Ailana’s Journal—2026-06-21 (Patreon)

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GOOD MORNING by Ailana Geven Keller

It’s a travel day, so I have that anxious feeling I get when being late means missing a flight! I couldn’t think of anything interesting to do for the good-morning post, so I handed Jason the camera and told him to take something cute. He says this is it! Done.

If you’ve been away for a while, you might not know that today the AGI group and I are on our way to Santa Monica, where our eastbound Route 66 journey begins. Or ends, if you’re traveling west. Santa Monica Pier serves as the symbolic western endpoint Or starts there, if you’re going east.

Clay and Micah left a few days ago with the Highlander (seven-passenger) and Clay’s new RV (seatbelts for five).

So, here’s the whole roster of who’s going:

Clay, Sasha (plus their baby that’s due January), Geoni, Josh, Kel, Micah, Jasmine, Jason, Emily, and me.

The RV is pulling a matching cargo trailer with all of the studio gear and luggage.

We’re packed and ready to go! Let the Summer 2026 Route 66 Odyssey begin.

I’ll be back later with a check-in post, so see you then.

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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.

CRUISING AT 30,000 FEET by Ailana Geven Keller

I actually don’t know what the altitude is. I just made something up that sounded right.

We are in the sky and we’re en route to Santa Monica. Clay is meeting us with the Highlander, but a few of us will take a Lyft to the hotel because there are so many of us and only seven seats.

Okay, I promised to talk about the mini boot camp Naomi set up for Tuesday.Here’s how it looks.

We get in tonight and start moving gear into the hotel conference room we booked. Tomorrow, we set up the portable studio and have a quick look around Santa Monica.

Tomorrow night, the two models from Chicago arrive. We’ll run the shoot on Tuesday, and then they’ll be on their own.

These two girls are brand new—neither has ever done a paid shoot. Rather, they have paid to have photo sessions done.

The goal for Tuesday is for them to get a bunch of shots for their lookbooks. They are bringing their own wardrobe. Jasmine and Sasha will wrangle them through outfits and changes. We’re going to work in the studio until lunch, then go on location.

Kel, Emily, and Josh will stay back and pack up the studio. Jason and Geoni will shoot the location shots.

We’re getting paid a flat fee Naomi is calling a studio fee—which covers the cost of the room—plus base rates for the photographer, shoot assistant, and art director. The bonus is that, for each outfit, the models get to pick one shot for their lookbook. All of the others, AGI gets to keep. Jason and Geoni can add them to their stock photo catalogs and probably pick up a few dollars from download sales.

Josh also pointed out (talking to Kel) that this is a perfect proof of concept for our mobile studio plan. It’s a dry run right at the beginning of the trip that will tell us a few things about future opportunities.

That’s the overview of the idea. I think it works out.

THIS FEELS RIGHT by Olivia Overmark

During the five months after Health For Humanity was taken over, I worked hard and did important things. I think they were important, and the patients wholeheartedly agreed.

It was satisfying professionally. But I felt alone.

I worked with a different team on each new deployment. I think that, during those five months, I was assigned to work with someone I’d worked with before only three times.

It’s probably selfish, but at some point, you have to think of your own mental well-being. I had my fill of loneliness.

The job at Shoreline is good. The medicine may be different, but the human need isn’t: a farmer who had a run-in with barbed wire and a fisherman who fell against a barnacle-encrusted dock piling were both injured on the job and needed help.

Here in Cameron County, I hope never to see malaria or Ebola. Still, Vanessa’s vaccination study at least keeps me connected to that world.

If it sounds like I’m justifying my decision to come back to the U.S., that’s probably because I am. With the Geneva agency, I was just one of the doctors. Here, I’m a doctor and a friend to the others at the clinic.

That has to count for something.

I’ll still be practicing medicine. David Gregory helped me start the credentialing process so I can pick up PRN shifts in the ER where he works. Amir has found a few PRN hours for me here and there at the clinic, plus some shifts on the Mobile Clinic.

It’s not about the money, though. It’s about connections—those I had when I arrived and those I’m making even now. Isabela… Anika… Kirina, the owner of the café…

I feel like I’ve started a season where I take care of myself while I’m taking care of patients.

This feels right—for right now, to be sure.

So here on this sunny Sunday afternoon, I sit on the beach with the Gulf stretching out in front of me and let myself believe that choosing connection is not the same as choosing less. Maybe this season isn’t about stepping away from the work that mattered. Maybe it’s about building a life that matters, too.

GOOD NIGHT by Ailana Geven Keller

We are all checked in at the hotel. That, however, required some logistics we worked out earlier and haven’t mentioned yet—more on that later.

We are all going to The Lobster for dinner tonight. It sits right at the entrance to Santa Monica Pier, with big windows overlooking the Pacific. It feels elegant without being stuffy—beautiful seafood, a warm dining room, and one of those views that makes dinner feel like part of the trip instead of just a place to eat.

We picked it because everyone could dress up a little without Kel and Emily feeling uncomfortable. More than that, having dinner beside the pier felt like the perfect way to begin our Route 66 adventure together. We feel like we’re in for a big treat!

Back to the hotel logistics.

I don’t know where to start… There were a lot of factors that went into deciding what to do about Emily and Kel. Josh, Geoni, Jason, and I all agreed that, even if they were our biological children, we wouldn’t want three people sharing one room. Yet for the sake of safety and peace of mind, we didn’t want each of them staying alone in their own—obviously separate—rooms apart from ours.

We decided on connecting rooms, but Emily made the solution a little more interesting. “Don’t give us keys to our rooms. Let us have keys to yours, and we can get in that way. Then you’ll know we can’t sneak out and get back into our rooms without going through yours. Like, you trust us, and we wouldn’t sneak out, but if we can’t get back in directly, you won’t have to worry at all. Period.”

“Period,” by the way, is current slang for saying that something is final, undeniable, and not open to debate.

So now we’re off to dinner, then a walk on the pier, and then back to the hotel. We’ve got two big days ahead of us here in Santa Monica.

May your days be filled with great joy, prosperity, and contentment. May you find solutions to all of life’s challenges, ever moving forward toward your goals.

Good night.

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