Weeknotes: January 19–23, 2026
Monday, January 19
I dream intensely, though when I wake, I can't remember any details. While the dark recedes, I stand with my coffee at the window, watching a snow squall whip down the street. Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day — no work or school, though I end up devoting time to both.
In the afternoon, I drive into town to buy ink cartridges for my printer. Arctic winds shoulder my little car as I try to stay in my lane amid the blowing snow. Minutes later, sunlight pierces my dirty windshield — it's a day of extremes.
Weeknotes: January 12–16, 2026
Monday, January 12
Winter semester starts bright and clear. On WCBN, the DJ is playing a block of Bowie tunes — "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)," "Look Back in Anger," "Heroes." Great Lakes Myth Society recorded a cover of "Look Back in Anger" many years ago with our friend Stirling, but it was never released. It was produced by Mike E. Clark of Insane Clown Posse fame.
I feel anxious about so many things lately, but today I'm nervous about the amount of work I'm taking on. Career, school, gigs, recording projects, this blog. I've been able to maintain it all well enough over the past two years, but the classes are getting more advanced and I'm not good at removing tasks from my life. I only ever seem to add more. There's a lot of winter left — I have to make sure it's not a joyless slog.
I pull into a parking spot behind a silver sedan whose license plate frame reads "I'm Speeding Because I Have to Poop."
Weeknotes: January 5–9, 2026
Monday, January 5
Driving west on Cross Street, there is a police barricade just past the Domino's Pizza. Typical Ypsi drama, I think, and detour around it. At the vacuum cleaner store I present two of my kitchen knives for sharpening. Why is that a combo — vacuums and knives? The woman in front of me is having a new motor installed in her KitchenAid mixer. I guess they do a little bit of everything.
I need to drum up a some cash for next week, so I spend the next hour Door Dashing. At La Marqueza Taqueria, Jodi B's order isn't ready yet, so I wait on a stool and listen to a young AT&T salesman make an awkward business pitch to the cashier. I get the sense that everyone in the room — even the salesman — is just waiting for it to be over. Despite the lateness of her order, I get a small tip from Jodi.
At home, I pull out the red plastic milk crate that holds all my percussion toys. I lay down shaker, maraca, tambourine, and vibraslap parts, but when I listen back, I realize I've accidentally left the monitors on — there's a ton of bleed and I have to track them all again. Meanwhile, my phone is blowing up. Behind that police barricade on Cross, a man with a sword is holed up inside his house after a neighborly dispute. When officers first arrived at the scene, he brandished his weapon at them. The standoff has now exceeded 20 hours. Typical Ypsi drama.
Weeknotes: December 29, 2025–January 2, 2026
Monday, December 29 – Friday, January 2
Silver days and cozy nights. The illness that tugged at my throat just before Christmas reached its crescendo on Sunday, then persisted to a lesser degree through the new year. It ran parallel to a week of dazzling snowstorms, reminding me of childhood winters, sledding hills, and runny noses. I always seemed to have a cold during the holiday break. I even spent a night in my boyhood bedroom, house-sitting for my parents, re-examining my hometown, and hiking snowy segments of the Penosha Trail. I bushwacked my way to the reedy edge of Deidrich Lake, frozen over like I remembered it, though not enough for skating. The next morning I stood on the high ridge above Mt. Suicide, a classic thinking spot from my earnest teenage years.
New Year's Eve, stepping from the ambient glow of Andy's bar into the December hush to find the Frog Island pathway draped in a mat of virgin snow. That's how you start a new year — you make your mark on a blank page. My footprints mirrored the river then crossed over it at my favorite bridge. At home I hugged my pets and said good riddance to a year of tumult and chaos.
Forest Avenue Bridge: 2025
There’s a white mark — possibly the residual adhesive from an old sticker — atop the metal rail of the Forest Avenue Bridge. It’s dead center on the downriver side, just above what looks like some kind of environmental tracker or river camera. That white mark is where I take this photo from.
Weeknotes: December 8–12, 2025
On top of my day job, schoolwork, and the countless creative tasks I assign myself every year, I’ve picked up a side hustle as a Door Dash driver to earn some extra holiday cash. It’s a lot, but it has helped me pay off a few unexpected bills and offered some security I need right now. A few nights ago, I was navigating up an icy path, delivering some sandwiches to Glencoe Hills Apartments, when a woman stopped me. “Hey. Slow down.”
Her voice barely registered. “What?”
She looked me in the eyes. “Slow down. You’re gonna get there.”
I paused, mumbled a thank you, then hustled forth to complete my delivery. Later in the week, as I was careening toward year-end burnout, I thought again about the encounter. Maybe she’s just a keen observer of body language, but something about my energy must have seemed manic enough for her to flag me down.
