Road Trip on Bougyman's Ramblings

Day One: Forty-Seven-Second Failure

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 19:23:55 -0500

Noon was the target,
2 p.m. the truth.
No appointment waiting,
no deadline keeping score…
so _late_ remained relative—
and two,
on a road trip,
still lives somewhere
in the general neighborhood of noon.
Finally packed,
finally ready,
one last question still unresolved:
How do you pack a Bubbles?
The only carrier Ava had
was the one he’d arrived in
when she rescued him five weeks earlier—
a cardboard Vet One box
with some holes in it.
It had served its purpose,
but
did
_not_,
in Baron Bubbles’s opinion,
reflect his current station.
Enough perseverance got him secured:
fifty-foot walk to Orcus,
one complaint filed
for each and every one of ’em…
one look at him,
one look at each other—
route revised.
The trip would begin
in the “Proper Cat Carrier” aisle
at PetSmart.
Carried our vocal passenger inside
with some haste,
and a lil’ help
from one happy-to-help associate.
Four models waited:
soft-sided,
hard-sided,
different doors,
zippers,
theories about what a cat might tolerate…
but no selection protocol was required.
Bubbles jumped into his choice,
settled the matter,
requested to be zipped up
so this operation could proceed.
“Yes, Sir.”
On the way out,
grabbed freeze-dried beef liver—
my never-fail
cat-or-dog-or-raccoon-or-whatever treats.
Treats secured,
Baron Bubbles finally riding
in an acceptable chariot…
_now_ we could depart.
First Leg Accepted:
get us
the _hell_
out of Dallas County. (ew)
Considered meandering around it,
but that would’ve added two hours—
even principles have limits.
Agreed to hold our noses and bear it.
Orcus agreed to maintain 85 mph-plus.
Dallas County countered with a crawl,
and teeth remained gritted
until the skyline disappeared
from the rear-view
and the blue skies
and green forests
of the East Texas Piney Woods
finally opened ahead of us.
Orcus was an enthusiastic partner.
Somewhere in there,
Bubbles opened one more ticket:
the facilities situation?
Oops.
Quickly fashioned a suitable loo
in the very back of Orcus,
added a scratching post,
and, while we were at it,
some pillows.
Orcus’s bed now a temporary throne room,
finally eastbound,
the first gas stop arrived.
We went inside,
leaving Bubba
(Ava’s nickname for Bubbles)
to fend for himself in Orcus.
Back first,
opened the door,
and cannot make this shit up:
Bubbles (Bubba?)
sitting in the driver’s seat
with both paws on the wheel.
Had Ava left the keys,
no doubt at all
he and Orcus would be
somewhere in Florida by now.
Under protest,
driver’s seat reclaimed,
Orcus pointed east again.
Leg Two remained mostly uneventful
until Rest Stop Number Three,
when Bubba’s cat harness and leash
finally got their trial.
It worked…
for forty-seven seconds.
At second forty-eight,
Bubbles resigned from domestication
and bolted up the nearest tree.
It took both of us
to corral His Lordship,
entreat him,
return him to Orcus.
Barely.
Naturally, we tried again
at another four or five rest stops,
Bubbles opening up more at each,
the real cat coming out:
more curious,
more adventurous,
more _himself_.
I never expected to have _fun_
with a cat on the road,
and don’t you _dare_
tell Bubba I said that.
After the next stop,
Ava took the wheel.
Everything after that is missing from the logs.
The system came back online
at 11:30 p.m.,
Candlewood Suites,
Pearl, Mississippi—
which is where Day One _should_ have ended.
… to be continued

