Weeknotes: September 22–26, 2025
Monday, September 22
I'm listening to the Tannahhill Weavers, a Scottish folk band who include a glossary of pronunciations and Scottish words on their lyrics sheets.
Some are logical:
Dinnae = don't know
Gane = gone
Tae - to
Twa = two
Wasnae = was not
Some less so:
Ken = know
Maun = may
Muckle = big
Trews = tartan trousers
Yin = one
I've loved this band since I first heard them on a Rykodisc compilation sometime around 1990. They were my gateway to Celtic music.
Out my office window the ground's quiet applause welcomes rain for the first time in a month. Later, at the pet store, the ceiling has sprung a leak and two dog pools have been pulled off a nearby shelf to catch it. On the equinox the world is liquid again.
Weeknotes: September 15–19, 2025
Monday, September 15
A night of dog-sitting for my parents who are enjoying a micro-vacation up in Empire, visiting the beaches they love. I'm glad for them. The world has felt so heavy lately — we all need a break. My mood tilts into nostalgia when I reach my hometown.
I hike the Penosha Trail and take the new spur that heads north up the U-Hill, my old childhood sledding destination. I know some of it is perspective, but the topography has also changed. This new path still young and needs some feet on it. I'm happy to oblige.
In my dad's workshop I use the table saw to advance a few woodworking projects, then drive into town to pick up another board at Home Depot. The gallery of ghouls just inside the entrance makes me smile — maybe humanity isn't that bad after all. If your job is designing life-sized Halloween monsters for box stores, you've got a pretty cool job. The clerk at the checkout asks what the board is for.
"My cat is moving back in with me next week after four years apart. I'm building a raised shelf for his food dish so my dog won't eat it."
She immediately warms to me — you know when you've found another animal person. She tells me about her 15-year-old deaf and blind cat and how they have to bang on the furniture, using vibrations to let it know where they are.
"I judge people by how kind they are to animals and children," she tells me.
This is a metric I can agree with.
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.
Weeknotes: September 1–5, 2025
Monday, September 1
Labor Day lines up with the first of the month in satisfying synchronicity. I'm off work and just back from my trip to Marquette, so really it feels like the eighth day of the previous week. I started school last Monday — two classes, one of them entirely online — and ran my marathon on Saturday. Here's what I learned: don't underestimate yourself.
All summer long I struggled to gain momentum. My training felt sluggish and ineffective, and I wasn't even sure why I was still doing it. I spent the past month tempering my expectations, convincing myself I was grossly undertrained. I slept poorly the week of the race. The drive north, which I usually love, felt like an upstream slog against holiday weekend traffic. I arrived in Marquette later than I wanted to and had generally written off my chances of finishing in under four hours.
The sun rose through the mist in Turner-esque drama. I shivered in the dawn chill at the starting line, trying to summon my usual race day excitement, wondering how I’d find the motivation needed to carry myself the distance. Four miles into the race I was still searching for motivation, yet somehow maintaining a brisk 7:40 pace. I’d started out in the front third of the field, assuming I’d fall back pretty quickly. I did, but not by much. By mile nine I’d settled into a groove and came to a surprising realization — I had grit. A whole wellspring of it earned from 11 previous marathons and 16 years of running.
Having a clear motivating factor is helpful, but sometimes you just have to rely on your guts and put one foot in front of the other.
I hit the wall early around mile 17, and had to lean pretty hard on that grit to get me through the last nine miles, most of them along sunny, placid Lake Superior. At mile 26, the finishing chute appeared before me with the great bulk of the Yooperdome just behind it. I found my kick and sprinted the last 200 meters with a smile on my face, passing another runner a few feet ahead of the finish line just for the hell of it. It was one of the best races I've ever run and I was only a few minutes off my PR. I had completely counted myself out before I even started. In hindsight, how could I not know I had this in me? Sometimes you just have to go through it to come to a simple truth. It felt like a turning point in what has been a rather desultory year.
Back in Ypsilanti my legs still ache, but my head feels better. My attitude has improved and I can feel some creative momentum building. If I can make a comeback like I did in Marquette, I wonder what else I can do?
Weeknotes: August 18–22, 2025
In my dream I'm a volunteer on a space station. I can't believe I got to go to space for free — I'll be the envy of all my friends. I move to one of the thick glass portholes and look out at the dark expanse. As my eyes adjust I see a large object resembling a human skull, obsidian black and tinted purple and green like the aurora. It's heading toward us and I immediately sense it's an alien spacecraft. I back away from the window and about a minute later feel the impact as it collides with us.
The next part of the dream is more benevolent, though bittersweet. I'm back on earth, trying to insert a folded wool blanket into a cupboard. My cat Briggs is in there, alive and seemingly in full health, though I somehow know there is a terminal illness within him. I pull him out and try to hold him, but he's not having it. Classic grumpy Briggs. While he lays on the rug cleaning himself, I marvel at his appearance. It's the younger, well-fed Briggs of feline middle age, not the haggard cat of his final days.
I wake with a co-mingling of fear and wistfulness. An alien encounter and a visit from my late cat. What a way to start the week.
Weeknotes: August 11–15, 2025
Monday, August 11
I didn't expect to grieve so heavily for Briggs. I hadn't lived with him for four years when he died, but his passing stirred up emotions I didn't realize I'd been harboring. My brother says "cats are different, they span multiple eras." He's right. Briggs was the last connection to several different parts of my life.
