Weeknotes: October 5–9, 2026
Monday, October 5
From halfway up the block, a slender stream runs down Forest Avenue. The utilities authority has placed an orange traffic barrel at the source, as if to say "yes, we know," and yet they’ve allowed the leak to persist for over a month. It's wasteful, of course, but I also find this clear little stream beautiful.
It’s like a pop-up water feature. An ephemeral waterway, caressing the curb and ferrying locust leaves down to the intersection where they pool in a damp amber mat. I stop for a while and stare, mesmerized. It's the same feeling I get from watching a fire. Flickering flames and moving water. There is so much artifice in the world, but it’s the basic elements that always draw us in.
Weeknotes: September 28–October 2, 2026
Monday, September 28
Tossing and turning in the pre-dawn hush, I vow to manufacture at least one spontaneous moment in the day ahead. By 5 p.m., I have little to show — it's been a routine, though not unpleasant day.
About a half hour before my online history class starts, I decide to build a bonfire in my backyard. I sit on my wooden bench with a glass of wine and log in to the lecture. My profile photo smiles back at me from the Zoom gallery while the professor unpacks the events leading up to the Revolutionary War. I stare into the embers and lose the thread. When I come to, I hear her quip "when times get tough, the tough build a fort." I built a fort to help me get through this lecture.
Weeknotes: September 21–25, 2026
Monday, September 21
"I'm turning on the heat!" My upstairs neighbor and I share a thermostat; domestic climate control is achieved through texts.
Technically, it's the last day of summer, but the weather is giving off late-October vibes. I take a break from work to mow the lawn, shifting from vertical stripes to an angled pattern midway through, just to shake things up. I feel like I don't have enough spontaneity in my life right now.
At 4 p.m., I stop by a meet-and-greet happy hour at the Observer. I'm greeted at the back door by Bug, the editor-in-chief's Boston terrier. Staff and freelancers mingle and drink kombucha spiked with tequila (TK). There is pizza, and someone brought pimento cheese, which I spread on my leftover crusts, a delicious combo I've somehow never tried before.
After extracting myself, I navigate rush hour traffic, and arrive home just in time to log in to my 6 p.m. history class. We learn about the French-Indian War, which I am reminded was not between French colonizers and Indians, but between European rivals France and England.
H.O.M.E.S. Swimming Tour: 2026
In the summer of 2021, I swam in all five of the Great Lakes. I was re-examining the world after 16 months of lockdown and the end of a 17-year relationship. It was a heady, cathartic time. The same weekend I moved to Ypislanti, I took a road trip to Harbor County to hear harpist Mary Lattimore play an outdoor concert — it was my first live show since the pandemic started. At Weko Beach in Bridgeman, I swam out into Lake Michigan and tried to wash away the toughest parts of the previous year and a half. I felt compelled to list all the things I was grateful for, and recited them out loud to the waves. Over the next couple months, I repeated this ritual in Superior, Huron, and Erie, then wrapped up my baptismal tour just west of Rochester, New York, with an October swim in Lake Ontario.
Five years later, the catharsis feels more urgent and outwardly-directed. I wasn’t really planning on doing another swimming tour, but during a camping trip to Ossineke State Forest, I found myself delivering a fresh roll call of thank yous to Lake Huron. In this cynical climate, despite all the drama and political tumult, I still have so much to be grateful for. Between June and August, I bounced around the state, camping, paddling, and swimming in the remaining Michigan-adjacent lakes. On Friday, I took a day trip to Canada to complete my quest in the lake that will always be called Ontario.
Weeknotes: September 7–11, 2026
Monday, September 7
A musician I know is unloading a bunch of gear. All of us who've been at it for more than a decade or two are generally in some liminal state between acquiring and shedding. I have everything I need to make music right now, but after seeing John's listing on Marketplace, I can't stop thinking about his Guild Starfire bass.
My first bass was a cheap '80s-era Magnum, which my mom helped me bring home from a thrift store when I was about 16. My brother called it Frankenbass, because one of its tuning keys was a metal washer someone had soldered onto the shaft in a cheap fix. I don't know what happened to Frankenbass — it either went back into circulation or was abandoned somewhere.
In December 2010, I walked into Dennis' Music in Ypsilanti and bought a dark blue Squier Jazz bass for $100. I played it on stage that same night, backing up my friend Pat at Mittenfest, an annual fundraiser for the creative writing nonprofit 826 Michigan, then held across the street from Dennis' at a bar called Woodruff's. It was only my second gig on bass.
I've played the Squier ever since, and recorded my last two albums with it. When my friend Misty asked me to join her band in 2022, I bought my first bass amp and settled into a new supporting role. Although I'm confident with the bass parts I've written in the studio, I feel like I'm still pretty early in my journey as a live player. I've gotten incrementally better over the past few years, though the band doesn't gig quite enough for me to have improved by leaps and bounds. Still, I've been thinking about an upgrade, and a hollow body Guild would offer me a different palette of tones. Also, it looks great, and has a short-scale neck, which suits my wingspan a little better than the Jazz bass.
I message John, who tells me a prospective buyer is coming to look at it on Wednesday. That's all the incentive I need. I hit the ATM machine and drive over to his basement studio on Ann Arbor's west side. At the door, I'm greeted by his enthusiastic little mop of a dog, Remi, who rolls around at my feet. The bass is strung with Thomastik flatwounds and plays like a dream. I've known John since the '90s. He's a great player and a nice guy. I have no business spending money on another instrument right now, but this is too good to pass up. I drive home, windows down, with the Starfire in my backseat.
Weeknotes: August 31–September 4, 2026
Monday, August 31
Fall semester begins. From now until mid-December, my weeks will be front-loaded — a three-hour online Michigan History course, Monday nights, followed by Foundations in Digital Video, Tuesday and Thursday mornings, on campus.
I laid low in August, savoring my free time as summer faded out. I thought I was ready, but now I’m not so sure. After working all day on a screen, I wonder if I’ll have it in me to tack on three more hours at night.
I log in to the Zoom classroom. It's very casual — I’m glad I’m not the only one trying to keep a dog entertained. The instructor is getting over a cold. About two hours in, she starts pausing every 30 seconds to take a long drink of water and cough. I can hear her voice going ragged, and it triggers my own sore throat anxieties. We end early, a mercy for her and the students.
Only two semesters to go. In eight months, I think to myself, I will be done with all this.
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.