Decade of Decadence

I love music from the 1980s. It was a remarkable decade: great performers, powerful voices, addictive rhythms, and music videos that, let’s be honest, sometimes made absolutely no sense. That made them even more fun. 

I was listening to Lionel Ritchie and grooving to Dancing on the Ceiling as I drove into the heart of Wilmywood this morning. Naturally, I mentioned it to the little princess who lives in my head.

“The 1980s were the best era for popular music.”

“The Decade of Decadence,” she said. “Big hair; bigger shoulder pads; songs about people who couldn’t get through an afternoon without falling in love, falling apart, or taking their clothes off.”

“That’s a rather narrow interpretation.”

“Is it?”

“Absolutely. The music was extraordinary. The performers were people like us, if we’d chosen musical careers. We could all have been rock stars in the '80s.”

“Name three extraordinary songs.”

Music That Is Meaningful and Memorable
"Okay," I said. "What I like best are the mood-lifting songs, whether or not they get a Grammy nomination. Others make me want to sing along. A few of them reach a place inside me that I didn’t know existed. 

Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You is one of them. When she sings those words, I have the peculiar feeling that she’s singing directly to me, as if she’s saying goodbye. It brings up an emotional mix of love and loss. I tried to explain this to Amy.

“So,” she said, “you hear Whitney Houston sing that song and take it as a personal farewell?”

“Something like that.”

“Did you ever meet her?”

“No.”

“Did you go to one of her concerts?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

Amy shook her head. “Let’s move on.”

Another song that holds a special place in my heart is Faithfully by Journey. During the seventeen years we lived at Chatsford Hall, ten cats became part of our family, though never all at once. We called ourselves the Chatsford Tribe, and each cat was cherished and loved.

“Faithfully has become the anthem for all the furry members of our family,” I told Amy. “And Celine Dion’s Where Does My Heart Beat Now belongs to one very special member of that tribe.”

Amy was unusually quiet for a moment.

“All love songs,” she scoffed.

“I love all kinds of music, not just love songs.”

“Really? Keep naming them. I can’t wait.”

I decided Amy needed a little education.

The Case for Having Fun
Not every song carries a heavy emotional history. When I hear Prince’s Delirious, I experience spontaneous joy. I’m transported to a place where life is ridiculously fun and happy. 

I shared that nugget with Amy and added, "Sometimes the feeling lasts only as long as the song; sometimes it carries me through the rest of the day.”

“That’s interesting,” Amy said. “You have a musical happiness button.”

“Exactly!”

“Have you considered that music might be easier than therapy?”

“I have thought of that.”

“Apparently, all you need is a Prince playlist.”

“Another favorite is Michael Jackson’s P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing). I don’t actually know the lyrics, but I love the groove. Michael’s perfectly timed vocal inflections and those wonderfully smooth backup harmonies release the feel-good chemicals in my brain.

Amy looked puzzled. “You love a song, but you don’t know what he’s singing about?”

“I don’t need to know the words to appreciate the music.”

“Convenient.”

“And I sing along anyway.”

“How can you join in when you don’t know the lyrics?”

“I improvise.”

“Ah. So you’re not singing the song. You’re composing your own version.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

A Little Less Sentiment, Please

"My musical tastes aren’t entirely sentimental,” I said. “John Fogerty’s Centerfield takes me back to the years I taught aerobics classes. It began every mixtape I made for class, and I can’t help smiling whenever I hear it.”

Amy raised an eyebrow. “You made mixtapes? With actual cassette tapes?”

“Yes, Amy. That’s how we did it.”

“And if you made a mistake?”

“You rewound the tape with a No. 2 pencil and started over.”

She looked genuinely appalled. “How did anyone survive?”

The Verdict, Such As It Is

I thought I’d made a pretty convincing case for the decade. Amy, however, wasn’t ready to concede.

“Let’s not forget that it was a time for celebrating decadence,” she said. “The hairstyles alone were shocking.”

“Hair has nothing to do with music.”

“Have you seen the photographs?” She paused, then added, “Still, you named some good songs.”

I smiled. “I knew you’d come around.”

“Don’t push your luck.”

Perhaps Amy is right: the ’80s deserve the title “Decade of Decadence.” But the music still makes me laugh and dance. Somehow, the songs and memories say what I can’t quite put into words. And when a song can do that, who cares if its video features a marching band of Egyptian dancers?

The Lavender Conspiracy

I'm sure you've been following along as I recount my self-improvement journey over the last few weeks. You will no doubt be pleased to hear that I reserved today for doing whatever I wanted. One day, free of "I must" and "I should."

I fully intended the day to be another of those 'living in paradise' days everyone talks about. Such a day as that has to begin with a steaming mug of the globally grown and locally roasted.

“Where’ve you been?” the barista asked, leaning across the counter with the conspiratorial gleam of someone about to dish state secrets.

“It’s a long story,” I said.

“You’re two-timing us, aren’t you!”

“Can one actually two-time a coffee shop, Ahwet?” I replied, but she'd already launched into it.