Return Values

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 19:19:55 -0500

Today I left you
and Orca
in Atlanta,
then boarded a flight to DFW
with one bag,
one deeply suspicious itinerary,
and a plan the airline
refused to recognize as round-trip.
One passenger west.
Four return values east.
Even airport math
should’ve caught that.
Somewhere over Alabama,
the cabin lights dimmed,
the whole aircraft dropped
into sleep mode,
and a flight attendant
leaned into my dream.
“Sir,” she said, “your return type is invalid.”
I opened the manifest:
me
Ava
Orcus
Bubbles
Looks valid.
She tapped Orcus.
“Vehicle.”
Correct.
“Vehicles can’t be return values.”
Ma’am,
Orcus is a Purple Reign Gladiator
named like the underworld
opened a truck division.
He isn’t baggage.
He is the return statement.
She tapped Bubbles.
“Unclassified.”
Also correct.
Bubbles is
a rounding error with claws,
a tiny hostile takeover
wearing a kitten suit,
and the only known authority
whose hiss radius can cross state lines
without a permit.
Ava requires no explanation.
She is the only entry
on this manifest
with any reasonable chance
of knowing what’s going on.
The flight attendant studied the list,
then me,
then Bubbles…
who had appeared on the beverage cart
and placed one paw
on federal aviation regulations.
The regulations marked themselves optional.
DFW appeared below us
like a motherboard
that kept adding terminals
after running out of reasons.
Every runway led to another runway.
Every gate required a train.
Every train announced: STILL DFW.
When the wheels touched Texas,
the dream changed interfaces.
BAGGAGE CLAIM:
Ava: claimed.
Orcus: technically parked.
Bubbles: has rejected
the entire ownership model.
Me: looking for coffee.
Then I-20 unrolled beneath us
like a stack trace:
Fort Worth
Shreveport
Vicksburg
Birmingham
Atlanta
each city insisting
the bug started
one exit farther west.
Ava took the passenger seat.
I took the wheel.
Orcus took the assignment personally.
Bubbles took control without taking questions.
Texas tried to keep us.
It does that.
Bubbles hissed once.
Texas,
being Texas,
claimed the retreat
was its own idea.
At every state line,
the permissions escalated:
Louisiana: administrator.
Mississippi: superuser.
Alabama: somebody take the keyboard.
Georgia: root.
Meanwhile,
somewhere in the Atlanta process,
Orca sat straight up
for no reason she could explain.
In the dream, you looked at her.
She looked west.
The hiss field had shifted.
Nero detected
an inbound Purple Reign device,
ran one diagnostic,
CAT PAYLOAD: TRUE
and locked his doors.
Allegedly.
325 recalculated occupancy
and began checking
the load-bearing walls.
You were the only system
not panicking.
Which tracks.
And under all that noise,
one instruction stayed plain:
go west empty enough
to bring Ava home,
then point every available wheel
back toward you.
Even dreams know
which coordinate
doesn’t need validating.
By the time Atlanta loaded,
the return array contained:
Ava.
Orcus.
Bubbles.
Me.
And one revised chain of command.
STATUS:
Ava: home.
Orcus: parked.
Me: returned.
Bubbles: root.
Orca has requested a rollback.
Bubbles denied it.

Yes Ma’am

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 22:56:57 -0500

The Bank of America building
showed itself on the horizon
at 11:26p.m. this time,
which is a ridiculous hour
to ask a skyline
to become a finish line,
but there it was:
Atlanta, finally remembering to be visible.
Orca and I
had been making the day
the only way the day allowed:
one rest stop at a time.
Construction first.
Then traffic.
Then the kind of wreck
that turns a road into a parking lot
with better lane markings and worse manners.
Nearly five hours
handed over to delays,
which is a very official way
of saying:
so much for making good time.
But time had stopped being the point.
At some point,
the only honest goal was movement.
At some point,
movement itself
got promoted to victory.
Water for Orca.
Gas for Nero.
Messages for you.
Back on the road.
Again,
and again,
and again.
Throughout the day,
you kept giving updates from your side
while I traded back
little road stories from mine:
slowdowns,
stops,
small progress,
the dog’s opinions,
the map’s bad jokes.
You expected me
in the afternoon,
which was reasonable,
before the interstate chose violence.
So the thread kept checking:
“Are you there yet?”
And then,
reasonably later:
“Are you there yet?”
And then,
with the full authority
of someone who had been patient
long enough:
“Are you there yet?”
Nope,
not yet,
but closer.
Always closer,
even when the road
was being a dumbass
about proving it.
The funny thing is,
Irby’s wasn’t supposed
to feel like the end
of the whole trip.
Jackson was a stop.
DFW was a switch.
Vegas was a conference.
Atlanta was home.
But Irby’s—
Irby’s is where
the map turns back into us.
So when I finally
got back here,
when the car stopped,
when Orca and I
had actually made it
through the construction,
the wreck,
the slow crawl,
the hour getting later…
and later…
as if it had a point to make…
there was only one arrival that mattered.
Your message hit:
“Don’t ever leave me this long again.”
And I didn’t need
to be clever.
I didn’t need to explain the traffic,
the rest stops,
the wreck,
or the math of all those miles
being longer than they looked on the screen.
There was only one correct answer.
“Yes ma’am.”
That was the whole road
folding itself down small enough
to fit in two words.
Because I won’t.
Not like this.
Not this long.
Not with every rest stop
asking the same question.
Every delay dragging your name
farther across the day,
every mile proving again
that away from you
isn’t a direction I need to practice.
So: Yes.
Yes to the order.
Yes to the correction.
Yes to Atlanta finally showing up at 11:26.
Yes to Irby’s,
to Nero making it,
to the thread…
still warm when I got here.
And: “Yes, Ma’am,”
to not leaving you
this long again.