As we tumble into the heart of the holidays, it’s a good reminder to take a breath and allow yourself a little grace. I’ve got some leave coming up and I’m going to hit pause on Weeknotes for the rest of the year. If the mood strikes me, I may toss up a bit of miscellany, but otherwise, I’ll see you in 2026. Cheers! -TM
Weeknotes: December 1–5, 2025
Monday, December 1
I don't remember thinking of Gremlins as a Christmas movie. Rewatching it now, the first thing I notice is that it was obviously filmed in California, and that the small town of Kingston Falls looks a lot like another fictional '80s town. Apparently, Back To the Future was also filmed on Universal's Courthouse Square backlot. Kingston Falls is Hill Valley, but coated in a layer of fake snow.
As a kid, I didn't question the set design — I just wanted to see Stripe plow the grumpy WWII dude over with his own tractor. I also didn't question why Phoebe Cates stuck around at Dorry's Tavern to serve all the bad gremlins alcohol and smokes — I just laughed at them getting drunk and doing dumb human things like playing cards and singing along to Snow White. Now, though… I’m afraid Gremlins just isn't very believable.
Weeknotes: November 24–28, 2025
Monday, November 24
At Family Chicken, I pick up an order of fried gizzards which stinks up my car during the last delivery of the night. I'm a few days into a new holiday side hustle as a Door Dash driver. Usually, I play a couple gigs to offset holiday expenses, but nothing materialized this year. It doesn't pay much, but I can generate as much work as I need. I’m also witnessing will signings for a friend’s law practice. Work is work, and I’m happy to get it. Everything is expensive right now and I don't want to end the year in the red.
Weeknotes: Rarities & B-Sides, Vol. 1
Early in the week, I fell behind and never caught back up. That’s okay — it’s a busy time of year. In lieu of this week’s notes, I’ve assembled a small anthology of unpublished pieces from previously-abandoned weeks. There are a couple from 2024 which revisit both the Paris Olympics and the run-up to the election, as well as a post from a few months ago, just before school started. I’ve also added my contribution to an All Music feature in which my fellow pop editors and I discuss classic albums we wish we’d heard sooner. Lastly, there are a few stray observations from the past week. It’s nice to break format every now and then. Enjoy the odds and sods!
Weeknotes: November 10–14, 2025
Monday, November 10
I'm with Neil at Fox Science Preserve, a former gravel pit in Scio Township known for its geological wonders. Punctuating the scrubby landscape are hulking glacial boulders of granite, tillite, gneiss, and limestone, many of them bearing 350 million-year-old fossils. At work, Neil and I write about rock music, but apparantly he is also a "rock" guy. I've come into rockdom more recently, surprising myself with how much I've enjoyed my Geology of the National Parks and Monuments class at the local community college. The 12 week course ends this week — tomorrow evening I'll take my final exam and test my knowledge of volcanism and continental collisions.
Weeknotes: November 3–7, 2025
Monday, November 3
It's hard sometimes to play fast, but we are a rhythmic species — if you practice enough, a fast part usually comes together nicely, at least in my experience. I think it's much tougher to play slowly. When there is more space between the beats, you have nowhere to hide — each note carries more weight and a whole menu of nuance opens up.
I've been trying to make some music that is very minimalist with few elements and plenty of negative space. The piece I'm working on is for two fingerpicked guitars, one playing a repeated chord pattern at a relaxed tempo and the other playing a very deliberate single note lead melody. More often than not, this is the kind of music I listen to around the house: sparse Nordic jazz records from ECM, solo acoustic guitar albums, ambient synth music, etc.
Most of the music I've released has been densely-arranged songwriter pop with clever arrangements, layered harmonies, and lots of percussion. I will make more of that, but I also want to challenge myself to see if I can scale down and still keep it interesting. It's making me a better, or at least a more thoughtful guitarist. Because there are no vocals and just one or two instruments, I'm thinking very hard about every note and asking questions like:
What part of my finger yields the best tone for this note?
If I can't finish this part today, will my fingernails be too long and sound slightly different tomorrow?
How long should I let these overtones ring?
Do I slide up to this note or hit it dead on?
A bit of vibrato heading into the rest?
Weeknotes: October 27–31, 2025
Monday, October 27
Outside the pub the evening sky is lavender. A crew of runners, all in costume, piles up at the crosswalk, laughing and jostling on a Halloween fun run. I think I'll take the long way home.
At the bend on Norris I slip through the chain fence and walk past the old depot. To my left a man is chasing his laughing son down the hill on Maple Street. Everywhere, people are smiling. I am too. It's late October and I've been reading Ray Bradbury. Here's a gem from his introduction to the 1999 edition of The October Country:
Skeletons are wondrous ramshackle items that birth themselves when the humans they wore go away.