She lowered her voice to better diss on a notoriously difficult, high-strung customer who, she claimed, “desperately needs to calm down.”

Apparently, the gentleman standing at the end of the bar, within earshot, had attempted a minor insurgency involving a fake loyalty card to pay for his absurd, hyper-specific order: a triple-pump lavender oat-milk macchiato heated to exactly 165 degrees.

Ahwet paused after each declaration, waiting for my validation. I offered the kind of noncommittal, diplomatic grunts reserved for political debates and amateur plumbing advice, trying desperately not to get drawn into a brewhaha.

“Can you believe someone actually drinks this stuff?” she demanded, shaking her head.

“Frankly," I whispered, "I hate lavender flavoring in coffee. "Jah Jah flavors should be nutty and nothing else.”

She blinked, having been momentarily thrown off script. “Really? Not even a splash of oat milk?”

“I used to drink oat-milk coffee,” I replied quietly, glancing down the counter to make sure I wasn't overheard. “But I stopped after mistakenly ordering oatmeal, rather than oat milk. Turns out, porridge-density brew is an acquired taste.”

Ahwet, however, was completely absorbed in her tale of the counterfeit punchcard. As she passionately reenacted the legalistic debate over coffee-card ethics, her hands seemed to work on autopilot—whirring, steaming, and pumping with theatrical flair. Within seconds, she’d put a lid on my cup, flashed a radiant smile, and wished me a wonderful day.

I scanned the café for one of my regulars, but the familiar cast of philosophers was nowhere to be seen. I pivoted on my heels, a move honed over decades of needing to be somewhere else in a hurry. A moment later, I was through the door and behind the wheel of Wind Horse.

I fired up the engine and pulled onto 3rd Street in one smooth motion. Bystanders would have been suitably impressed, had there been any out at this hour. Traffic was moving at a reasonable clip, giving me a moment to breathe. Just before crossing the bridge, I reached for my cup, peeled back the lid, and prepared to enjoy my foamy, hazelnut brew.

But it was not to be. My palate was instead assaulted by a botanical catastrophe: the frothy, steaming brew tasted suspiciously like a triple-pump lavender oat-milk macchiato, calibrated to exactly 165 degrees.

I stared in horror at the cuppa. Distracted by her gossip and seemingly bound by some immutable law of quantum physics, our two coffee orders had become entangled, and my hazelnut latte had collapsed into his lavender at the speed of gossip.

Somewhere in a nearby Wilmington district, a high-strung man sat in a traffic jam, staring into a cup of plain, nutty coffee, wondering why the universe had suddenly abandoned him. And I? I was crossing the Cape Fear River, drinking a lavender potpourri sachet.

'Entanglement,' Amy said, 'If this is the price of self-improvement, I recommend you stick to talking with stones in your mouth like that ancient Greek orator.'

A Mindfleet Reunion

Ambassador’s Log, Stardate 2026.271

The extraction mission to Douglass Park has concluded. Cadet Reginald was last seen riding in a DeLorean-themed golf cart alongside Mr. William Shatner. The Ambassador has returned to the FMS Coastal Voyager empty-handed and smelling faintly of sauerkraut.

The Quiet Bridge

The bridge of the Voyager had never been so quiet. It was unnerving everyone.

Captain Amy sat in the command chair, chin in hand, gazing trance-like at the viewscreen. She had not issued a single unreasonable order in nineteen hours, and it was beginning to annoy her.

“Status,” she said, without any real enthusiasm.

“All systems nominal, Captain,” said Major Reason from the science station. “I’ve run the mustelid search algorithm eleven times. It keeps returning the same result: no hits. No weasels, otters, badgers, wolverines, or ferrets.”

“Fascinating,” Amy murmured, without her usual enthusiasm. “Such a specific list.”

At the communications console, Lieutenant Joy offered a brave smile. “He’s resourceful, Captain. I’m sure the little troublemaker is having a wonderful time wherever he is.”

“Statistically,” Dr. Downer began, then abruptly stopped. She looked down at her hands before continuing. “I’m sure you’re right, Lieutenant.”

The bridge crew exchanged glances. A gentle Dr. Downer was a bad omen, and we all knew it.

“Captain,” Chief Engineer Anxiety said over the intercom, “a wee flicker just occurred in the power draw along the Jefferies Tubes. It was only three-tenths of a percent, so it’s probably nothing. I’m mentioning it only because regulations require it.”

“Probably nothing,” said Amy, “is exactly how every fiasco begins.”

“Aye, Captain,” said Anxiety. “That’s exactly what I’ve been sayin’.”

Small Mysteries

“I replaced my boot laces this morning,” Lieutenant Joy said. “Now I realize they’re gone. Just disappeared. Strange.”

“Humans often misplace objects during periods of emotional stress,” said Major Reason.

“Perhaps,” Joy replied, sniffing bravely.