Halfway to Halfway

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 19:32:58 -0500

The conference ended
the way good conferences
are allowed to end:
full,
tired,
a little talked-out,
and still somehow
glad for one more table.
Aaron and I did Vegas
at a reasonable human scale,
eating,
watching Nine Fine Irishmen
do Nine Fine Irishmen things…
the kind of place
where the room seems convinced
the night can be solved
with enough dark wood and noise.
You know Aaron,
so you know that worked for us.
Or worked enough.
Then morning showed up
with absolutely no manners.
Up at 4 a.m.,
flight at 6,
Vegas still blinking
like it hadn’t been told
the night was over.
I got to DFW,
scooped Orca,
and we pointed ourselves toward Atlanta
with the kind of confidence
only a fresh tank,
a reunited dog,
and poor memory can provide.
Forty minutes later,
the road corrected us.
Two hours of slowdown,
because apparently
making good time
is one of those phrases
the universe considers a dare.
Fine.
We were only planning on Jackson today anyway.
The road didn’t need
to be conquered.
It only needed
to be handled
in pieces.
So we let it get smaller.
DFW to Jackson.
Then less than that.
Then this:
a rest stop,
somewhere along the line,
because Orca noticed
it was past dinner time
and made the executive decision
that whatever _I_ thought the schedule was…
the schedule had failed to consult management.
Hard to argue.
She’s eating.
I sit here—
with the road noise moving behind us,
not stopped, exactly…
just held for a minute
in the kind of nowhere
a trip sometimes gives you
so the day can catch up to the body.
Halfway to halfway.
Not home,
not Jackson,
not even that useful middle
of the whole damn thing.
Just the middle of the day’s smaller promise.
There are days when “enough”
has to become the official unit of measurement.
Enough sleep to make the flight.
Enough coffee to forgive 4 a.m.
Enough patience for the slowdown.
Enough road to say we moved.
Enough stopping
to keep Orca
from filing a formal complaint.
And enough thread running back to you
that even the rest stop
feels less like nowhere
than a place I can set down
one more proof:
we are on our way.
Slowly, maybe.
But on our way.
Sunday is waiting
with its own little flag
in the ground:
your half-birthday,
the World Cup final,
whatever fun the day decides
it can responsibly hold.
All roads point there first.
Then Monday,
still Monday,
still ours,
still doing that thing
where the whole map
pretends to be logistics…
when really it’s just practicing
how to bring me back within reach.
For now,
Orca’s eatin’,
Nero’s waitin’,
Jackson’s still out there
pretending to be tonight’s finish line,
and I’m here,
halfway to halfway,
learning again that coming home
isn’t one motion.
It’s a series
of smaller arrivals,
each one pointed
in the same direction:
toward Sunday,
toward Monday,
toward you.

