Ailana’s Journal—2026-05-27 (Patreon)

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GOOD MORNING by David Gregory

There’s a lull here in the ER. That means I can make a cup of coffee, but probably won’t be able to drink it. No traumas at the moment, though, so I thought I’d check in.

My whole world changed over the Christmas holidays. I was working in NYC for the CDC, and it was a good job. I did a lot of data crunching, read a lot of field reports, and sometimes had to do a little field work.

Then I signed up for a conference. Then I looked at the presenters’ panel and saw a name.

For months, I’d been seeing reports come in from the field sent by Dr. Vanessa Lenen, who holds PhDs in microbiology and immunology. She’d add little irrelevant comments to the reports in the “Other Notes” box.

“Though the vaccination was administered successfully and according to protocol, the burly woodcutter cried like a baby. Will follow up with lollipop as needed.”

A guy in the office kept a list. I kept a smile on my face.

I managed to meet her and convince her I wasn’t crazy, at least well enough to let me buy her dinner. From there, my life changed.

I’d say love at first sight. Let’s go with that…

She arranged to stay in NYC long enough for us to find a job here in Cameron County, Texas.

She is the best thing that’s happened to me, as far back as I can recall. I’d drive a school bus to be able to live near her.

Following her here is the second-best thing. Getting out of the office and back in an ER has been so invigorating that I can’t remember what I liked about CDC.

I believe I’m pretty lucky, and I’m definitely looking forward to the months to come.

Also, I’m second-guessing the bus-driver claim, but I would have found something.

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IT’S NOT A BEAN by Kel Hale

Officially, we’re standing in front of Cloud Gate in Millennium Park. I always call it the Chicago Bean.

Forget the famous artwork. My brain is wrecked.

Last week, I got to go to South Padre Island with Josh and Geoni. If you missed it, we’re in the waiting period for them to adopt me.

Geoni has no living family, but Josh has family in Chicago, and of course they wanted to meet me. Josh, Geoni and me messed around on Memorial Day—it was fun. They wanted me to meet the Ryan family, so I said I could miss youth group, no biggie.

“No,” Josh said. “We’ll come back on Wednesday.”

Like who flies to Chicago for one night? Apparently we do.

Josh and Geoni have a house in the Gold Coast. The condo in SPI is awesome. The Gold Coast house is a mansion. But compared to his parents’ house, it’s a cottage.

The chauffeur picking us up at the airport should’ve been a tip-off. Gray, extra-long Lincoln Continental. The driver has been with the family a long time and Josh talked to him like he was his uncle. He was cool!

We only stayed at the Gold Coast house—which Josh and Geoni told me to call “our house”—for a little while before we went to his parents’ house in Winnetka. Like, they live in the same neighborhood as people who name hospital wings and own international hotel chains.

I was really scared pulling up, but really, they were, low-key, just regular people. I came out of there thinking that Josh’s parents don’t live rich like celebrities. They live rich like the people celebrities try to impress.

Back in “our” house, Josh showed me the bedrooms that weren’t his and Geoni’s. “Take your pick. It can be yours from now on, or you can pick differently whenever we come up.”

I took the one by the elevator. Right?

Now, at the Bean, when Geoni went to the ladies’ room, Josh pulled off a mic drop. “Kel, you see how things are… but listen. Money won’t make you happy. It can make things easier. Give you options. More ways to be happy. More ways to be sad. Do you understand that?”

I thought for a second and nodded. “Actually, I believe I do.”

BEHIND ON BOOK WORK by Jasmine Banks

Let me start like Ailana might start by asking why “hit the books” is still an expression. I haven’t seen a real book since I started school again after we got back from St. Croix!

For those of you who are new to The Journal, last Christmas, all of us went to St. Croix, and while we were there, Clay said he’d like to scholarship me back into nursing school to work on my RN. I enrolled in an online program at Indiana State University.

I enrolled in an online program at Indiana State University. He found an online program at Dallas College. We talked about it, and we both enrolled. It’s an Associate of Arts with a field of study in business administration. We’re in what they call the transfer track, so when we’re done, all the credits will transfer to a Texas four-year program.

Well, I’ve been busy! Even with go-at-your-own-pace, there has to be some go for there to be any pace.

I’m transitioning between classes, taking exams, and writing papers. I’ll add that Micah is way more organized about all this than I am. I should have guessed—one look in his toolbox and it’s obvious!

If I look back to eleventh grade, when we met, I think maybe it was how together he was that first attracted me to him. I was about to age out of foster care. He had just graduated and was working as a mechanic.

We were volunteering at Good Neighbor Settlement House—I was just serving lunch, and he was working on their van. We clicked right off and started dating.

His steadiness was like a bridge piling. You can watch cars on the causeway zipping across, but the pilings just stand there, steady, solid, dependable. Micah is like that for me.

Okay, I’m tearing up, and it’s not because of my exams! Thanks for letting me check in.

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GOOD NIGHT by Ailana Geven Keller

Well, here we are. New life forthcoming. Guess that’s all for now…

Just kidding! I MISSED you all.

Let me just say that I’m predicting this post will run long. I have some catching up to do!

I’ll start with the high points and save the little details for the end.

The honeymoon was exactly what we needed. We shoved off on Saturday after the wedding (as you do) and cruised. We weren’t going anywhere, but we had some anchorages picked out along the way.