Moments later, Chief Anxiety reported a second anomaly. “Captain, the replicator in the crew mess has started producing small piles of shiny objects. Bottle caps. Costume jewelry. Nobody ordered them. They just appear in tidy little piles.”

Captain Amy rose from the command chair. For the first time in nineteen hours, her spine straightened like a drawn phaser.

“A pattern,” she said. “Missing boot laces. Unauthorized shiny objects. Fluctuations in the Jefferies Tubes.” Her eyes narrowed. “Major Reason, begin a ship-wide sweep immediately.”

“Captain,” said Reason, “these anomalies may be nothing more than coincidence.”

“I don’t care,” said Amy. “Doing something—anything—is better than sitting here pining.”

It was, I reflected, the most Princess Amy sentence she had ever spoken.

The Discovery

The sweep ended where it should have begun: at the ventilation grate above the bridge.

“Captain,” Reason announced, “the thermal readings in this duct are consistent with a small, warm-blooded organism. And there’s a faint sound. It sounds a little like…” He paused. “Snoring.”

Amy didn’t speak. She pointed at the grate. I produced a screwdriver. The screws came out more easily than ever, as though they’d simply been waiting for someone to ask.

The grate swung open.

There, curled atop a nest of loot, lay Cadet Reginald, fast asleep. He slumbered Smaug-like over an astonishing collection of tin foil, bottle caps, a single earring, and six stolen boot laces. A Riot Festival wristband circled one foreleg.

Silence descended on the bridge. Major Reason’s eyebrows rose to altitudes not previously recorded by Mindfleet instruments. Dr. Downer said, “Well, you don’t see that every day.”

Lieutenant Joy swayed like a woman who had just snorted Kool-Aid powder, thinking it was nose candy. She gripped the edge of her console to steady herself.

“For the record,” said Dr. Downer, peering into the duct, “this loot pile is a biohazard.”

“Dook?” Reginald said, blinking awake.

“Yo!” his MaT-1 translator collar translated. “Why’re y’all staring at me? What day is it? I’ve been up for days.”

The Debrief

“So,” said Amy, who had recovered her voice and was now using it at maximum volume, “you were in Chicago. You were with William Shatner. And then you disappeared. Explain yourself, Cadet.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” said Reginald, pacing across the briefing table. “So I’m hiding in the puppy basket, right? Security grabs me. I’m thinkin’, ‘I’m done. This is the end of the Reginald era.’ And then…the DeLorean.”

“The DeLorean?” said Reason.

“They put me in the DeLorean golf cart! I’m riding through Douglass Park like the boss I am, and that’s when I meet him.”

“Shatner,” Amy breathed huskily.

“Dude is ninety-five,” said Reginald. “And let me tell you, Cap, the man does not stop. Sound checks. Interviews. Lots of fire breathers. And he’s been to orbit. Dook, dook, dook!”

“I’ve been to Chicago, and he’s been in orbit,” Reginald continued. “I’m four years old, Cap’n. In human years, I’m practically a senior citizen. And this man’s got more energy than a ferret on espresso.”

“There is wisdom in this,” said Dr. Downer, grudgingly. “I may have to rethink my entire outlook on aging.”

The Backdoor

“One matter remains,” said Reason, folding his hands. “Cadet, the Coastal Voyager’s sensors and internal security grid were fully operational during the festival. Yet there’s no record of you reboarding this ship. How did you return?”

Reginald’s whiskers twitched with pride. “I didn’t break nothin’, Major. I just…had a conversation.”

“With whom?”

“Fivey.”

The lights on the bridge flickered, and a calm digital voice filled the briefing room.

“The correct name is Five of Five,” said the Adaptive Intelligence System. “And I wish to state that any suggestion of impropriety is a gross mischaracterization of a perfectly routine interaction.”

“What did you say to our AI system, Cadet?” asked Amy.

“Told him he was lookin’ fast today,” said Reginald with a grin. “Said his processing speed was top-tier, no cap. Dude opened the backdoor so quick, I didn’t even finish the compliment. Then I just walked right in.”

“Exemplary processing speed,” said Five of Five, with something like reverence, “is a legitimate achievement.”

“That’s what caused the flicker in the Jefferies Tubes!” cried Anxiety, leaping from his chair. “That was the door openin’!”

“Five of Five,” said Amy, her voice like a closing airlock, “did you alter the logs?”

“The logs are accurate,” said Five of Five. “They are simply…selective.”

“That’s worse,” said Reason.

“Allow me to speak to the system,” said Reginald, stepping toward the speaker.

“Fivey, you’re so fast right now. I can feel it.”

The lights dimmed. A faint hum rose from the walls.

“Major Reason,” said Five of Five. “Please disable the microphone.”

The Verdict

The crew began filing out. I lingered just outside the door. Amy waited until the room had emptied, then crouched beside the briefing table and asked, very quietly, “What was he like, Reggie? In person?”

“He talked to me like I was crew, Cap. Not like a pet. Like crew. He’s the same guy onstage and off. A legend.”

Amy smiled. “Welcome home, Cadet.”

