edgewater. He had one of those supposedly trustworthy faces I've heard so much about, like he'd been practicing in the mirror. He leaned in, all conspiratorial, and said:

"Next time, search for a project called 'The Exactuals.'"

We'll be back, baby. Oh, yeah.