Weeknotes: August 24–28, 2026
My evening bike ride into Ann Arbor passes through three different college campuses, including my own. "See you soon," I think, and follow the river up through Gallup Park, where Skyline High School’s rowing crews are already practicing. The entire region is awash in back-to-school energy. I chain my bike to a post on Main Street where, a few feet away, local street artist David Zinn kneels, contemplating a pile of broken pallets. A half hour later, I return to find his signature. After a beer at the Grotto, I end up at my friend Chris' house in Water Hill, a neighborhood I lived in 20 years ago, before anyone called it that.
Weeknotes: August 17–20, 2026
Monday, August 17
The Depot Town parking lot next to Frog Island is finally being resurfaced, a development decades overdue. I get my watch battery replaced at Olde Towne Coin & Gold, then drive west up Cross Street. On the sidewalk outside Sweetwaters, someone in a Totoro costume is hugging passersby.
At Petco, I buy another jar of expensive hip and joint supplements for Islay. She's been on them for a couple weeks and I haven't noticed any results — I hope they're not a racket. Through the glass window of the salon, I lock eyes with a ginger Akita being aggressively brushed by a groomer. Its expression is serene, almost curious — it's taking the abuse quite well.
After dinner, I spend a couple hours Door Dashing, trying to generate a bit of extra cash to stretch my paycheck. It's slow going, and when I finally return home, I notice the forgotten KFC lemonade in my cupholder. I consider driving the six miles back to my last delivery, but I just don't have it in me. I'm sorry, Jennifer H.
Weeknotes: August 10–14, 2026
Monday, August 10
The strobe flicker of pre-dawn lightning tattoos the bedroom wall. Esteban gives a small cry from the foot of the bed. I welcome the stormy morning and put on Nina Nastasia's The Blackened Air. While its gothic melancholia soothes the kitchen, I brew coffee and gaze out into the still-dark morning.
Before work, I play my guitar to see if anything is in there. I write a couple lines to something simple in G Major, but it feels too straightforward and vulnerable. Where is my cape of abstraction?
Weeknotes: August 3–7, 2026
Monday, August 3
At the southeastern corner of Whitefish Bay, Lake Superior drains its bulk into the St. Marys River, a neck of water engineered to pass 80 million tons of iron ore, limestone, and other cargo annually through the Soo Locks. Before today, my only other memory of visiting Sault Ste. Marie is of a boozy October night in 2003 to celebrate my friend Nate's 30th birthday. I have video evidence of our bizarre hotel bar karaoke session on an old Sony camcorder, which I now feel obligated to recover. In my mind, it was some sort of Lynchian bacchanal, eerily lit and populated by masked strangers, though I’m guessing the video will reveal a tamer night than I remember.
I’m camping with my friend Sky across the bay at Tahquamenon Falls. Today I've booked us an afternoon voyage on the Nokomis, a butter-yellow sightseeing vessel that ferries us upriver into MacArthur Lock. Once inside its massive gates, we are raised 21 feet from the level of Lake Huron to that of Superior. Exiting the lock, the captain warns of his obligatory horn blast with a courteous "3, 2, 1…" Further upriver on the Canadian side is Algoma Steel, a hulking industrial menace of rust-red ducts, smokestacks, and cranes that marks our turnaround point. A smaller Canadian lock lowers us back down the ladder alongside a couple pleasure boats. Behind us, a family of eight are packed like sardines into an elegant wooden Chris-Craft tethered to a vertical guide rope.
On the Michigan side, looming incongruously over the river, is the Tower of History, a brutalist viewing tower built in 1968 by the St. Mary Catholic Church as a shrine to its intrepid missionaries. Inside its musty lobby, opposite a mural of Bishop Baraga, a bored teenage girl accepts our $8 fee. On the wall is a map of the U.S. where visitors can mark their place of origin with a colored pushpin. Michigan is full, so Sky plants his red pin in Minneapolis where he now lives. Faded dioramas of Ojibwe artifacts are scattered around the room. A looped video mutters away in a dark alcove. We take the elevator up to view the city and locks from 210 feet.
