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.

Captain's Log: The Felt-Tipped Crisis

Captains Log: Stardate 2026.117

As per Federation protocol, the FMS Coastal Voyager is maintaining station in the Melancholy Nebula, awaiting Mindfleet instructions.

The bridge of the Coastal Voyager was enjoying a rare moment of structural serenity—the kind of silence that usually precedes a hull breach or the sudden realization that one has forgotten a password, again.

Lieutenant Joy hummed a pleasant tune at her station. She called it Venus; it was roughly 90% Bananarama and 10% Shocking Blue, but it made her happy regardless.

“Captain,” she chirped, peering at her console, “there’s a soft, fabric cylinder on my desk. Did you see someone come by my station this morning?”

Captain Amy didn’t look up from her padd. “Is it ticking, Joy?” she asked, getting to the only part of Joy’s story that might have any interest to the captain of a Federation mindship.

“No,” Joy said, tilting her head and poking the thing in her hand. “But it’s labeled ‘DYNAMITE!,’ and it has a cute little white fuse on the end.”

She tapped it lightly against the edge of her desk.

The bridge lights instantly shifted to a frantic, nauseous amber. A klaxon began to wail with the persistence of a toddler hoping for a snack.

“Warning!” the cool, detached voice of Five of Five, the A-5 security system, echoed throughout the ship. “Explosive threat detected at Communications Station. Initiating Level 4 containment. Suggesting immediate evacuation of all non-essential hope.”

Chief Engineer Anxiety’s face burst onto the main viewer, looking like a man who had just seen the heat death of the universe and was already halfway through a personal apocalypse.

“Captain! The A-5 system is reporting a high-yield incendiary device on the bridge! Confidence generators are redlining! I cannae bypass the alarm; the logic is locked in a feedback loop of pure terror!”

Major Reason adjusted his spectacles, his surprised eyebrows making a credible attempt to escape his face.

“Captain, I'm scanning the object now. While the labeling is indeed alarming, the chemical composition appears to be… eighty percent polyester fiberfill and twenty percent high-potency Nepeta cataria.”

“Catnip?” Amy, eyes beginning to narrow, finally looked up from her PCD’s text messages.

The medical bay doors slid open, and Dr. Downer shuffled onto the bridge, carrying a stack of digital death certificates.

“Did someone say ‘explosion’?” he asked. “I’ve already pre-filled the ‘Cause of Death’ forms for the bridge crew. I decided on ‘Ambushed by Whimsy.’ It’s a depressing way to go, but statistically, we were overdue for a catastrophe.”

“Nobody is dying, Doctor,” Amy said, rising. She crossed the bridge, snatched the red cylinder from Joy’s hands, and held it up. “This isn’t an explosive. It’s a memory jogger. It belongs to the Ambassador.”

She sniffed it once.

“Yep. It reeks of the ‘scent of 2026.’”

Right on cue, the Ambassador strolled onto the bridge; that's me, Ambassador Genome, and if you'd have been there, you would have marveled that I radiated the kind of calm typically reserved for people who are not currently under explosive-threat alerts.

“Ah, good,” I said to no one in particular, “I see Cadet Reginald has completed his diplomatic mission. He was feeling guilty about stealing your sparkly boot laces, Joy. I suggested he bring you a sort of peace offering. It's jokingly called a dynamite stick; it was Uma Maya's favorite toy back on Earth.”

“Ambassador,” Amy said, her voice dropping into its court-martial register, “Five of Five is currently calculating our survival rate at zero percent because your ferret is distributing cat toys on my bridge.”

A moment passed before she continued, “We do not have cats. We will never have cats. This vessel is a feline-free zone by order of the Federation, the laws of physics, and my personal sanity.”

Lieutenant Joy hugged the toy to her chest. “But Captain, Reginald has such a sweet soul. My PCD translator says he wants more furry peers to assist with Jefferies tube operations.”

“PCD?” Chief Anxiety yelped from the screen. “Is that what we’re calling Personal Communication Devices now? I haven’t finished the manual for the long version! You people can’t simply abbreviate my anxiety while I'm in mid-crisis!”

Amy ignored him and stepped into my personal space because she knows it's something that immediately puts me on the defensive. 

