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.