Weeknotes: September 8–12, 2025
Monday, September 8
Out my window a moving van crawls up the street delivering city-issued trash bins. Another large, unnecessary plastic object in my life. A crewman yanks a pair of them off the truck and rolls them my way. I run outside in my slippers to refuse (pun intended) one of them. Just because this address has two units doesn't mean we have space for two giant receptacles. And what do we do with our old, perfectly functional bin? It's a minor event that somehow sets a weird tone for the rest of the day.
I learn that an old friend from high school has died. She had been battling metastatic breast cancer for what seemed like an eternity, trying every experimental treatment available and enduring horrific pain while putting up a courageous public front. I've never seen anyone fight so hard just to live. Truly incredible. She entered hospice last week and I thought she'd have weeks instead of just days. You never know. Her husband is one of my oldest childhood friends, now a widower with six kids. It's going to be a rough road.
Tuesday, September 9
I survive my first geology exam, the first of four paced throughout the semester. There's a time limit and I use up most of the available two hours. All the graphics and photography classes I've been taking are project-based — it's been a long time since I've taken a longform multiple choice test like this. I’d forgotten about test anxiety. 86%. Not bad.
I reward myself with a cocktail and spend the evening tackling house projects and listening to the Tigers game on the radio. In the top of the seventh inning, the Yankees have a pitching meltdown. Tigers left fielder Riley Greene hits a ground-rule double, igniting a wild rally that yields nine runs, many of them scored one at the time through a collection of walks, wild pitches, and hit batters. By the time it's over the Tigers have sent 14 batters to the plate.
Wednesday, September 10
Resistance. That's the word I'm looking for. All morning I struggle to string together even a single sentence. I have two assignments due by the end of the workday, but all I feel is resistance. Sometimes you have to give up and do something else for a while. I've published thousands of artist bios and reviews over the past 12 years. I always get them done, but some days the words just won't come. It's okay.
In the meantime I close out my current Field Notes notebook (National Parks Great Smoky Mtns. edition) and transfer its pertinent info into a new one (Chicago edition). Every time I start a new notebook I label the first page "Ongoings" and make a list of ideas from its predecessor that I'd like to keep thinking about. They range from broad concepts to specific tasks. Here are some examples that were deferred from the previous edition:
Add Some Chaos
Birdcage in Garden
Learn to Use a Sequencer
Only Run the Majors
Sharon Mills Preserve
Steve Gunn on 1/1/26
Jamie's '90s Demos
Thursday, September 11
"Do you remember Coach?"
A pause while I cycle through all the coaches I can think of. A sports coach, a life coach? Maybe a band we played with once? Coach from Cheers or The New Girl? That soundman at the brewpub in Albion who insisted I call him Coach?
This is such a typical Fido aside. He's trying to justify his use of "two peas in a pea-holder" to describe his friendship with Bruce. It's lost on me. I may have watched an episode or two of this sitcom 30 years ago, but retained no anecdotes from it.
We also talk about gigging, legacies, and haircuts. The first time Fido sat in with us he had a sort of reverse-mohawk — a narrow strip of short spiky hair on top with the rest cascading down around it to his shoulders. He's always been hairstyle-fluid. We talk about our love of the '60s garage band the Monks who wore brown robes and shaved tonsures into their heads. We were almost labelmates with the Monks when they made their unlikely comeback at the turn of the millennium. We all read bassist Eddie Shaw's fantastic memoir Black Monk Time and occasionally shared emails with him.
Friday, September 12
This week has worn me out. Personally, nationally, globally. I haven't allowed myself enough rest. I make it through the workday and a volunteer shift at a local food bank, then crash. My short 5PM nap has barely any effect.
I lay in bed for a while and read Robert MacFarlane's Is a River Alive?, which I finally bought yesterday. It lines up with all the deep time earth science I've been learning in my geology class, offering a poeticism and human perspective the textbooks lack.
At night I rally for the Bandeau show at Ziggy's and fall hook, line, and sinker for their opening bit where Greg appears to be missing and Tom M. "spontaneously" joins them on stage to sing a lounge version of his song "Where is Gregory?." On cue, Greg walks in the back door dressed in an old-timey nightshirt and cap with tassel. Between songs he slumps over his guitar, sitting on his amp and feigning naps. Their set echoes my own week — bursts of frantic action and creativity followed by weary lulls. Except theirs is theater.