Weeknotes: July 21–25, 2025
I love it when the teller sends your check for a little ride on the scanner. Watching it loop around the bend is my favorite part of visiting the bank. So many transactions happen invisibly, I think I'm just excited when I see something happen in front of me. Like the satisfying thump of a rubber stamp.
Twenty minutes later I'm at Barnes & Noble buying yet another copy of Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice for a friend's birthday. I was like this with Becky Chambers' The Long Way To a Small, Angry Planet — every book lover I knew got a copy on their birthday or at Christmas. At the top of the escalator, I take a few hasty steps down, then realize I'd rather enjoy the free ride. The breadth of the store comes into focus around me and I feel some nostalgia for the pre-digital world when a big chain book store felt like the gateway to possibility.
My next stop is less inspiring — Dick's Sporting Goods, another box store in a strip mall. I've been here three times this summer and whenever I walk through the door Aerosmith's "Dream On" is playing. That can't be a coincidence. But why would this gritty 52-year-old rock ballad be a cornerstone of the Dick's playlist? Aren't there other more appropriate jock jams, even within the Aerosmith catalog? What about "Walk This Way" or even "Sweet Emotion." Does "Dream On" sell more tennis rackets?
In Saline I help K hang a couple shelves and we share a pizza. Across the street working in her garden is my old neighbor Kay. She lost her husband in the fall of 2020 while I was still living there. We all loved Doug. He was one of those affable small town neighbors — friendly, helpful, funny, a reliable presence on our street. I still send Kay a Christmas card every year, but haven't talked to her in ages. I walk over and we catch up for a while. She says she's turning 87 on Friday. I make a mental note to send her a birthday card too.
A2XA2
Although I intend to create a larger archive of posters on this website, there’s no reason I shouldn’t also include various design ephemera here in the blog. This is the full 11" x 17" poster for my upcoming show at the North Star Lounge in Ann Arbor. You might remember that I immortalized this cozy little venue in song on my last project. I have made a handful of appearances there over the past few years, always accompanied by CC. She’s sitting this one out because she’s about to become a mother — her due date is mere days after the gig . This will be my first time playing North Star on my own.
Weeknotes: October 28 – November 1, 2024
Monday, October 28
I had a good hair day yesterday. Even better, I was at a party and friends witnessed it. You hate to waste a good hair day. Today, my second cup of coffee tastes like spring, though it's not even November yet. A lot of seasons still to cycle through. On WCBN it's clearly spooky season. Shriekback, Bauhaus, 45 Grave. It's a nice little commute and I pull into campus with Peter Murphy hurling Latin incantations out my windows.
Later I light a fire and start triaging which potted plants will come inside for the winter. Wearing leather work gloves, I use tweezers to carefully extract dead leaves that have blown into my mess of cacti. I like winterizing a yard, it's satisfying work. I say goodbye to RR who moves out Apt. 2 tomorrow, taking Pretzel with her. I've become very fond of that little three-legged cat.