Weeknotes: June 8–13, 2026
I waited too long to start my run. It's 5:30, and the air is stifling as I head up Forest toward campus. On Lowell, a green Subaru beeps acknowledgment. It's Annie. Her birthday was yesterday. A mile later on Hamilton, two musicians, tenor sax and drums, play hard bop through an open window. East down Spring, and over the bridge past Huron Landing, I detour to avoid a family of geese on the sidewalk, their five goslings still in fuzzy adolescence.
The peppy chiptune announcement of an ice cream truck looms behind me. As the driver pulls abreast, he leans out his window and hollers "Whassuuuup!" I'm tempted to flag him down — maybe I could stick my head in his freezer. When I catch up with him at the intersection of Prospect and Cross, his speaker begins playing Beethoven's “Für Elise.”
Home is a relief. I sit at my table with a towel around my neck eating cold watermelon. Out the kitchen window, my 12-year-old neighbor feeds bread crusts to a mallard who has wandered into our driveway.
Weeknotes: June 1–6, 2026
Monday, June 1
Light rain falls on the crew resurfacing South Elm Street. Greg and I watch the procession of heavy machinery from the front window of the Oaks Eatery. Black coffee, Nueske's bacon, roast potatoes, two eggs over medium, and a pancake. I think the single pancake, as a toast alternative, adds a measure of pizzazz to the day ahead.
Last night we returned to Three Oaks to retrieve my favorite yellow scarf, accidentally left behind after the Jonathan Richman show in February. For three months, I mailed postcards addressed to My Yellow Scarf c/o the Tom Cat Tavern, offering reassurance and reminding it to behave: We'll talk about your drinking when you get back.
"Can we keep the postcards?" asked the bartender, handing me a paper bag labeled "Tim's Scarf ♡." I certainly don’t need them. We stayed for a couple pints, and I thanked them for putting up with my shenanigans. I considered intentionally leaving behind another article, but through better of it. In the evening we drove to Sawyer to hear Marisa Anderson play songs from her new album at Out There, a wine bar and concert venue built in a converted Shell service station.
Weeknotes: May 25–29, 2026
Monday, May 25
It's Memorial Day, the symbolic launch of American summertime. The weekend's cool rain is replaced by abundant sunshine. I take apart, then reassemble the contents of my shed, listening to the Grateful Dead and drinking strong coffee. It takes about three hours, but is so satisfying to have done.
Next, I butcher my first watermelon of the year and pack its red cubes into a Tupperware container for my neighbors' cookout. The house on the opposite side is also having a party, which spills onto my lawn. Everyone looks so happy, the neighborhood exhales vibrancy.
Across the street, a converted shuttle bus with two bikes strapped to its rear is parked. Its passenger entrance is wooden house door with a large 15-pane window, brass doorknob, and dead bolt. A band van or nomadic workers? I sit on a lawn chair in my neighbors' backyard, drinking beer and chatting with friends. Around, and sometimes between us, kids play football. At about eight o'clock I make my exit, citing a drained social battery.
Weeknotes: May 18–22, 2026
My attention has been focused elsewhere this week, and what writing I’ve done feels lackluster. I'm not going to force it. Please enjoy this Weeknotes anthology of bullet points, lists, and images.
Weeknotes: May 11–15, 2026
Monday, May 11
I lie down on the grass next to Islay, whose dark fur stores the sun's heat like a solar mat. Not for the first time, I try to memorize the feel of my dog's body, the shape of her head, her floppy ears, and gray muzzle. I hope I can give her a fun summer.
At the studio in Ann Arbor, Geoff and I mix tracks for my upcoming EP. One of them, a percussive instrumental synth piece, is giving me trouble. It needs one extra element, maybe not even an actual part, but some kind of sonic layer. Earlier in the day I tried some random tones from the little Casio CT-1, then a few hoots from a clay ocarina. I'm grasping. A field recording of the local university alert system comes closest. Its repeating chimed notes match the song's key, but the recording is too clean. It needs to be scuffed up somehow.
