Weeknotes: March 23–27, 2026
Monday, March 23
I awaken from a dream about living in a wall tent dormitory with an unexplained desire to listen to Scott Walker. I put Scott 3 into the CD player and brew coffee to the discordant strings of "It's Raining Today."
In 1996, my brother and I were obsessed with Razor & Tie's Scott Walker anthology of the same name. I remember the two of us sitting in my car outside the Fisher Building in Detroit, grooving to "The Old Man's Back Again," before taking the elevator up to the studios of WJR-AM. We were musical guests on The Mitch Albom Show, an honor that involved being completely ignored by the two co-hosts and frantically self-editing about 20 seconds of live performance into the gaps after commercial breaks. We never met Mitch, who was broadcasting from the East Coast that day. After one of the breaks he made fun of my falsetto which I admittedly overused back then. I still think of this every time I see one of his books in a grocery store checkout lane.
All day I'm beset by abstract weariness. I yawn self-consciously through my morning class and subsequent errands. At the vet I pick up a prescription for Trazodone, hoping it might curtail Islay's destructive chewing. I suspect it’s just boredom, but I haven’t ruled out seperation anxiety. Bolstered by two naps, I work steadily all afternoon and through most of the evening, eyeing bedtime as my just reward. When I finally turn in, I revive a credo from a few years ago and say out loud "my favorite part of the day is right now."
Weeknotes: March 9–13, 2026
Monday, March 9
Esteban reclines on a peninsula of sunlight, his black fur illuminated and glossy. I pet him the length of his body and remember someone once telling me this reminds a cat of being groomed by its mother. Suddenly, it seems strange not to know anything at all about my pets' parentage. When we found Esteban, he was a feral kitten surviving in a drainage ditch outside K's office.
It was about a year after we adopted Islay, the runt of a litter of puppies being trampled over by her siblings in a crate at a Tractor Supply store. In my mind, their stories begin with me — typical human arrogance. Of course they both had mothers who cleaned and fed them until circumstances brought them into my life. How strange to call myself the parent of these wonderful little beings.
The temperature rises into the low 70s — a healing balm. After my run, I sit on the porch finishing Heather Rose's book, The Museum of Modern Love.
The purple house across the street is up for sale. I walked through it during a weekend open house, unlocking new rooms in the mental map of my surroundings. It's much more spacious than I expected. I wish I could afford to buy it — everything is so expensive right now.
I linger outside until the light begins to fade, listening to the sounds of my neighborhood: the see-saw tones of the bus door opening a block away, an eastbound train, a seagull calling over the river.
Weeknotes: March 2–6, 2026
Monday, March 2
The ancient editorial program we use for work is almost unusable this morning. We're in the process of beta-testing its successor, but right now I'm caught in the drying amber of the original's slow decline. While the next entry on my screen loads, I try to stay productive in other arenas, scheduling a band practice on my phone, using a different computer to send emails and design a logo. It's an ineffective and exhausting workflow; nothing gets done as well as it should.
Outside, the sun glares over bleached lawns — March's signature look. I take Islay for a walk and think about Jonathan Richman twirling his guitar and dancing snake-hipped at the edge of the Vickers Theater stage. On Saturday, Greg and I drove three hours across the state to the little town of Three Oaks to hear him play. At 74, Richman still seems so youthful and vibrant, a rare specimen of preserved health and creative spirit. I've always loved his self-titled 1989 record and of course the first Modern Lovers album. I figured he would be good live, but I had no idea how special and whimsical it would be. Halfway through the first song, I thought to myself: this is one of the greatest performances I have ever seen.
Before and after the show, Greg and I set up shop at the Tom Cat Tavern, just down the block. At breakfast the next morning, I realized I'd left behind my favorite woolen scarf, gifted to me by friends after their visit to Ireland. When we got back home to Ypsi, I called the Tom Cat and confirmed proof of life. Unless I can convince them to mail it back to me, I have another three hour road trip in my future.
At six o' clock I go for a run through town and listen to Alvvays. Molly Rankin's voice sounds like a beam of light. Behind the old Michigan Ladder Company building the moon rises, pale and full.