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?"