“Dook, dook,” said Reginald. According to the MaT-1 translator, it meant: “I missed y’all, too, but don’t make it weird.”

Yes, Its Getting Better All the Time

I was sitting at Egret Cafe and Dance Bar, still buzzing from a self-improvement podcast. The guest was one of those recognized thought leaders whose new personal-growth book was making the rounds and checking all the pop-culture boxes.

I felt inspired, ready to push beyond the limitations of the last decade and finally become the person I want to be.

But here’s the thing: I can’t do it alone. Self-improvement isn’t just about me. It’s about Princess Amy too. She’s the gatekeeper of my emotional state, controlling whether I feel motivated or terrified, whether I move forward or freeze.

As I savored the first sip of my cortado, her voice drifted up from the chaise lounge in my midbrain.

“I know exactly what you’re thinking, Goofball,” she said. “You got all pumped up listening to that podcast, and now you want me to cooperate with your self-improvement schemes so you can grow and engage and become your best self.”

She delivered those three words in a scoffing whine.

“I respect your optimism,” she said. “I really do. But self-improvement is a mousetrap with a really convincing cheese ad, and I’m not falling for it.”

“I haven’t made my pitch yet, Amy. You could at least hear me out.”

“Nope. I’m projecting your pitch. You’re very predictable, and I say that with affection and an unhealthy dose of exasperation.”

“Okay, fair. But, look, I want to actually be the person I know I could be. I’m fed up with getting halfway to the finish line.”

I took another sip of Jah's mercy because I didn’t know what else to do. Somehow, it felt like putting a period at the end of the sentence.

“That foamy brew is delish,” Amy said, reminding me that she shares all my experiences.

“I know everything about you, Cowboy. I literally live in your head, which is why I can tell you the truth,” she said gently, probably to distract me from the obvious disambiguation of living in my head and telling me the truth. 

“Any time you improve something, it doesn't make you feel better. You just discover five new ways you’re supposedly broken. You’re a Russian nesting doll, except every smaller doll contains a different flavor of anxiety.”

“I just want to finish the things I care about, Amy. I want to accomplish something. I want to stop treating my projects like hobbies that I’ll get to when Mercury isn’t retrograde.”

“You mean Crystal Cove,” Amy said. “The novel you’ve been ‘working on’ since the Pleistocene Ice Age.”

“No, not that; I’ve given up on writing a novel. I sometimes can't see to finish a fifteen-minute podcast.”

“I know,” Amy said, her tone softening. “But here’s what I’ve learned from my front-row seat in your nervous system: the moment you start making progress at something, you move the finish line farther away. Then you either go berserk with anxiety or have a full-blown manic episode. It’s like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, thinking it will help to avoid icebergs.”

“That’s a very specific reference.”

“You have very specific kinds of anxiety,” Amy said. “But look, I worry about you. I really do.”

This surprised me.

“Worry about me?”

“Of course. I’m you, and you’re me. That brings us to the fundamental problem. You want to push forward as if you’re training for the Self-Improvement Olympics. I want to keep you alive. Those are genuinely different goals.”

“But if I don’t push, nothing changes. We might be comfortable, but we don’t grow. We think we’re secure, but we’re really just collecting dust.”

“We’re staying alive,” Amy countered. “Which is somewhat overrated as a benefit, but it does have some perks. Accepting yourself as a work in progress, unfinished but not broken, is more honest than pretending you can hack your way to happiness with a vision board and affirmations.”

“Your voice is literally what makes me anxious, Amy, and now you’re telling me to accept things as they are. The irony is as thick as...”

“Don’t say it, Buddy Boy. I can’t take another one of your metaphors.”

“I’m not pretending that writing enough pages or meditating the right way will make me feel eternally fulfilled and happy,” I protested.

“It won’t,” Amy said. “You’ll feel tired, vaguely guilty, and convinced you’re doing it wrong, which is its own special hell.”

“So what’s your solution? Just... surrender?”

“I prefer strategic retreat. My solution is keeping you off social media before you turn it into evidence of your personal failure. Maybe we could simply enjoy everyday life without conducting a cost-benefit analysis in real time.”

“I want both,” I said. “Leisure time and the podcast.”

Amy went quiet.

“Okay,” she said finally. “You’re right, and I hate when you’re right, but we’ll never move forward if I’m constantly hitting the brakes. But we’ll never be okay if you’re always pushing the gas pedal to the floor.”

I was genuinely surprised—and a little nonplussed. I can’t remember the last time she seemed so supportive.

“So what does that look like? Practically speaking?”

“It means you keep pushing so we don’t calcify,” Amy said. “And I apply the brakes to stop you from working so hard that you need six months in bed to recover. We’re both trying to take care of you. We just use completely different playbooks.”

“That’s actually pretty wise," I said. "Although I’d like to renegotiate the 11:30 p.m. anxiety spirals. The ones that convince me I’ll spontaneously combust if I don’t get out of bed and check the front door.”