Ray loved skeletons. I wonder if his is glad to be unburdened of its mortal obligation.
Much of Depot Town is closed on Monday. With its silent barber shop, old brick facades, and ornate central clock, it resembles Green Town, Illinois, the fictional midwestern town where Bradbury set masterpieces like Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes.
At Schultz Outfitters I cross the street and disappear down the stairwell into Frog Island Park. Out on the pitch a group of friends are playing a pickup soccer game — coats are scattered across the terraced bleachers. A brown and white dog lays curled up, watching its human play. On the other side of the path the embankment leads down to the river. The stone firepit, built on the dry riverbed during summer’s drought, has been reclaimed by the rising water.
At the Forest Street bridge I lean over the rail to take my favorite photo. A man passing on the sidewalk says "I love that shot too." Another passerby comments "this summer was the lowest I've ever seen the river. I was worried about fish getting trapped in shallow pools."
"But look at it now," I say.
Weeknotes: October 20–23, 2025
Monday, October 20
Through trial and error, I think I've traced the signal hum to my outboard preamp, a Golden Age Pre-73 MKII. It was recommended to me by Fred Thomas and was integral to my last two albums. Maybe it just needs a new power supply — that would be the best case scenario. More impactful is the loss of my primary condenser mic, an old Studio Projects C1 I bought in 2006 and use for almost everything I make. Like all my gear, it's a budget piece, but it has survived nearly 20 years of abuse and performed beyond all expectations. I'll likely get both items repaired, but I can't afford it right now.
So, with my two workhorses out of commission, I'm left with what I've got. I think of the old adage "the best tool is the one in front of you." I have a handful of other mics, but nothing that really fills the role that the C1 does. I could borrow a decent condenser mic from a friend, but a part of me welcomes the limitations of making do with what's on hand. That’s where creativity starts.
During rush hour, I'm running down a hill toward a busy intersection. There's a car in the northbound lane facing me with its hazard lights on and another in the southbound left turn lane, also stopped. Several people are crouched in the middle of the road picking up some type of debris while evening traffic diverts around them. I assume it's broken glass from a collision, but as I approach, I see the road is scattered with what looks like an entire box of nails. Bending to help, I ask one of the good Samaritans how they got there.
"No idea. I wondered if it was a sabotage campaign from a local tire company," she jokes.
Some of the nail heads have already been driven into the soft asphalt and I have to pry them out with my fingernails. But, just think of all the punctures we're preventing.
Weeknotes: October 13–17, 2025
Monday, October 13
I'm drinking white wine and listening to Weather Report. It feels like a cliché, but I'm not sure why. Yesterday felt like Monday Jr. I worked so hard all day and kept the momentum going into today before falling into a slump.
At 3:00 I took apart my salt lamp and replaced the cord, plug, and in-line switch, a fairly simple household repair. Nothing. It didn't work.
When a lightbulb doesn’t go on, maybe it's the universe telling you you're done for the day. I didn't listen and instead tried to finish the baffling for my studio, stapling an old burlap coffee bag around an acoustic panel. Midway through, the tack gun jammed and I couldn't fix that either. Hello, wine.
Weeknotes: October 6–11, 2025
Monday, October 6
"Sophia, bring it back to starboard, you're too close to that kayak! Sorry, kayak."
I wave at the coxswain — Sophia's oar wasn't even close. I'm finishing an evening paddle, upriver from Argo Livery, almost, but not quite to Barton Dam, then back past Bandemer, the Huron's regional rowing hub. I figured I might run into some river traffic, but didn't expect to share this segment with eight full crews and their launch boats. At a wide bend, about a half hour upriver, I tucked into some reeds and enjoyed a beer while the university and high school crews rowed noisily by. The season is starting to fade, but the weather tonight is gorgeous. Maybe I'll still have time for a couple more paddles before winter comes.
Back at Argo, a string band has set up under the pavilion. When I put in, a man was tuning a double bass, but now they are eight or nine strong with fiddles, mandolin, a dobro, and several guitars. I dock to "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" and sing along quietly while stowing my gear.
Weeknotes: September 20 – October 3, 2025
Monday, September 29
I'm in a blue jeans drought. I have a couple pairs I feel okay in, but neither of them is my favorite. When the world is in chaos, you have to have at least one pair of jeans you love.
After work I carve a soap dish from a hunk of cedar fence plank in my shed. I've obsessed over buying a soap dish for weeks, but keep putting it off. I blame the specific dimensions of my sink, but really I'm just indecisive and spend too much time deliberating over small stuff in order to avoid the big stuff. Once again, a bit of DIY effort saves the day.
Weeknotes: September 22–26, 2025
Monday, September 22
I'm listening to the Tannahhill Weavers, a Scottish folk band who include a glossary of pronunciations and Scottish words on their lyrics sheets.