Flying High was the perfect boat for us. Big enough to be safe in the Gulf. Small enough that the two of us could handle it.

Reaching the first waypoint, we dropped the anchor and took that long, slow, this-is-it deep breath that I imagine everyone does on their wedding night. We’d talked about expectations and details for weeks, so we just relaxed.

There was only one bobble on the trip. One of the bilge pumps stopped working. There might have been a little water falling from the sky at times… or a lot… One broken bilge pump wouldn’t sink the boat, but we really didn’t have a schedule, so we took a look.

I’ll spare you the nautical engineering details, but there are switches, sensors, power, and the pump itself. Jason reasoned out a workaround. We had to manually start and stop the pump, but no big deal… Moving on.

We might have eaten too much… Moving on.

Besides the obvious things you do running a 40-foot yacht (38-something honestly… IIRC), we talked a lot. We talked about our life together. We talked about how it would feel with me living here in his condo.

Hold that thought: The view here on the ground floor is lame! Seriously? I didn’t notice that until now!

We talked a long time about how we wanted our future to look. In summary: savor every moment and keep it simple.

We also talked about things we’d like to do here in The Journal—essentially, we want richer stories with deeper meaning. That means more than just showing what happened. It means sharing how it felt and why it mattered.

The rest of this chapter is exclusive to Patreon.

Let me first elaborate on the idea of our lives together.

When I began waking up on Sunday morning, I rolled over and spooned Jason. We quietly shared those almost-awake minutes until we knew we had to get up and get going.

Nothing profound happened until a little while later as I was brushing my teeth. I looked up at the version of me in the mirror—crowded into the yacht’s tiny bathroom, messy hair, toothpaste on my lip.

I paused and just looked. It dawned on me at that moment that “Growing Up Ailana” was over at last. After twenty-nine years, it was time to start writing “Living As Ailana.”

Perhaps better, “Living As Ailana Keller.”

And the Keller part makes a huge difference.

Jason and I want to revisit these past fifteen months, but now as husband and wife. No, not visiting the same places, but traveling together to different places and in a different way. Not simply doing the volunteer work, but sharing it as husband and wife.

We had a great year getting to this point. Now we think it will be better!

How about a metaphor?

I’m sure you sometimes get bad shopping carts at the store. Sometimes you get one that rolls straight but has one little imperfection in one of the wheels. You push it along, and it’s satisfactory, but there’s a little clag-clank, clag-clank with each turn of the wheel.

It’s not unbearable, but something is missing.

By the time I had rinsed the toothpaste from my mouth, I realized, in my life, nothing was missing.

Jason and I talked about it. I cried. He held me. He cried. We laughed.

We are set to go forward—slowly in some ways, but with that pace that is the norm for the “routine chaos” that is the earmark of Ailana’s Journal. We want to relish our days with each other while we share them with those around us.

And that brings me to the next thought—Ailana’s Journal.

In my absence, there have been more than enough stories to fill the available hours it takes to create them. I am more and more aware that the people around me are as much a part of my story as anything else.

We’ve lived here over a year, and made a lot of friends. I want to spend more time with them and I want to share that with you.

I also want to make room for their stories to come more clearly into the light of The Journal. We’ve watched so many things happen over the year, and there are a lot of exciting things going on.

Perhaps tomorrow I’ll spin through an overview?

Going forward, after I start the day with a good-morning post, I want to back off from the rigid routine of appearing midday and in the evening.

Two things lead me to that.

First of all, my midday posts are usually me working and trying to find some interesting way to say, “Look, I’m typing!” My goodnight posts are often a variation of my morning posts—me in the kitchen or bedroom wearing a bathrobe or wrapped in a towel.

I want the flexibility to post early, then maybe have a late afternoon post followed by another, giving the goodnight post to someone else. Or perhaps I have the good-morning post followed by an early-evening post and a final goodnight post.

The point is, I want the freedom to be more flexible about when I show up in The Journal. However, on most days, I do plan to start with a good-morning post.

The second thing calling for a change in the routine is that I want to see more from everyone else. There are great people around me now, and their lives deserve to be seen.

I cried when Kaylee shared the goodnight post about watching Isaac and Hudson. (No, that didn’t change Jason’s and my plan to at least wait a year!) I laughed at Min and Elias sharing a hot dog! And seeing Kel move into the Ryan family has been amazing.

Most days, The Journal can manage four chapters. Some days, five. Usually, three of them have been about me, and I imagine that will continue.

But, sometimes, I’m just sitting in my condo! I don’t think anyone would mind checking in with Kirina or Min from time to time if they’re doing something more interesting.

I’ve always tried to make it clear that a lot happens around me that doesn’t get reported. No change there! But I think it will be interesting to see a few more updates from all of the people I’m sharing life with, now.

So, to reduce this idea to numbers… If there are 30 chapters in a week, then in the past, 21 of them would have been me. Maybe, going forward, there are 32 chapters, and 18 of them are me? That’s not a plan—it’s a for-instance.

Let me close this very long discussion out with an invitation.

If you are still reading, then you are among those whose opinions I treasure. Leave a comment or message me with who you are most interested in learning about.

And always, feel free to say, “Nice post—um—I was wondering about Dan Mercer. Can we get another chapter about him?”

Psst… Watch for AGI to make a post asking for the same thing.

So… with that I’ll close.

Thank you for following me this far. Let’s say that as of now, Ailana’s Journal, Season Three officially begins!

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