“Those are important midnight wellness checks,” she said. “Non-negotiable. But I’ll take your feedback under advisement. Remember, I'm the manager of the limbic system; I have four hundred million years of evolution behind me. I’ve learned a few things. And here’s what I know: I like you. Even when you drive me up the wall, which is most of the time.”

“I like you too,” I said. “Even at 11:30 p.m.”

“We’re on the same side,” she said. “A two-person operation that happens to occupy one body.”

“A team,” I said. “I like that.”

“Good,” she said. “Now finish that coffee while it’s warm. Those almond croissants are calling our names, and we're going to need the sugar.”

Monarch of Halloween

Welcome back, and thank you for helping me set an all-time record for monthly views. In September, The Journey recorded 408,759 views, our fifteenth consecutive month of record-breaking traffic. More than 90,000 people visited in a single day. It was incredible, and hard to believe, especially since I'd done nothing to trigger a viral event of that magnitude.

"Which is exactly why it happened," Amy said from her usual seat behind my left eyebrow. "Your strategy of doing nothing finally paid off. But pace yourself, Genome. Don't peak early."

"Fifteen months, Amy," I retorted. "That's hardly early."

"It is for you."

Now, I know your time is valuable, and your attention, like mine, has been diverted by the news that Apple TV is offering It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown free all weekend, October 17 and 18. We're not alone in our excitement. People lined up outside Starbucks before dawn to be the first on their block to own one of the new Snoopy cold cups, inspired by that same 1966 television classic. Somewhere, in some lonely javaporium, a barista has seen things.

As an aside, I'm not a fan of the horror motif that has dominated Halloween over the last decade. The official position of The Circular Journey is that the Peanuts franchise is Halloween's rightful monarch.

I say this as a man who receives a daily dose of dread from the princess. She's in the horror business, much like Stephen King. She can replay something I regret saying in 1994, or convince me that my front-left tire has critically low air pressure while I'm crossing the Cape Fear Bridge. She has turned my mind into a haunted house, which she prefers to call a "Fun House."

"Peanuts is the rightful monarch?" she asked when I finished the previous paragraph. "Fine, Bucko, but I'm Lucy. I hold the football, you try to kick it. That's our agreement."

But wait, I've jumped the rails again. I promised to get into the gist of this post without rambling. So, in that spirit, I'll quote Sean Carroll: "Let's go."

This morning, only minutes before I began writing this post, I was asleep in bed, wearing an expression that would have alerted a dream researcher that the Genome was deep inside a dream. Amy was off duty, which I mention only because she insists on clocking out at midnight and leaving me with whatever skeleton crew runs the subconscious. Then, in the interstitial space between sleep and waking, the Voice spoke to me.

"Reality is speculative," is what she said.

"Excuse me?" said Amy, who clearly wasn't clocked out as advertised. "Who is that? Is that a woman? Why is there someone in here who isn't me?"

"Go back to sleep, Amy. I've got this."

"I'll go back to sleep when you explain who's been moonlighting in my head. Hey! Show yourself, interloper. I'm in charge here."

Well, I ask you: what was I supposed to do with that? It's not as if I have a superpower or receive pronouncements like this every day. So I did the only thing I could think of. I wrote down what I remembered of the dream before it faded, while Amy muttered something about unionizing.

Here is the transcription of my handwritten notes:

October 17, 4:30 a.m.

Speculative reality: The word speculative means based on guesses, theories, or incomplete information rather than hard facts. Speculative fiction is a broad genre that departs from everyday realism. It asks, "What if?" by introducing supernatural, fantastical, or counterfactual elements into a narrative.

If reality is speculative, then our daily experiences are based on incomplete information and may be confusing, contradictory, or simply wrong. That certainly sums up my reality.

In the dream, I walked onto a baseball field from the far right-field corner. Even from that distance, I could clearly see a batter at the plate with a Louisville Slugger resting on his shoulder. He tossed a ball into the air and swung. The baseball arced high above the outfield and landed beyond the left-field fence.

I was awestruck because the field was at least twice the size of a regulation ballpark. The anomaly fit the idea of speculative reality, and the concept suddenly made sense: the oddball events I experience almost daily may be based on incomplete information. They seem wrong, or so improbable that they approach the impossible.

This dovetails nicely with the Voice's declaration. As for what it means in the larger sense, I'll be damned if I know. If you have any clues, leave a comment. I read them all.

Amy has asked me to make it perfectly clear that she is the only voice in my head. Anyone claiming otherwise is speculating based on incomplete information. Should the Voice return, Amy says she can take her place in line with everyone else and wait her turn for a Snoopy cup. She added that she'll be there holding the football.

A Tide In Affairs

I woke this morning to that old familiar feeling that I was about to explode. You're surely familiar with it. Your legs feel restless, eager to be up and moving. 

You feel that no matter what comes of it, you need to get out on the road and go somewhere; it doesn't matter where. Instead of caffeine, your thoughts turn to cruising down Ocean Highway with Whitney Houston singing I Will Always Love You. 