This morning I'm a little more myself. I listen to Robert Shaw Chorale's ridiculous, but transcendent Sea Shanties album, then Jules Shear's debut. Next up is Joan Shelley's beautiful self-titled album from 2017. I get halfway through the first song then remove it from the platter. Too sad.
The past couple of nights I've found unexpected comfort watching social media clips of the Oasis reunion tour. They were never a band I cared about. I wasn't into the songs and the constant in-fighting and drama always put me off. Now, I’m drawn to the sense of bonhomie surrounding this tour. Massive stadiums drunk on lager and nostalgia, shouting out every word, the Gallaghers seemingly getting on well. I open my Instagram feed to videos of Liam balancing a tambourine atop his bucket hat and Noel in a button-up polo shirt looking like a weekend dad-rocker. I’m oddly moved by all of it. Are Oasis our saviors?
Colonel Briggs: 2008–2025
I've lived with and cared for many animals over the years, but Colonel Briggs was the first pet I actively introduced into my life. By that I mean he was the first pet of my adult years — I chose him. When K and I started dating, she already had a cat (Das Meowie) and a dog (Sequoia). I loved them as I loved all the pets I grew up with, probably more.
Weeknotes: August 4–7, 2025
Monday, August 4
I dreamed I was in a sitcom. There was a daffy character who liked to get her hair cut at cheap department stores and carried around a little green book that was assumed to be some kind of positive affirmational text. Just before I woke up, another character went to spy on her while she sat in the department store salon. The big reveal was that the little green book was actually a gambling how-to titled Let It Bet — she had a severe gambling addiction. End of scene.
I drop off my car at the mechanic's for another pricey repair then catch a ride home from Donald. On the way back to Ypsi we stop at DJ's Bakery on Packard where I get a rainbow sprinkle doughnut to offset my automotive woes. Later, I bum a ride off my brother to go pick it back up. We listen to the Ghettobillies, an Ann Arbor band we played shows with in the last century. Our two bands had little in common except that we were both misfits with no obvious music scene partners — this and a shared sense of humor resulted in an oddball pairing and camaraderie that lasted several years.
About a half mile from the mechanic we come across a road block that wasn't there this morning. I release Jamie from his brotherly obligation and walk the rest of the way. In front of the violin shop where I worked for 15 years a fire hydrant is gushing a jet of water into the storm drain and the driveway is being dug up — there seems to be a broken water main. I have a long history of walking up and down this road which is also home to the studio where I have made every one of my albums. It's mostly industrial (S. Industrial Hwy.), but I have great affection for this part of town and particularly this road. It still feels like home.
Weeknotes: July 28–August 1, 2025
Monday, July 28
Site 41 at Brevort Lake Campgrounds. It's on the quieter, wilder side of the lake and comes with a small corridor leading to a secluded window of access framed by shady cedars and bisected by a tall white pine. After a dawn swim I lay in the hammock I've strung up next to this window and read my book. A mallard and her nearly-grown brood glide by. An eagle’s reflection slips across the water's surface. A loon makes its tremulous, watery call. Chipmunks race up and down the cedars.
A few hours later our group of nine is paddling down the Manistique River through eleven unpopulated miles of the Seney Wildlife Refuge. It's a stunning bit of wilderness, though none of us was prepared for the unrelenting swarms of deer flies that circle our heads for almost the entire trip. There's a lot of swearing and waving of hats mixed with determined nature-going. We gut it out and survive to drink whiskey around the fire later. Out on the lake the loons' calls sound like a closing ceremony. LOL — Lots of Loons.
Weeknotes: July 21–25, 2025
I love it when the teller sends your check for a little ride on the scanner. Watching it loop around the bend is my favorite part of visiting the bank. So many transactions happen invisibly, I think I'm just excited when I see something happen in front of me. Like the satisfying thump of a rubber stamp.
Twenty minutes later I'm at Barnes & Noble buying yet another copy of Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice for a friend's birthday. I was like this with Becky Chambers' The Long Way To a Small, Angry Planet — every book lover I knew got a copy on their birthday or at Christmas. At the top of the escalator, I take a few hasty steps down, then realize I'd rather enjoy the free ride. The breadth of the store comes into focus around me and I feel some nostalgia for the pre-digital world when a big chain book store felt like the gateway to possibility.
My next stop is less inspiring — Dick's Sporting Goods, another box store in a strip mall. I've been here three times this summer and whenever I walk through the door Aerosmith's "Dream On" is playing. That can't be a coincidence. But why would this gritty 52-year-old rock ballad be a cornerstone of the Dick's playlist? Aren't there other more appropriate jock jams, even within the Aerosmith catalog? What about "Walk This Way" or even "Sweet Emotion." Does "Dream On" sell more tennis rackets?
In Saline I help K hang a couple shelves and we share a pizza. Across the street working in her garden is my old neighbor Kay. She lost her husband in the fall of 2020 while I was still living there. We all loved Doug. He was one of those affable small town neighbors — friendly, helpful, funny, a reliable presence on our street. I still send Kay a Christmas card every year, but haven't talked to her in ages. I walk over and we catch up for a while. She says she's turning 87 on Friday. I make a mental note to send her a birthday card too.
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.
A2XA2
Although I intend to create a larger archive of posters on this website, there’s no reason I shouldn’t also include various design ephemera here in the blog. This is the full 11" x 17" poster for my upcoming show at the North Star Lounge in Ann Arbor. You might remember that I immortalized this cozy little venue in song on my last project. I have made a handful of appearances there over the past few years, always accompanied by CC. She’s sitting this one out because she’s about to become a mother — her due date is mere days after the gig . This will be my first time playing North Star on my own.