Weeknotes: July 7–11, 2025
Monday, July 7
I dreamed my air conditioner had created ice deposits all around the house. The basement staircase was encased in a narrowing chute of ice like the walls of an old freezer. There was frost on my furniture, the ceiling, and clinging in the corners like hornet's nests.
I wake in a panic in my dry room. My first action of the day is to open all the windows and let the cool morning air circulate through my world.
I broke down and bought those new running shoes, but that was yesterday. Today, I'm shopping for some new kayak gear. My deck rigging has lost its elasticity and needs replacing. I also don't have a dock line, which would have been helpful over the weekend when I was hanging on to a half-submerged log to avoid drifting out from the lee of an old oak tree on Appleton Lake. I add a heavy duty dry bag to my order as if I'm going on a real adventure instead of paddling local segments of the Huron on weeknights.
Tuesday, July 8
Islay ate another book last night. A paperback edition of Teju Cole's Every Day is For the Thief, which I'd picked up for a dollar at the Saline Library book sale last month. I've been pretty diligent about keeping whatever I'm reading out of her reach, but it's been a while since a book-eating incident — 46 days, in fact — and I let my guard down. It was tucked into the cubby of my night stand. She knew it was there and while I was out with friends she protested. I was upset, but got over it. All is forgiven.
My A-Z vinyl listening project enters its ninth month. I'm going to need to replace my stylus soon. Today I'm listening to Gathering Place, the second album from Celtic supergroup Relativity, which was formed in the late-'80s by Scottish brothers John and Phil Cunningham (fiddle and accordion, respectively) from Silly Wizard and Irish siblings Tríona and Mícheál Ní Dhomhnaill (clavinet and guitar) from Skara Brae and the Bothy Band. I’ve always loved Tríona’s voice and her pioneering use of the clavinet keyboard was unique among traditional musicians. And John Cunningham was a true heavyweight among fiddlers. I saw him sometime in the '90s as part of the Celtic Fiddle Festival tour with Kevin Burke and Christian Lemaitre. He died young in 2003 at age 46. With their slick production and new age fusion, the two Relativity can feel a bit dated, but there is some gorgeous playing on them and I have a soft spot for that era. Whenever I'm at a new record store, I go straight to the folk and international sections. No one ever gives a shit about '70s and '80 Celtic records, and if they have any, they’re priced to move.
Wednesday, July 9
A mama robin has built her nest among the spindles above my front porch. Every day I see it from my bedroom window and want to climb up there and take a peek. Those tiny blue eggs are one of the greatest colors in nature.
In the morning I work on a profile for an atmospheric Siberian black metal band, then pick up my guitar and play through a couple songs I'm working on which are not black metal. One has a jaunty little interlocking groove that sounds unlike anything else I’ve written. It's about quitting, or selling a business. It might even be called "Selling the Business." I don't know where it came from, but it's the second song in the past six months I've written about quitting. For the record, I'm not quitting — music, my job, school. But I do feel transitory. I’m sure there are some behaviors I’d benefit from quitting.
The rain comes around 11:00 AM, rivulets gushing up my one-way street. Don't they know they're going the wrong way? The garbagemen have already come and gone. They're getting soaked in someone else's neighborhood. I left my hammock up between the shed and back fence. If the sun doesn't come out later I'll have to bring it in to dry.
Thursday, July 10
I lay back in the dentist's chair and sink into a '90s coma. On the ceiling-mounted television, they’re streaming old episodes of Home Improvement. It wasn't one of my shows, but watching it now seems so quaint and innocent, and its suburban Detroit setting feels comforting. I barely notice the time pass, then suddenly the hygienist has finished cleaning my teeth. I have a cavity. I'm sent away with a bag of mini-flosses and a small notecard bearing a return date in September.
In Saline, a man in a Sherwin-Williams shirt is repainting the Dairy Queen roof in its signature candy apple red. At the vet I buy Islay's heartworm and flea meds, staring at a scraggly potted tree on the rear counter while while they run my credit card. Its narrow trunk is about ¾" thick and maybe four feet tall with a sad little pom-pom of dried out fronds on top. It looks silly, but I bet it's a survivor.
Five miles into my run I come across a road block. An older woman wearing a hard hat stands in front of the barricade holding a stop sign on a pole. "I can't let you cross, hon." I'm dripping with sweat, looking down the road at a few parked trucks and not much else. There's plenty of space for me to pass safely on the shoulder. There's even a pedestian pathway for most of it.
"You're really going to make me retrace my last two miles? It's so hot."
"Sorry, hon, I can't. It's your running or my job."
I can't argue with that. A young guy in sunglasses sits in a parked pickup truck about ten feet away saying nothing. Suddenly, I feel some empathy. He should let her sit in the truck and enjoy some shade while he handles this. He's probably her boss. Some fights aren't worth it. I resign myself to the extra mileage.
"It's okay, I'll go back."
Friday, July 11
A woman in blue scrubs and a surgical mask is suturing a banana. Having amputated the diseased end of its fruit she is attempting to stitch its peel back together. The chance of survival is slim, she says, but she must try. I turn my attention to the other side of the room where diminutive woman, maybe five feet tall, draws horizontal lines across a row of ascending papers taped to the wall. Only the bottom page is within her reach and as they rise up over her head she begins taping markers together to extend her reach. The banana surgeon raises an alarm — her patient is flatlining. She initiates CPR, alternating between tiny compressions and mouth-to-peel resuscitation. Behind me a silent man with a pony tail and baseball cap has a purple bicycle frame clamped to a workbench and is repairing its tire. I drink my beer.
"Time!" A few hesitant looks.
"Does anyone have the time?"
"6:15."
The surgeon pronounces the banana's time of death and uncerimoniously tosses it into the trash. I look back at the short horizontal line-drawer who is now using a trash grabber to reach the highest canvas. Below her on the cement floor an iPhone quietly plays a jazz playlist. The fruit surgeon reaches into a red cooler and removes a lemon and a lime. The bike mechanic never looks up.
The gallery is stifling in the July heat. I step out into the alley which, if anything is even hotter. Not a breath of wind. It's going to be a long night at the Sometimes Space.