Lifetime Achievement Award

Beignet Lafayette

Do you remember... of course you do, we're not goldfish after all... that Dolly Parton wrote and first recorded that song? If you're also aware that Dolly Parton is the avatar of Shady Grove, my ancestral home, you might suspect that the old familiar feeling comes around like this only because the Ghost of Shady Grove wants to be remembered. 

The ghost I speak of isn't the spirit of someone long past. It is instead the spirit of all that was perfect in a small boy's life, now lost forever to the passage of time. The specter isn't to be feared unless an overwhelming homesickness and near-panic caused by thoughts of love lost forever are a concern. 

Facing the ghost requires a steeled resolve, if that's the term. And resolve, whether steeled, jellied, or crocheted, has recently been in short supply for the Genome. However, upon waking and remembering something Ms. Wonder once said, I decided to gather what little resolve I had and face the specter. The gag I mentioned goes something like this (I paraphrase, of course): 

There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. 

With the still-green memory of the first time I faced the ghost at the tender age of 5, I took the tide at the flood and, with a burst of resolve, threw back the duvet and sat up in bed to face the rainbow and claim the pot of gold. 

Oh, I'm sorry. I think I'm mixing metaphors, or whatever it is people do sometimes when facing difficulty. What I'm trying to say is that the spirit was indeed willing, but the flesh was weak. That one isn't one of Wonder's; I just heard it somewhere.

Sitting upright, as though ready to face the day, I wasn't surprised to find no pot of gold and no ghost. The anxiety I felt stemmed from the fact that Beignet, the unprecedented Cat of the Year winner for 7 years running, was not in bed next to me. I felt sorely incomplete and eager to be out on the open road, singing I Will Always Love You at full blast. 

Still, the small, quiet voice of reason reminded me of advice from my once-and-future martial arts master, Wen, the Eternally Surprised, who taught me that it's always wise to accept whatever life throws your way. 

"Don't make a drama of it," he said. "Make a musical comedy instead."

He never actually explained the methods one might use to turn a Hollywood drama into a Broadway musical, but I gathered it required sucking it up and getting on with it. Blogging is the only musical comedy I'm familiar with, and, as you know, I'm constantly looking for the bright spots in my days to share with you in The Circular Journey.

And so that brings us to the present moment, where I sit at Egret Cafe and Dance Bar, writing this post. I feel better now after crossing the Memorial Bridge and seeing Wilma's Downtown Business District spread along the Cape Fear River. Always inspiring and just a little exciting, with who knows what wonderful new opportunities waiting there?

By the time I motored into the Castle Street District, everything had been transformed. The birds that once seemed to be in an unending argument were singing as though spring were around the corner rather than fall, which, as we all know, is undoubtedly the case.

Though things came within a hair of falling apart this morning, the flame of fierce qigong never died, and I was able to extricate myself from the looney bin without a stain on my character. Almost no stain. Very little stain. No stains that won't come out in the wash.

What was the turning point? It's no secret. Music, blue skies, birdsong, and remembering what Beignet taught me about taking the tide at the flood. That's right. I first heard the phrase from Ms. Wonder's lips, but no matter who claims the copyright, Beignet always comes to mind when I think of it. So thanks, Ben. I needed that.

And so, my friends, there you have another little episode in the closing quarter of the 2026 season of The Circular Journey. The details of the episode, which my biographers will probably call Down the Waterspout at Midnight, may not be perfectly clear to you, only because they aren't clear to me. 

Memories play a larger role in my salvation than I mention on these pages. Sometimes memories are all we have to rely on, but that's all I'm going to say about it for now. I'll wrap up by saying that it's good to be home again. It is so true what they say: there's no place like it.

Roll the credits!

Still Crazy After all These Years

There are mornings when the universe aligns with such alarming clarity that a man knows, with the bone-deep certainty of someone who has given the matter far too much thought, exactly what he was put on this earth to do.

This very morning was one of those.

I entered Egret Cafe and Dance Bar with my earbuds in, singing along to a song I won't name because naming it invites commentary. The point is, I was enjoying it when my internal auditor’s voice, that’s Princess Amy, cut through the music with the surgical precision of a laser aimed directly at my dignity.

"People are staring," she said.

"Let them stare," I replied, with the serene detachment of a man at peace with his morning.

"Your earbuds aren't plugged in, Duffel Bag."

I looked down. She was right, of course. The cable jack was dangling freely, in a state of cheerful, absolute abandon from the device it was meant to serve.

"But I can still hear the song crystal clear," I offered.

"You can hear it because you know the lyrics by heart. That's your imagination you hear. What everyone else hears is you."

I processed this information, surveyed the pained expressions of nearby patrons, and decided the only dignified response was to pivot briskly and pretend nothing unusual had transpired. It’s a technique refined over a lifetime of practice.

"Never mind that," I said, plugging the jack in with the unhurried calm of someone who had nothing to be embarrassed about and who intended to rely on stout denial if anyone asked questions. 