“Nice try,” she said give me the laser eye. “But you should know this qualifies as cultural infiltration; it's a violation of Federation Directive Section F4, paragraph 2B. You’re trying to normalize cat culture on the Voyager. You want me to see a cat toy and think How charming instead of This is a violation of Federation protocols.”

I opened my mouth to deny any and all accusations. If I remember correctly, I was going to offer a Wodehousian defense involving the milk of human kindness, but Amy raised a hand.

“Here’s my deal,” she said. “You will cease this clandestine Operation Meow immediately, or I will assign you to a permanent post on 21st-century Earth, chasing film production crews in the Calabash Sector.”

I winced; Emotional pain, as I'm sure you know, is treated as physical pain in the Genome brain. “That seems… disproportionate, Captain.”

“However,” Amy continued, softening by about two percent, “I am prepared to offer a compromise. Each time we pass Moon City, you will receive a four-hour R&R window. You may visit the Federation animal shelters and conduct as much diplomatic feline outreach as you like.”

I felt my face light up. Why hadn't I thought of that earlier, I wondered. “Really? You’re willing to do that for me?”

“As long as you give up your obsession with having felines aboard the Coastal Voyager,” Amy said, turning back toward her chair. 

“But you will undergo a Level-5 decontamination scrub before re-boarding."

"Okay," I said. 

"If I find so much as a single stray whisker on your uniform, Five of Five has my authorization to classify you as a biological hazard, and you will be restricted from using the transporter for Sunday morning visits to Egret Cafe.”

Another moment passed, much like the first.

“Five of Five," she called in her commander's voice, "reset the alert level to zero. The ‘threat’ has been neutralized.”

Dr. Downer sighed a long, theatrical exhale. “Typical,” he mumbled. “Another morning saved by compromise. I don’t know why I bother to get out of bed.”

From the ventilation shaft above the science station, a small furry head appeared.

“Dook?” said Cadet Reginald.

I glanced up toward the ventilation grill. “Exactly,” I whispered, giving the ferret a discreet thumbs up. “Mission accomplished.”

Captain's Log Supplemental:

The FMS Coastal Voyager runs on reader goodwill and the occasional espresso. If you'd like to support the mission, swing by the ship's commissary via the sidebar link to view our T-shirts, no dilithium crystals required.

Happy Birthday, Mom! Va Apr 27

My mom’s birthday is April 27. I write this to honor that day—to acknowledge the gift of having her in my life, and to release the emotions that feel ready to spill over.

Others may never fully understand what I'm trying to say, and I'm not sure I can fully explain. I try, but the right words always seem just out of reach.

In the quiet darkness of night, I dream of you, struggle to express all that still lives within my heart. I’ve tried in so many ways, sometimes through fantasy, sometimes in ways that might sound like fiction. But it’s all real to me.

This is for you, wherever your spirit now resides. Nothing has felt the same since we were separated by that unseen veil. This is for the love we shared, and from everything I have left within me. I love you.

On the surface, my life appears complete. And in many ways, it is. But beneath it all, I still find myself mourning what time has taken, still singing quietly of memories that once colored my days.

Each night, before sleep finds me, I wonder if you might miss me, too. So I shape these thoughts. I weave them into something like a melody, something I hope can reach you. They are the words I wish I had said when I still had the chance.

All I can do now is hope that somehow, somewhere, you can hear the quiet music of my heart and know this:

I am endlessly grateful for everything I've become, because it all began with you.

Mindfleet Stardate 2026.112 The Podcast Wormhole

The bridge of the Coastal Voyager had been unusually quiet for approximately four minutes, a new personal record for the Ambassador. If Nature abhors a vacuum, the ambassador detests silence.

"Captain, I've had an enlightening discussion with Five of Five.” He said the words with the measured diplomacy of someone who knows he's about to lose an argument. 

“The AI unit’s deep dive analysis of crew morale may have merit. Introducing a feline presence aboard ship could offset the psychological turbulence generated by our new mustelid crew member. Cats are calming. Statistically speaking.”

Captain Amy didn't look up from her command console. “Ambassador."

“Captain?"

