River City Connections — 2025-12-01 (Patreon)

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THIS IS IT by Cindi Curtis

I am waking up in Hays, Kansas, and I have so many thoughts in my head, I hardly know where to begin. I’ll start with nonsense!

This is the biggest bath towel I have ever seen. I had to look on Amazon—bath sheets are a thing. I thought I had big towels at home, but…

I am posting before I do my makeup. I finger-combed my hair. This is just me.

That’s how I feel so far from my home, so far from the mountains. I’m sitting here in a hotel room. Just me.

For a few minutes, I pretended I didn’t have work to do in the car today. I pretended that I had emerged here in this place alone, nothing else in the world but these walls. (And this enormous bath towel.)

I feel emotionally as fresh as a hot shower.

I haven’t been in a hotel since one time in College. Years ago, before my anxiety took over my life. Years ago when I was first beginning to slip into the safety of isolation. Years ago when hotel towels couldn’t double as parachutes.

This is a moment I wanted to record. Me, a fresh start to my day. Me, just me—no makeup, no facade.

And is it also a fresh start to my life?

I was scared most of yesterday afternoon. Anxiety was simmering, but no breakdowns.

Michael escorted me into my room, and it felt great. He asked if I was okay. I was, but…

“Would you sit for a while? Let me get in the bed and make sure I’m steady?”

“Of course,” he said.

I went to the bathroom, put on sweat pants and a t-shirt, and crawled in. He sat in the corner. We didn’t talk. I watched him watch me. Ten minutes that felt like ten years passed, and I said I was okay. He knelt by the bed and kissed my forehead—not our first kiss by a few days—then he left.

Fresh start on the day? Yes. Fresh me? I believe so.

See you in Tulsa.

The Storylines are the heart of Ailana Geven Imagines, and they are found in the Collections section of the site.

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All characters in this story are fictional characters, their images generated with AI for AGI Stories. They do not represent any real person, nor is their appearance based on any real human.

DIVING IN by Carter Ellis

Today, I made my dive into ClearStream. And, yes, I chose my wording deliberately. Communications majors do that!

Day one on the job began a little unexpectedly. Michael Allen called me on Saturday to say something had come up and he’d be driving on Monday, but that Jordan Warner would meet with me and get things set up.

Not complaining. Just gave me pause. I know things come up.

The biggest “if” for me and ClearStream is its decentralized work arrangement. That is to say… there’s no office. No physical location other than Michael’s condo on South Bluffs.

I’ll be working from home, which means from the bonus room over my parent’s garage (which was my playroom 20 years ago). Indeed, I moved back in with my parents.

I graduated from U of M Spring 2023, and moved into a dump apartment in Jackson, TN to do some copywriting work for a company that wrote product descriptions for catalogs and websites. It also did the wording on coupons and coupon books.

Keyword: did. They had a small steady client base that they sold off to a bigger company in the summer of 2025. Dad leveraged that hard.

“Carter, come home and start on your master’s. Now you have some experience, it’s time to go to the next level.”

I connected with Dr. White who—of course—agreed with Dad. He got me enrolled and pushed me into an experimental program where you start your master’s with an Internship—for me, ClearStream

So, I moved back home into the playroom. I can set it up as a really nice workspace and shove the bed into the corner, out of view for any Teams meetings.

Jordan met me for coffee with a stack of papers, a laptop full of client info, and a smile that… Well… skip that part. At least for now.

So, I’m aboard.

Now, we’re heading to South Main where ClearStream has a couple of clients in the art district that Jordan wants me to meet.

NEXT STOP, MEMPHIS by Cindi Curtis

Late lunch stop in Tulsa. We have a long haul before we get to Memphis—more precisely, Collierville, where Jordan lives. The ride has not been without challenges.

Travel on I-44 was… unpleasant, especially around Oklahoma City. Michael said not to worry—it was normal. As if being surrounded by over a quarter million pounds of rolling steel (four 18-wheelers!) is normal for anyone.

My Internet connection was okay. Spotty sometimes, but I managed some code revisions and documented a function library. I probably won’t get fired!

There were a few times the simmering anxiety reached a fast boil. Michael noticed.

“Want me to pull over for a little while?”

The idea of a new me seeing new things and new places prevailed. “I’ll be fine—just ignore my nonsense.”

He drove on for about thirty seconds. “I’m not going to ignore anything, by the way. I’m here. I hope to be here… full stop.”

Okay… I let those words cook on that boiling anxiety. “I hope to be here… full stop.” Did that mean without condition? Probably. But it could… could have meant without a time-limiting qualification! Like… was that a “be-with-you-forever” slip?

It was a good five 18-wheelers later that I said, voice quivering, “I hope you’ll be here, too. Full stop.”

He looked over and smiled.

Skip to now. I think we had a good lunch.

I was a little preoccupied with thoughts about forever and trying to decide how much braver I would have to be to ask him what he meant!

Next stop: Memphis. (Or more likely a few rest areas and gas stations, but you know what I meant!)

NOW IT BEGINS by Cindi Curtis

I was so focused on getting here, I hardly thought about what it would be like once I got here. The travel has ended. Now… something begins.

We left Colorado Springs Sunday after church. We left Hays, Oklahoma this morning. Now I’m in Collierville, Tennessee.

A few notes about the trip. Kansas is flat. You really can’t tell where Kansas ends and Oklahoma begins. Arkansas has some variety.

As far as rivers go—look, compared to the Mississippi, everything else is just a little trickle of water! The bridge is 1.8 miles long. The main span is 900 feet. I saw a barge going by that looked like a long, narrow parking lot for a shopping center.

Moving on.

Jordan was as wonderful as I imagined from FaceTime and World of Warcraft. Her roommate, Hayes, is lovely. They go well together. Hayes is the quiet, and Jordan is the storm!

And now, I’m here. Anxiety sort of got lost in the move-in process, but it’s back. Low simmer, let’s say. There’s this little prickly “you should be doing something different” notion swirling around, which I get a lot when I’m working—even when I know I’m doing the right thing in the right order at the right time.

Moving on.

Michael got me moved in, then said he’d come by after we’re done working tomorrow. Not Coletta’s—not yet. Saving that for Saturday! Tomorrow, we’re hitting one of Michael’s go-to places—Tops Bar-B-Q.

Jordan works from home, too, so she’ll be here with me. She’s already planning a long lunch! She’s sensitive to my anxiety, but she wants to—her words—drag me to a burger place called Huey’s. Michael insists it’s the best hamburger in the world.

So, yeah… here I am… and I’m doing stuff! Don’t tell my disorder about this. It’s going to start feeling left out.

Seriously, it’s not an “if” thing about the panic. It’s a “when.” But I’ll be okay, and Jordan and Michael say they have my back. So let’s do this!

Be your best you!

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