Ailana’s Journal—2026-08-24 (and Island Kids) (Patreon)

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GOOD MORNING by Izzy Duffy

Good morning. If it looks like I’m in Ailana’s old condo, I am. Kent took the third floor and the stairs. I took the ground level. Thanks for letting me into your morning.

As a mental health professional, keeping work and friendship separate is always on my mind. Sometimes, it feels like they blend.

I’m helping keep an eye on Emily while Ailana is out of town. Frankly, it’s easy and fun.

She came in after dinner last night and knocked. “I’m home.”

She had spent the day cleaning rentals with Kaylee and Jenna.

“How did it go?” I opened the door and let her come in.

“Pretty routine…” She told me a few things about her day, then told me about Ailana’s chapter yesterday morning about her recurring dream.

“Do you think it’s bad that I’ve forgotten about the things I didn’t have growing up?”

My professional instincts kicked in. “There’s a lot to unpack there.”

“What do you mean?”

“To start with, the meaning of ‘bad.’ But probably more importantly, you’re mentioning things you say you’ve forgotten.”

She sank back into this very sofa. “Well, now… That seems like a contradiction.”

We talked about that for a while, and she reframed her idea. “So, I’m just ignoring the fact that I missed out. Like, I know I didn’t have birthday parties or visits from the tooth fairy, but I just don’t care.”

“Something like that,” I said. “Emily, I guess I want to say this… Right now, you’re living in what you have and what you want, and that’s awesome. But don’t be surprised if someday—like when you’re making your baby a first-birthday cake—it comes back up as something you missed out on.”

“Baby!” Emily pretended to be shocked. “Really?”

“Life,” I said, “comes in cycles. You’ll see yourself in your children, and when you give them what you didn’t have, don’t be surprised if unexpected feelings come up.”

“Maybe I get it already. Like, I want Aria to always feel safe and like she belongs. I didn’t have that until I came here.”

“That’s exactly what I was talking about.”

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CHINATOWN by Ailana Geven Keller

Greetings from San Francisco! Today’s chapter features one of the city’s most famous neighborhoods—Chinatown.

Walking these streets, it’s easy to focus on the color, architecture, shops, food, and cable cars. But Chinatown opens a much bigger story: you really can’t tell the history of California without telling the history of Chinese immigrants.

Large numbers came during the Gold Rush, and thousands later worked on the Central Pacific portion of the transcontinental railroad. Chinese labor also helped build levees, farms, factories, businesses, restaurants, laundries, and communities across the West. Their work became part of California’s physical and economic growth.

But there’s a hard contradiction in that history. America benefited from Chinese labor while often treating Chinese people as if they didn’t belong. Anti-Chinese discrimination and violence spread in the West, and in 1882 the federal government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring Chinese laborers from immigrating and locking many Chinese immigrants out of citizenship. Federal exclusion was finally repealed in 1943.

San Francisco’s Chinatown became more than a tourist destination. It was a place where Chinese Americans built businesses, institutions, families, and support networks in a country that often excluded them elsewhere. After the 1906 earthquake destroyed much of Chinatown, city officials even tried to relocate the Chinese community away from its valuable downtown land. The community returned and rebuilt.

That may be what I remember most from walking here today. Chinese immigrants weren’t standing on the sidelines while California was being built. They were helping build it—even while being told they weren’t fully welcome.

History is bigger than the names that make the textbooks. Sometimes the people asked to prove they belonged were already helping create the country they were being asked to prove themselves to.

We’re going to keep exploring—and, yes, finding lunch. More San Francisco soon.

GOOD NIGHT by Ailana Geven Keller

Chinatown was great. We spent part of the day walking in one of San Francisco’s most famous neighborhoods, and I’m very glad we did.

Now I’m back at the hotel and indulging in something much less historic—a shower before bed.

I know that’s a luxury not everyone in the world can simply turn on whenever they want. Clean water, indoor plumbing, hot water on demand... those things are easy to stop noticing when they’re part of everyday life. But after a full day of walking around the city, a bedtime shower feels especially wonderful.

And fortunately, San Francisco is not dealing with an immediate drinking-water shortage. About 85 percent of the water supplied by the SFPUC comes from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in the Sierra Nevada, much of it originating as mountain snowmelt. The regional system also includes reservoirs in Alameda and San Mateo counties, giving San Francisco a strong and carefully managed water supply.

That doesn’t mean San Francisco has no water problems. One of its bigger challenges is what happens when water falls from the sky instead.

About 90 percent of the city uses a combined sewer system, meaning rainwater and household wastewater travel through the same network of pipes. Most storms are handled and the water gets treated, but intense storms can strain the system. With so much pavement and other hard surfaces, rain has fewer places to soak naturally into the ground. The result can be clogged drains, localized flooding and, during extreme storms, partially treated discharges into the Bay or ocean.

So the city surrounded by water has a pretty interesting water story: getting clean water to the tap is one challenge; dealing with too much water at once is another.

Tomorrow is our last day in San Francisco. We fly out around midday, and later I should be back home on South Padre Island.

For tonight, though... a hot shower, then bed. Good night, everyone.

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