Weeknotes: April 13–17, 2026

Monday, April 13

An early spring balm has seeped into the room. My jeans, left overnight on the chair, have a clamminess I associate with deep summer. Outside the open window everything is busy living, expanding, rising. On Saturday, I raked the perimeter of the house, pruning the overgrown sage bush, clearing debris, and pulling up endless bunches of yard garlic. I even mowed the lawn, mostly to mulch the thousands of accumulated twigs.

After my A.M. class, I work at my desk, watching the mercury on my window thermometer climb to 80°. I can’t help but feel like I'm missing out on the season. April 13, and I'm already panicking like it's mid-August.

Back by the fence, I trim back the raspberry bushes and clear old pots from the abandoned garden. I never know what to do with this area. Last year it was a half-baked sculpture garden. I was given a sack of wildflower seeds for my birthday — maybe I’ll till the weedy soil and scatter them. The lilies of the valley are sending up their tiny spears and a single red tulip has bloomed, hidden behind a thorny barberry bush.

Around 8:30, a thunderstorm marches in. Not a lot of rain, but noisy and theatrical. Nick and I stand on our porches, barefoot, talking across the driveway. 

Tuesday, April 14

"Esteban… nope, you're a hat." When you live with a black cat, other black objects in your periphery sometimes become them. 

Another humid spring day, alternately thrilling and foreboding with dark clouds in the distance that never seem to get any nearer. Out my studio window a crow's rusty squawk is offset by a soft greeting from the real Esteban prowling below my desk. A brown UPS truck delivers my new microphone, the Lauten LA-220 V2.

At precisely 3:19, I take the bus out to Clark Road and pick up my bike from Doug the mechanic. A full tune-up: gears greased, cables replaced, wheels trued, and even a new kickstand to replace the one that snapped off last year. I cruise home down Forest, passing by Fred with a wave, then drag nine full bags of yard waste out to the curb, making room in the shed for my bike.

By midnight, those bags are a sopping heap, pummelled by wild thunderstorms which set off every alarm in the city. At 1:30 AM, a harsh alert from my phone is followed by wailing tornado sirens, then EMU's campus-wide emergency system. I prepare to shelter in the basement with the pets, but the storm soon diminishes into a windy soak. Ann Arbor is not so lucky — in a targeted attack by nature, ice arenas on opposite ends of town are damaged, trees are uprooted, a car is overturned.

Wednesday, April 15

Three nights of poor sleep are catching up with me. I work in fits and starts all day, a shoddy, distracted workflow that never really gains momentum. On social media I gawk at photos of the storm damage, and message with friends to check everyone's status. 

Still reading Derek Jarman's Modern Nature, I pause to revisit his music video for Pet Shop Boys' "It's a Sin." It was in regular MTV rotation when I was about ten years old. Its gothic Catholic imagery and commentary on sexual repression and institutional shame went over my head at the time. I just loved its melody and sense of drama. I later did an acoustic cover of it in high school. Neil Tennant is an underrated vocalist.

While researching a piece for work, I visit AllMusic's front page and notice that Clannad matriarch Máire Brennan (later known as Moya) has died. My brother must have updated her profile sometime yesterday before we met up at the bar. He has taken on the role staff undertaker, checking musical obituaries each morning and updating the database accordingly. I click on her bio and am temporarily startled to see my name on the byline. Over the years, Jamie and I have covered many of the more prominent Celtic artists, as it's a genre few of our colleagues have much interest in. When I was hired in 2013, it was a neglected neighborhood of the database which I've done my best to spruce up. 

Later, while watching Top Chef, I absently play my old nylon string guitar and with the passive part of my brain write a nice little baroque instrumental. It's saved in my phone’s voice memos as "Elimination Challenge."

Thursday, April 16

A volunteer tulip, electric pink, surges by the sidewalk's edge, glowing in the A.M. drizzle. I wrench open my back door — either swollen from the humidity or blown askew during yesterday's storm — to find a layer of debris scattered across the stoop. A robin is building a nest atop the wall-mounted spotlight which hasn't been lit in four years. The nest on the porch is already finished and bees are moving into the hollow of one of my rusted metal fish sculptures. I swear the lilies of the valley have grown two inches in the past 24 hours. You blink your eyes and nature moves back in, especially this time of year.

Over a beer at the Alehouse I listen to a folksinger play Crash Test Dummies' "Superman's Song," Cat Stevens' "Here Comes My Baby," and Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s "In the Beginning." A block away at the art center I watch a screening of short Michigan-made films. It's opening night for iFFY, our local film festival. Inside the dark theater my house key falls out of my pocket, down between the seats. I don't notice its absence until I step onto my porch and have to walk back downtown to find it.

Friday, April 17

If I allow its completion, the rear light robin's nest will be in a high traffic zone, about 18" below a door that is opened and closed countless times each day. After some deliberation, I pull it down and relocate it onto the old piano hammer rail I've hung along the back fence. I suspect mama robin is watching me do this, though I don't hold much hope she'll accept the move. I immediately feel a sense of shame for desecrating her nest. On the front porch her neighbor has already moved in.