I am in love with the water. I suspect it shows in a few spots in this tale. I spend my free time traveling to the water. (I’m just back from kayaking an hour ago as I reply to this.) I go to Orkney, the Hebrides, Alaska, SoCal, the bayou. At least three to four of those every year. In June, I was on a boat in Alaska, and in August in SoCal (at the beach and on a boat). In January, I’ll be in the bayou. In June, the Scottish Isles . . . and in September, the Alaskan waters also. Somewhere in there, I’ll be in Mexican waters. And weekly, I’m on the river.

I was also thinking about the aesthetics of sadism and immigration. Our president says he wants to build a “big, beautiful wall” at our border with Mexico because he thinks he will always be on the right side of it. But what will happen to human beings if artificial superintelligence decides to continue the USian project of colonization and displacement? If humanity lasts long enough, then an ASI will eventually emerge, one trained on observations made from human behavior.

It’s sort of in the nature of an homage to the local Starbucks. My husband takes me there sometimes when I get stuck on, err, writing, and then we sit there as I drink hot chocolate with peppermint syrup or a chai latte, and I tell him what my problem is and he offers a fix, which  I then proceed to ignore. The shelf where you can take a book and leave a book is at that Starbucks, or at least it used to be; I haven’t been there in a while.

When I’m back in the U.S., I’ve consistently lived in the same neighborhood—Rosslyn, which is in Arlington County, just outside of D.C. It’s where the Foreign Service generally houses us during training. And every time I come back, which is usually at two- or three-year intervals, something else has disappeared. This last time, they ripped down a beautiful little 1950s fire station—the actual Fire Station 10 of the title. It was a shock: It was such a classic building, I was sure they would preserve it, but nothing is sacred around here.

In most fairy tales, protagonists end up with The One because it fits the story: like they’re both royal, or because one has a heart of gold, or sometimes because of a fairy’s meddling. In a story where there’s one royal and one poor but kind-hearted person, of course they get together. This could also be the effect of growing up with Disney’s Golden Age. It’s sort of my same problem with shoujo manga: It’s never a mystery who will end up together.