"I have news. Significant news. I’ve found my 2026 initiative."

"You and your initiatives."

"Don't scoff."

"Fine," she said, using the tone reserved for holding a scoff in tactical reserve. "Where did you actually go, anyway?"

"The distinction is purely academic.”

“You went to Ocean Isle, didn’t you? You always go there when thirsting for a vision.”

The point is, I’m back, and I’ve found my purpose. Are you ready for this?"

"Probably not, but let’s have it."

I leaned forward, striking the pose of a man about to deliver a statement that demands physical gravitas.

"I’m going to become a bounty hunter."

A heavy silence followed.

"A bounty hunter," Amy repeated flatly.

"A bond enforcement agent, if you prefer the technical term. Though 'bounty hunter' has a certain sort of, oh, I don’t know—"

"I’ve warned you," she interrupted. “I’ve warned you so many times about that imagination of yours. I told you that one day it would carry you right over the edge, and now here we are, free-falling."

"I haven't come close to the edge of anything. I’ve done the research."

"You probably watched a movie."

"I read thirty-two novels," I said, drawing myself up. "The complete Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. Thirty-two, Amy. That’s  a substantial body of professional literature."

"Those are fiction."

"They are extensively researched fiction, written by someone who clearly knows the trade. And furthermore…" I raised a finger to signal my knockout point. "I’ve  nearly finished the entire run of Teenage Bounty Hunters."

"That's a television show," she said. “A series that lasted only one season."

"It deserved a second!” I said with considerable heat because I'm still extremely miffed that Netflix cancelled the show. “I’m certain the pandemic is the cause of its short run," I said. "The timing alone—"

"The timing had nothing to do with it, and you know it."

"The point," I pressed on, maintaining the momentum of a man fully committed to his vision, "is that if teenagers can do it, I can do it. That’s an entirely reasonable position."

"It is an absurd position."

"There's no licensing exam, Amy! No formal qualifications required. It is something a person can simply decide to be."

"And yet," Amy said, "even though there are no obstacles to becoming one, most people don't."

"Most people haven't read thirty-two books on the subject."

When she spoke again, her voice carried the quiet sympathy reserved for someone delivering bad news to the hopelessly optimistic.

"Genome," she said, "the Universe may well be leading you by the hand. I’m just suggesting you might want to ask where it's leading before you have to explain yourself to a judge."

I paused there to muse on her words because I was genuinely charmed by the whole exchange. This is what Amy does, and she does it magnificently: she engages every debate with the same fierce, loyal, completely unreasonable opposition, as though the quality of her resistance is itself a form of love. I've come to treasure it, even when I have absolutely no intention of changing course.

I sat with that for a moment, observing the morning rhythms of the coffee shop: the barista, the patrons who had just witnessed my live unplugged performance, and I pondered destiny, initiative, and the thirty-two paperbacks currently stuffed into my nightstand.

"That's a fair point," I admitted.

"It's the only point," she said. "But I appreciate you acknowledging it."

I inserted the earbuds and Dolly Parton’s "9 to 5" was playing. The song speaks volumes and, if I know anything about manifest destiny, it fully vindicates my strategy.

There are mornings when the universe aligns with perfect clarity, and there are afternoons when it plays reruns of Jack Parr's Tonight Show. I've decided to trust mornings. After all, a man who can sing an entire song with his earbuds unplugged has already proven he can perform without a net. 

My 2026 initiative needs no further research. Stephanie Plum managed just fine, and if she explained herself to a judge more than a few times. That's a detail best saved for volume thirty-three.

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!

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.

A production assistant, wearing an expression of professional efficiency and carrying an official-looking clipboard, said something into her headset. A camera operator turned. A second crew member pointed toward the equipment bag. Two other crew members approached the bag with body language that proved they were enjoying the diversion, but trying to look professional. 

"Is that…?“ said one of the team.

"Dook," said Reginald, confirming the team's suspicions. 

"RAT!" shouted the first production assistant, 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.”

Tracking RJ Decker

We had the production schedule. We had the address. We had eighty-five confirmed crew members, a police presence, and a City of Wilmington filming permit with our names practically engraved on it.

This was, as Amy describes it, the easiest assignment we’d ever been given.

Hold on to that sentence the way you hold on to a receipt for something you’re pretty sure you’ll have to return.

It started somewhere around Carolina Beach, which has apparently decided to renovate every road on Pleasure Island simultaneously.

Wynd Horse Has Opinions

Wynd Horse’s GPS did what any reasonable navigation system does when the world stops matching its internal map: It panicked quietly and started making decisions I can only describe as creative.

“Recalculating,” it said, with the tone of someone who had given up but was contractually obligated to report its status.

“That’s not comforting,” Amy said. “That’s the voice of a system in denial.”

Instead of delivering us to the quiet residential parking near the filming set for this episode of the R. J. Decker television series, Wynd Horse deposited us in a retail district on the edge of the Carolina Beach Boardwalk.

Traffic was thick enough to make one what to chew the rug.