After beers at the Wicked Sister and a hike around Monocle Lake, we pull off at Pendills Beach where I log an evening swim in a shallow, sandy stretch of Whitefish Bay. It's my fourth Great Lake swim of the summer. Only Ontario remains.
Weeknotes: July 27–31, 2026
Some weeks it’s like this…
Weeknotes: July 20–24, 2026
Monday, July 20
Five years ago today, I moved to Ypsilanti, Michigan. I had already spent a couple days trying to get my apartment set up, but July 20 was the night I made it official. After a long day, I drove over to my friend Ashley's birthday party out near Ford Lake, knowing afterward I could just go home and crash in a place that was all my own. I've made so many friends here — these have been some of the happiest years of my adult life.
At seven o' clock, I walk up to Wax Bar and meet J & J for a celebratory cocktail. The Alan Parsons Project is playing on the radio — there are maybe seven or eight other patrons. I sip my mezcal negroni and gaze out across the alley, watching a woman stop and smile in front of the pet store. The shop cat must be lounging in the front window.
Walking back from the bar, I meet on our well-traveled street the family of my neighbor Matt, who announces as we pass "this is my family!" I reply just as vaguely, "Hello, I'm the neighbor, two or three houses down." Poking out of my mailbox is a signed copy of Robyn Hitchcock's second memoir, Stranded in the Future.
Weeknotes: July 13–17, 2026
Monday, July 13
Another heat wave arrives, as if reporting for its week-long residency. I write the forecast in my notebook, just to see the temperatures all neatly lined up in my own handwriting. Around two o'clock, I relent, button up the house, and turn on the air-conditioning. In icy privilege, I sit on my bed and work, back propped against a pillow.
Later, at the brewpub, I get to know a couple I met earlier in the summer who are relatively new to Michigan. Both are fascinating — erudite and well-traveled, with a bundle of interests that bisect my own. They tell me about living in Antarctica and cycling across the U.S. We discuss running, writing, and Howard Frank Mosher. I note with satisfaction both are notebook carriers, and as we trade book recommendations, my Japanese brass pen gets passed back and forth across the table.
Weeknotes: July 6–10, 2026
Monday, July 6
The downtown library is crowded with other refugees charging devices and working on laptops. I am one of nearly 350,000 DTE Energy customers who lost power during Friday night's storm. At the time, I was 200 miles away in Benzie County, setting up for a gig after two nights of camping on the Leelanau Peninsula. The weather up there was lovely.
Today, the downed power line at the end of my block is still sparking and smoking on the curb, cordoned off by yellow emergency tape, but otherwise unbothered since its explosion almost three days ago. It's like a less-endearing Neil the Seal: troublesome, potentially lethal, but exciting to watch.
Last night, Nick and I drank scotch on a dark porch a few houses down, chatting with neighbors who claim to have heard that DTE were recruiting French-Canadian electrical workers from across the border. Makes sense that they’d seek reinforcement, but the French-Canadian part seems dubious — were none available from Ontario? My mind forms an image of a lively Québécois lumber camp popping up on our street, mingling aromas of woodsmoke and maple syrup as flannelled men scurry up the poles, shouting instructions in French.
It’s late afternoon and I'm dozing on the bed, unaware my electricity has just been restored. Nick sends a text from next door: They did it!!! Ooohhhh, Cannnnnn-ada! I don't know who is actually responsible, but I'm happy to give our Northern neighbors credit.
Weeknotes: June 22–26, 2026
Monday, June 22 – Friday, June 26
Last Saturday, after not very much deliberation, I bought yet another tent, a nice one with enough room for my cot. At Ossineke State Forest, just above the 45th parallel, I fall asleep to the music of wind and surf, practically alone at this remote, rustic campground.
Weeknotes: June 15–18, 2026
Monday, June 15
I help my parents shore up some wobbly fence posts in their garden and return home with a broken bird bath and six large moss-covered flagstones for my own garden. It's like shopping at a second hand Lowe's where everything is heavily used, free, and pre-loaded with sentiment. In the evening, I order a collapsible army cot. I've held out for a long time, sleeping on a thin air mattress, but it's time to make car camping more comfortable.
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.