“No; don’t even think about it.”

"You haven't heard the full…“

"No cats." The words arrived with the finality of a photon torpedo. "Not on this ship. Not in this sector. Not in this lifetime or any adjacent one.”

Major Reason cleared his throat from the science station, which, as the crew had learned, meant he was about to be helpful in the most inconvenient way possible. 

"Captain, with respect, the A-5's recommendation is supported by a Purdue University study on the human-animal bond. The data indicate measurable reductions in cortisol levels and demonstrable boosts to immune function in the presence of domestic felines.”

"Major Reason," Amy said, her voice dropping to the register usually reserved for diplomatic incidents, "do not talk to me about human-animal bonds. The ambassador has no restraint whatsoever when it comes to cats. None. Zero. He once had six of them living with him. We’d be overrun before we cleared the Cape Fear sector.”

The Ambassador took a deep breath and opened his mouth.

"Don't," said Amy.

Lieutenant Joy, monitoring crew morale from the communications console, assumed her brightest face and swiveled in her chair to face the captain. 

“Captain, the reason Five of Five raised the idea is rather interesting, actually. Our adaptive intelligence has been listening to a podcast on the subject. A very compelling one, apparently. Let me see; yes, here it is: Happy Cats Wellness, it's called.”

Major Reason's eyebrow arched with Vulcan precision. "Podcasts, Lieutenant? Surely you're mistaken. That medium hasn't been active since 21st-century Earth.”

"Those are the ones," Joy confirmed cheerfully.

A brief silence fell over the bridge as that information settled like space debris through an atmosphere.

Chief Engineer Anxiety, who had been stress-monitoring the ship's confidence generators from his station, spun around with the expression of a man who has just spotted a hull breach. "How is that possible, Lieutenant Joy? Subspace reception is unreliable at distances over two centuries. The signal degradation alone would be… Wait!” He lowered his voice. "Unless the A-5 has found a wormhole.”

"Or opened one," said Major Reason, with the quiet gravity of someone dropping a matter/antimatter device onto a conference table. He turned slowly toward the ventilation shaft where, somewhere in the Jefferies Tubes, Cadet Reginald was presumably reorganizing Comm Officer Joy’s sparkly boot laces. 

"Could it be," Reason continued, "that our new mustelid crew member is not merely a stowaway? Could he be an anomalous lifeform? Perhaps planted here by the Romulans?”

"I want to be very clear," said Amy, raising one hand, "that I am not having this conversation." She stood. "All hands, listen up. This discussion ends now. There will be no further mention of wormholes, subspace continuums, or felines on this bridge.” 

“Ambassador,” she said, “my ready room. Now.”

The Ambassador rose with the dignity of a man who has been summoned to the principal's office many times and has made peace with it.

After the ready room doors closed with a decisive whoosh, Joy looked around at the remaining crew. "What do you suppose that was about?”

Reason, looking intently at the data scrolling down his screen, said, "It would appear the Captain and the Ambassador share a history that predates our current mission parameters. I've noted several glitches in the system’s overrides aboard this vessel that seem to reference the 21st century directly. As though the ship itself has memories.”

Joy considered this. “Hm."

Reason nodded. “Indeed."

Chief Anxiety stared at the ventilation panel as if something there had sparked his curiosity. "You can say that again.”

The moment hung there, ripe and unresolved — right up until the medical bay doors slid open and Dr. Downer materialized on the bridge like a man who had been waiting for exactly this cue.

"Did someone mention a wormhole?" he said. "Because I wasn't consulted. Do you have any idea what an uncharted temporal aperture could do to crew morale? To structural integrity? To me? 

We may have opened a portal to a dimension populated entirely by worst-case scenarios, and I want it on record that I flagged this risk.”

Joy patted her console soothingly. "No danger, Doctor. No wormhole. You can go back to rest.”

"I wasn't resting," Downer said, with the mild offense of a man accused of something perfectly reasonable. "I was listening to a podcast. The Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend podcast, if you must know. Very illuminating. He also appears to need a friend.”

The bridge crew turned as one.

“Podcast?" they said in unison.

From somewhere inside the ventilation shaft above the science station came a single, muffled: “Dook?"