Weeknotes: May 4–8, 2026
Monday, May 4
Winter semester ends after my morning class. No homework for almost four months, a joy I never thought I'd relive at 49. I plant the morning glory seedlings along the back fence, then sit barefoot on the grass drinking a beer and reading Gavin Francis' Island Dreams.
All evening I play the bongos. I'm trying to match the random changes of an arpeggiated synth part I recorded nine years ago. I map it all out, edit together a take I like, then overdub three more on top of it. A storm cell passes and the lights flicker. Today I achieved all of the Four Rs: Run, Write, Read, Record. A banner day.
Weeknotes: April 27–May 2, 2026
Monday, April 27
The New Pornographers are playing El Club in Detroit. I last saw them in 2014 on the Brill Bruisers tour and I'm surprised how much better they sound tonight in a smaller venue with a retooled lineup. Dan Bejar is no longer with them, so I don't expect to hear any of his songs. As usual, the excellent Kathryn Calder handles Neko Case's parts on stage, along with all her own vocal contributions and the lion's share of the keyboard parts. Joining her is newcomer Jess Nolan who sings lead on a couple songs, plays additional keys, and melodica. The other new touring member is drummer Joshua Wells from Destroyer and Black Mountain.
I was a big fan of original drummer Kurt Dahle and missed the entire Joe Seiders era — probably for the best, given his disgraced exit. The New Pornographers are a rhythmic powerhouse with technically challenging parts, not just for the drums, but vocally and instrumentally. Wells is a perfect fit — a hard-hitter with a deep rock vocabulary and infectious energy that propels the whole band. Nolan, for her part, steals the show a couple times and compliments Calder's voice well. Carl Newman's songwriting is the backbone. Packed in a sweaty room a few feet from the stage, I feel the old magic as they rip through "Use It," "The Laws Have Changed," and "The Bleeding Heart Show."
Weeknotes: April 20–24, 2026
Monday, April 20
For the second year in a row, Kenyan runners Sharon Lokedi and John Korir win their divisions at the Boston Marathon. Korir sets a new course record at 2:01:52. I do the math; that's a 4:39 pace, four minutes faster than my best marathon effort. Astounding!
Since the Tigers are in Boston, they play the annual Patriots' Day morning game at Fenway, losing to the Red Sox, 6–8. I usually try to log a run of my own on Marathon Monday, but the best I can manage is a brisk evening walk. I put on my dad's old Air Force field jacket and ramble through town, up past the water tower, then loop back home through campus.
This jacket has hung in my parents' closet since my dad completed his military service in the early-'70s. I've seen old photos of him in it, but my strongest memories are of my brother wearing it during his teenage delinquent period.
I noticed it in the hall closet while visiting my parents on Saturday and asked if I could take it home. "As long as you respect it," was my dad's reply. A day later, I showed it to my brother. "Is that the coat I went to jail in?"
Weeknotes: April 13–17, 2026
Monday, April 13
An early spring balm has seeped into the room. My jeans, left overnight on the chair, have a clamminess I associate with deep summer. Outside the open window everything is busy living, expanding, rising. On Saturday, I raked the perimeter of the house, pruning the overgrown sage bush, clearing debris, and pulling up endless bunches of yard garlic. I even mowed the lawn, mostly to mulch the thousands of accumulated twigs.
After my A.M. class, I work at my desk, watching the mercury on my window thermometer climb to 80°. I can’t help but feel like I'm missing out on the season. April 13, and I'm already panicking like it's mid-August.
Back by the fence, I trim back the raspberry bushes and clear old pots from the abandoned garden. I never know what to do with this area. Last year it was a half-baked sculpture garden. I was given a sack of wildflower seeds for my birthday — maybe I’ll till the weedy soil and scatter them. The lilies of the valley are sending up their tiny spears and a single red tulip has bloomed, hidden behind a thorny barberry bush.
Around 8:30, a thunderstorm marches in. Not a lot of rain, but noisy and theatrical. Nick and I stand on our porches, barefoot, talking across the driveway.