The Hiss Radius

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 12:14:05 -0500

Since I _made it_,
I haven’t done much
in the way of sitting still.
Which means,
naturally,
I haven’t done much
in the way of rambling either.
The words kept having to wait
behind Ava,
dog parks,
muddy tires,
dinner plans,
a little time with Mom,
and Orca’s ongoing campaign
to make Fort Worth
understand her importance.
So here’s the catch-up—
Friday, Ava was fantastic,
as usual…
a usual I have to take care
not to take for granted.
Saturday,
Ava and I took Nero
to an off-road park
to get some mud on the tires.
Mission accomplished.
Spent the rest of the day
cleaning the adventure
back off again,
which is how you know
the fun was legitimate.
Sunday was the exhale:
brunch,
not much else.
After that:
a little Oscar’s patio,
tasty burgers,
Mario Kart with Ava,
the kind of easy evening
that doesn’t announce itself as precious
until it’s already gone.
Orca has been playing hard,
sleeping harder,
and accepting admiration
with the grace of a small mayor
who knows the votes are secure.
And then there’s Bubbles,
Ava’s kitten,
a boy (allegedly),
approximately the size
of a rumor.
The tiniest thing on earth,
somehow carrying
the only soul in Texas
with enough guts to stand up to Orca.
Orca is amazed,
humbled, even,
not beaten, exactly—
let’s not get dramatic—
but spiritually introduced
to the concept of consequences.
Bubbles has a hiss radius.
It’s small,
because Bubbles is small.
It’s absolute,
because Bubbles
has apparently made peace
with death.
So Orca tiptoes through Ava’s apartment,
giving the tiny beast his proper distance,
all careful paws and wide eyes…
as if the whole room
has become a very delicate treaty.
This is not a bad lesson
for a weekend
spent away from you.
Every living thing
has its radius.
Some are marked
by hissing,
some by quiet,
and some by the way
a thread goes a little thinner
after feelings get too loud.
And through all of it,
you were there—
not _here_,
but threaded through:
texts,
pictures,
songs shared…
like little handholds across the map.
Sometimes you sent it;
sometimes I did—
a sudden little flare-up
that kept finding us
in the middle of otherwise full days.
Sometimes it was
“I miss you,”
plain enough
to do the job.
Sometimes it came heavier:
“madly,”
“so much,”
“like crazy,”
the same small sentence changing gravity
depending on how hard the hour
had leaned on it.
Separate, but not.
That’s one of our faces,
the one that’s been
with us since the beginning.
Not the only one,
not the favorite one,
but a very real one.
A way of giving the distance
enough room
not to hiss,
while still staying close enough
to remember who we are…
when the room finally lets us
reach for each other again.
Orca’s learning this
from Bubbles.
I’m learning it
from us.

Made It!

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 21:28:50 -0500

Made it.
Orca and I reached the Jackson waypoint,
which is technically Pearl,
technically the luxurious Candlewood Suites,
_exactly_ the kind of place a road trip chooses
when the day has done enough.
We stopped a few times.
More than a few,
if Orca is asked
under oath.
Love’s offered a dog park,
and Orca considered it
with the full seriousness
of a woman evaluating real estate.
No.
Apparently,
that was not
a _real_ rest stop.
So we found one,
then another,
then another…
because standards matter,
and Orca is not here to pretend otherwise.
Somewhere along the way,
we sent you a video—
proof of life,
proof of dog,
proof that the road
had not yet eaten us.
Around five or six,
you apologized
for being MIA.
No need, truly.
I expected more distance.
Not because I wanted it,
but because I know
how hurt sometimes moves
through you:
quieter first,
farther back,
letting the feeling find its edges
before it comes close again.
So when you appeared,
I was just happy.
Probably too happy,
if the next few rest stops
are allowed to testify
about my texting habits.
Not too much,
I hope.
Just enough.
Enough to let the miles know
they did not get
all of me.
Enough to keep
a little thread
stretched between Atlanta,
Mississippi,
and wherever we weren't together.
Then we got here.
Before the room key,
before the luggage,
before either of us had fully agreed
to stop being in the car,
Orca popped up behind me,
tongue out,
eyes bright,
looking like the whole trip
had been arranged for this exact photo.
I had the Ray Bans on,
the backwards cap,
the tired-road face
of a man trying to look casual
about being very relieved.
She looked perfectly posable.
So I did
what any reasonable staff member
would do: I took the picture.
Sent it.
A few hours later,
the heart hit.
And that was the real arrival.
Not the room key,
the parking lot,
the little map dot…
Your little yes
crossing the dark after me.
That’s when _I_ felt it: made it.
All the way
to the first place
I could miss you from
and still feel found.