Some are logical:
Dinnae = don't know
Gane = gone
Tae - to
Twa = two
Wasnae = was not
Some less so:
Ken = know
Maun = may
Muckle = big
Trews = tartan trousers
Yin = one
I've loved this band since I first heard them on a Rykodisc compilation sometime around 1990. They were my gateway to Celtic music.
Out my office window the ground's quiet applause welcomes rain for the first time in a month. Later, at the pet store, the ceiling has sprung a leak and two dog pools have been pulled off a nearby shelf to catch it. On the equinox the world is liquid again.
Weeknotes: September 15–19, 2025
Monday, September 15
A night of dog-sitting for my parents who are enjoying a micro-vacation up in Empire, visiting the beaches they love. I'm glad for them. The world has felt so heavy lately — we all need a break. My mood tilts into nostalgia when I reach my hometown.
I hike the Penosha Trail and take the new spur that heads north up the U-Hill, my old childhood sledding destination. I know some of it is perspective, but the topography has also changed. This new path still young and needs some feet on it. I'm happy to oblige.
In my dad's workshop I use the table saw to advance a few woodworking projects, then drive into town to pick up another board at Home Depot. The gallery of ghouls just inside the entrance makes me smile — maybe humanity isn't that bad after all. If your job is designing life-sized Halloween monsters for box stores, you've got a pretty cool job. The clerk at the checkout asks what the board is for.
"My cat is moving back in with me next week after four years apart. I'm building a raised shelf for his food dish so my dog won't eat it."
She immediately warms to me — you know when you've found another animal person. She tells me about her 15-year-old deaf and blind cat and how they have to bang on the furniture, using vibrations to let it know where they are.
"I judge people by how kind they are to animals and children," she tells me.
This is a metric I can agree with.
Weeknotes: September 8–12, 2025
Monday, September 8
Out my window a moving van crawls up the street delivering city-issued trash bins. Another large, unnecessary plastic object in my life. A crewman yanks a pair of them off the truck and rolls them my way. I run outside in my slippers to refuse (pun intended) one of them. Just because this address has two units doesn't mean we have space for two giant receptacles. And what do we do with our old, perfectly functional bin? It's a minor event that somehow sets a weird tone for the rest of the day.
I learn that an old friend from high school has died. She had been battling metastatic breast cancer for what seemed like an eternity, trying every experimental treatment available and enduring horrific pain while putting up a courageous public front. I've never seen anyone fight so hard just to live. Truly incredible. She entered hospice last week and I thought she'd have weeks instead of just days. You never know. Her husband is one of my oldest childhood friends, now a widower with six kids. It's going to be a rough road.
Weeknotes: September 1–5, 2025
Monday, September 1
Labor Day lines up with the first of the month in satisfying synchronicity. I'm off work and just back from my trip to Marquette, so really it feels like the eighth day of the previous week. I started school last Monday — two classes, one of them entirely online — and ran my marathon on Saturday. Here's what I learned: don't underestimate yourself.
All summer long I struggled to gain momentum. My training felt sluggish and ineffective, and I wasn't even sure why I was still doing it. I spent the past month tempering my expectations, convincing myself I was grossly undertrained. I slept poorly the week of the race. The drive north, which I usually love, felt like an upstream slog against holiday weekend traffic. I arrived in Marquette later than I wanted to and had generally written off my chances of finishing in under four hours.
The sun rose through the mist in Turner-esque drama. I shivered in the dawn chill at the starting line, trying to summon my usual race day excitement, wondering how I’d find the motivation needed to carry myself the distance. Four miles into the race I was still searching for motivation, yet somehow maintaining a brisk 7:40 pace. I’d started out in the front third of the field, assuming I’d fall back pretty quickly. I did, but not by much. By mile nine I’d settled into a groove and came to a surprising realization — I had grit. A whole wellspring of it earned from 11 previous marathons and 16 years of running.
Having a clear motivating factor is helpful, but sometimes you just have to rely on your guts and put one foot in front of the other.
I hit the wall early around mile 17, and had to lean pretty hard on that grit to get me through the last nine miles, most of them along sunny, placid Lake Superior. At mile 26, the finishing chute appeared before me with the great bulk of the Yooperdome just behind it. I found my kick and sprinted the last 200 meters with a smile on my face, passing another runner a few feet ahead of the finish line just for the hell of it. It was one of the best races I've ever run and I was only a few minutes off my PR. I had completely counted myself out before I even started. In hindsight, how could I not know I had this in me? Sometimes you just have to go through it to come to a simple truth. It felt like a turning point in what has been a rather desultory year.
Back in Ypsilanti my legs still ache, but my head feels better. My attitude has improved and I can feel some creative momentum building. If I can make a comeback like I did in Marquette, I wonder what else I can do?