Weeknotes: April 6–10, 2026
Monday, April 6
The purple house opposite mine is still for sale. Two mallards explore its front yard — please be my new neighbors, I think.
In the afternoon, Nick appears at my back door bearing the most miraculous gift. "Hello sir," he exclaims, then holds out a white Riva flute case. Inside it is a vintage Casio PT-1, a 13" wonder of monophonic 8-bit joy. Like many kids in the '80s, this was my first keyboard.
I replace its four AA batteries, locate the green demo button among its rainbow array, and press play. Listed in various Casio manuals as "German Folk Song" or sometimes "Unterlanders Heimweh," this jolly little melody is pure nostalgia. A post on the Casio forum traces it back to a German-inspired Japanese children's tune called "Yama No Ongakuka." To me, it simply sounds like Brighton, Michigan, 1985.
For the first time in almost two weeks, I run my regular route through the city and across the Spring Street bridge. A memorial has sprung up for the 13-year-old boy who drowned in the river below. The last time I was here, emergency vehicles were just arriving to search for him. Colorful bouquets are taped to the cold steel rail along with cards and messages. I pause to read some of them, then look out at a pair of mallards, wondering for a fleeting second if they are the same ones I saw this morning on my street.
Weeknotes: March 30–April 3, 2026
Monday, March 30
The young college DJ announces she'll close out her afternoon show with They Might Be Giants' "Birdhouse in Your Soul," an old favorite of mine. There's a period of dead air, followed by about ten seconds of the song's intro, then more dead air. An acoustic guitar track I don't recognize makes a couple false starts, then after another long gap Arcade Fire's "Sprawl II" begins to play. A change of heart, I think, but no — it too goes quiet. An additional seven or eight seconds of dead air (an eternity on radio), then finally, the marquee event: "I'm your only friend, I'm not your only friend, but I'm a little glowing friend…"
There was a time when I would have turned the dial, but I've been so smitten with WCBN lately. As AI becomes more intrusive and our trust in the authenticity of content erodes, I think we are instinctively attracted to what feels human. You can't fake inexperience. Hearing someone fumbling around learning the ropes on live radio gives me more pleasure than the edgeless infinity of algorithmic curation.
A few hours later I'm sitting on a lawn chair outside the back door, squinting at my laptop and enjoying the warm sunny afternoon. Islay stands next to the Mexican blanket I laid out for her, browsing a menu of sticks to eat. All of a sudden a wild turkey runs around the side of the house, sees her, and vaults itself noisily over the back fence. My dog is unphased, but a minute later she goes crazy barking at a guy walking by out front. I wave hello and he asks "did you just see a turkey?"
Weeknotes: March 23–27, 2026
Monday, March 23
I awaken from a dream about living in a wall tent dormitory with an unexplained desire to listen to Scott Walker. I put Scott 3 into the CD player and brew coffee to the discordant strings of "It's Raining Today."
In 1996, my brother and I were obsessed with Razor & Tie's Scott Walker anthology of the same name. I remember the two of us sitting in my car outside the Fisher Building in Detroit, grooving to "The Old Man's Back Again," before taking the elevator up to the studios of WJR-AM. We were musical guests on The Mitch Albom Show, an honor that involved being completely ignored by the two co-hosts and frantically self-editing about 20 seconds of live performance into the gaps after commercial breaks. We never met Mitch, who was broadcasting from the East Coast that day. After one of the breaks he made fun of my falsetto which I admittedly overused back then. I still think of this every time I see one of his books in a grocery store checkout lane.
All day I'm beset by abstract weariness. I yawn self-consciously through my morning class and subsequent errands. At the vet I pick up a prescription for Trazodone, hoping it might curtail Islay's destructive chewing. I suspect it’s just boredom, but I haven’t ruled out seperation anxiety. Bolstered by two naps, I work steadily all afternoon and through most of the evening, eyeing bedtime as my just reward. When I finally turn in, I revive a credo from a few years ago and say out loud "my favorite part of the day is right now."