Weeknotes: October 27–31, 2025
Monday, October 27
Outside the pub the evening sky is lavender. A crew of runners, all in costume, piles up at the crosswalk, laughing and jostling on a Halloween fun run. I think I'll take the long way home.
At the bend on Norris I slip through the chain fence and walk past the old depot. To my left a man is chasing his laughing son down the hill on Maple Street. Everywhere, people are smiling. I am too. It's late October and I've been reading Ray Bradbury. Here's a gem from his introduction to the 1999 edition of The October Country:
Skeletons are wondrous ramshackle items that birth themselves when the humans they wore go away.
Ray loved skeletons. I wonder if his is glad to be unburdened of its mortal obligation.
Much of Depot Town is closed on Monday. With its silent barber shop, old brick facades, and ornate central clock, it resembles Green Town, Illinois, the fictional midwestern town where Bradbury set masterpieces like Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes.
At Schultz Outfitters I cross the street and disappear down the stairwell into Frog Island Park. Out on the pitch a group of friends are playing a pickup soccer game — coats are scattered across the terraced bleachers. A brown and white dog lays curled up, watching its human play. On the other side of the path the embankment leads down to the river. The stone firepit, built on the dry riverbed during summer’s drought, has been reclaimed by the rising water.
At the Forest Street bridge I lean over the rail to take my favorite photo. A man passing on the sidewalk says "I love that shot too." Another passerby comments "this summer was the lowest I've ever seen the river. I was worried about fish getting trapped in shallow pools."
"But look at it now," I say.
Weeknotes: July 14–18, 2025
Monday, July 14
The aggressive plant growing up the side of my house is a trumpet vine. I didn't plant it, but I've watched it multiply over the past few years until it finally produced a series of red trumpet-like blossoms. I didn't know what it was until I saw those same flowers in the community garden at Frog Island Park and finally looked it up. At least it’s native.
Through the haze of Canadian wildfire smoke I walk up to a brewpub to read my Icelandic detective novel in which the characters are suffering similarly smoky skies from a volcanic eruption. Up the gravel track through Frog Island, a man is stretching his legs on the soccer pitch and blasting Latin music from a boombox. At the other end a group of kids are sitting cross-legged on the concrete amphitheatre stage. Apart from the smog, it's a perfectly lazy summer night in Ypsilanti. I think about how happy I've been living in this town over the past four years.
Inside the brewery a man is speaking to a packed house. A keyboardist sits behind him. I order a beer and ask the bartender what's up. "It's opera night. We're actually closed for a private event, but I'll serve you." The man begins singing and I escape out the side door to sit in the little beer garden overlooking a very subdued Depot Town. Two tables away a woman is quietly crocheting some type of garment. Otherwise, the place is deserted. I read my book and people-watch. A train passes. A mezzo soprano threatens the glass window. There’s a round of applause. It’s a soothing blend of sounds.
Walking home along the ridge I notice how low the river is. Out in the thigh-deep channel a fly fisherman casts his line. To my right, down in the park, two dogs run full tilt across the fresh cut grass.
Weeknotes: June 30 – July 4, 2025
Monday, June 30
The door whispers closed and I am entombed in a lobby of implied wealth. Its forest green rug, dark wood paneling, and brass fixtures signal the superiority of this bank branch over the others I usually visit. Through a second door I emerge to the faint strains of "Space Oddity." The immaculate teller compliments my fragrance and I stand a couple inches taller. I'm just a guy in a baseball cap and concert t-shirt depositing my weekend gig money, but a little theater goes a long way. I carry this confidence into subsequent transactions with the clerk at World Market and the young mechanic who runs the engine code on my 13 year old Hyundai.
Weeknotes: April 28 – May 2, 2025
Monday, April 28
Taking a break from my A-Z listening, I put on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, an album so famous I sometimes forget to listen to it. Growing up, Floyd was hands-down my favorite band. My early fandom coincided with their Roger Waters-less revival, and in 1988 my parents took me to see them play at the Palace of Auburn Hills. I was 11 and my neural pathways were wide open for the pomp of a big art-rock stadium show. The lasers, lights, projections, fog machines, flying pigs and airplanes, and most of all the music… I assumed that's what all rock shows would be like from that point forward. Between us, my brother and I collected all of their albums, read articles in guitar magazines, and learned everything we could about Floyd's different eras, from Syd Barrett's woeful decline into mental illness and the deep experimentation of the early-'70s on into the peak commercial period that stretched from Dark Side to the The Wall.
I'm remembering all this because I saw the new 4K cut of Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXXII on the big IMAX screen yesterday and it blew my mind all over again. When I saw the Becoming Led Zeppelin documentary at this same multiplex in February, I was one of about eight paying customers and expected something similar for Pompeii film. I was a little shocked when the theater filled almost to capacity with rowdy, excited fans for a Sunday matinee. After the slow-zoom opening shot of the band beginning "Echoes" in the empty Roman amphitheatre, it kicked into close-ups of David Gilmour and Rick Wright harmonizing and they became my favorite band all over again.
Today the neighbors are getting a new roof. There's a lot of hubbub on the block. I run five miles and officially kick off the training schedule for my next race which is at the end of summer. I prefer running in the shoulder seasons, but this one fits my schedule and I've never run it before. A new challenge.
Best of 2024
I enjoy the self-reflective tone of the year’s end. I spend some time taking stock, reviewing my past goals, looking at what went well, what went poorly, what surprised me, how much I changed, where I traveled, who I met, what I made, and other observations that left some kind of imprint on me. All of this helps me move into the new year with a certain measure of confidence and optimism. Assembled here is a Top 40 of personal highlights, ranked in no particular order.
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.