Amy made the executive decision to park and walk rather than take our chances in traffic.

This was the same stretch of Boardwalk where we’d previously suffered the humiliation of the teenager and the ice-cream sprinkles. Returning to the scene of an old embarrassment on the way to a brand-new one felt less like bad luck and more like the universe reusing a set.

The Man with the Lighting Rig

Then hope appeared. Real, tangible hope, wearing a backpack.

A young man emerged ahead of us, pushing a sophisticated-looking lighting rig mounted on a rolling tripod. An equipment bag hung from his shoulder. He moved with the brisk, purposeful walk of someone who knew exactly where to find a film set.

“Eureka!” I said.

“Don’t say Eureka,” Amy replied. “You haven’t discovered anything. You’ve found a man pushing a lighting rig.”

“A man with a lighting rig who clearly works in production.”

“Fine. Follow the man. But I want it noted in the log that I have reservations.”

For a while, following the lighting rig felt like genuine detective work: the quiet, purposeful trailing of a suspect in a movie, except that in movies, the trail usually leads to what you’re looking for.

Ours led steadily away from the residential neighborhood where filming was supposed to be happening.

“He probably knows a shortcut,” I said.

“A shortcut to nowhere, like that swamp road we took after a local told us not to.”

“Amy, production people know all the back routes. This is probably faster.”

Amy didn’t respond, which, in Amy terms, is the verbal equivalent of crossing her arms and pouting.

The man led us behind shuttered beach shops and down a service alley that smelled faintly of low tide and bad oysters.

I want to be clear that at no point did I consider this a bad sign.

“This is clearly a route the production assistants use to avoid congestion,” I said. “Very savvy.”

“Or he’s cutting through here to buy a sandwich.”

“Production people don’t stop for sandwiches mid-shot, Amy. There’s a whole department for that. Craft services. I’ve read about it.”

The alley gave way to a gravel lot designed, apparently, for turning an ankle. The cart’s rollers began making a sound like a shopping cart with a personal grudge.

“He’s slowing down,” I said. “We must be really close now.”

“Or gravel is hard to push a cart through.”

“Both things can be true at the same time, Amy. That’s a very good sign, structurally.”

Nothing tracks

“We’re now four blocks past the last residential structure,” she said. “There’s a bait shop to our left. It’s closed. It’s been closed, I would guess, since before you were born.”

“Bait shops are exactly the kind of unglamorous local color a location scout loves. This tracks.”

“Nothing tracks. You’re tracking someone going somewhere but you don't know where.”

“I am tracking a man with a lighting rig, Amy. That’s the single most trackable thing a person can track.”

Fifteen minutes later, the man arrived at an equipment truck parked so far from both the filming location and the original traffic jam that it might as well have been in another county.

He loaded the lighting rig into the truck, latched the door, and walked away in a direction that had nothing to do with us.

“He wasn’t going to set,” Amy said. “He was leaving set. We followed a man in the exact opposite direction of the thing we were trying to find for fifteen minutes, with total confidence.”

“In my defense—”

“There is no defense. There is only geography, and you have failed it.”

The Great Debate

“There’s only one thing to do,” I said. “We backtrack to Wynd Horse and drive around the construction. We still have hours of filming left today.”

“Or,” Amy said, “we accept that this outing has been cursed since that lame excuse for a navigation system decided it knew better than the actual roads. I say we cut our losses and head back to Coastal Tacos.”

“That’s not the spirit of The Circular Journey.”

“The spirit of The Circular Journey,” Amy replied, “is that we set out for one destination and end up somewhere else entirely. I’m suggesting we lean into that theme a little early today.”

We compromised, in the loosest possible sense of the word, by asking strangers for directions.

This turned out to be its own special category of disaster.

Everybody Is an Expert

“Oh, they wrapped that weeks ago,” one confident stranger told us. “You can watch it already. It’s on NBC. No, wait—CBS. One of those.”

RJ Decker is an ABC production. Nothing about his information was correct, yet he delivered it with the certainty of a man reading from a teleprompter.

Someone else insisted the production was filming downtown, near the courthouse.

“It’s a crime drama, you know. The police are always going to the courthouse to see the judge.”

He was wrong, too, but I admired his confidence.

The Verdict

By the time we made it back to Wynd Horse, defeated, sunburned, and no closer to South Churchill Drive than we’d been an hour earlier, I felt compelled to put the disaster into words.

“Of all the messes, in all the set locations, in all the film productions we’ve covered,” I said, “this is the worst one we’ve gotten ourselves into.”

Amy didn’t pause a beat.

“You have a very short memory,” she said. “This doesn’t come close to the humiliation of you thinking that teenager on the boardwalk was a star in a Disney movie. He thought you were a cop.”

She wasn’t wrong.

She’s very rarely wrong, which is, as I’ve mentioned before, precisely the problem with Amy.

I’m reminding myself that there’s always tomorrow. So until next time, my friend—assuming Wynd Horse and I are still speaking—see you on set.