Goodbye 8036
Throughout her life, my mom has made a lifelong habit of correspondence — thank you notes, birthday cards, holiday cards, messages of sympathy, congratulations, or simply to say "I was thinking of you." I inherited this trait from her. I love sending and receiving mail. I always have stamps on hand and a box of notes ready for any occasion.
I began renting P.O. Box 8036 at Liberty Station in the summer of 1999. It's located in the vestibule of a downtown federal building that opened in 1977, the year I was born. At the time, my band was about to release our first album and we needed a business address to serve our administrative needs. Eventually that band ran its course, as did its predecessor, though we continued to list 8036 on subsequent legal documents. Over time, it became the de facto address for all my various enterprises: the Original Brothers and Sisters of Love, No Bitings Records, Great Lakes Myth Society, Northern Detective, Timothy Monger State Park.
Weeknotes: January 26–29, 2026
Monday, January 26 - Thursday, January 29
I walk the frozen city through trails that telegraph its residents' means and desires. The clean, sharp-edged channels of business who can afford a plow service terminate in white berms at property lines. Their residential equivalents usually extend the length of the block in neighborly harmony. Elsewhere, tidy lanes shoveled by hand taper into rough footpaths, then open back up again. You can identify the fastidious digger by the amount of cement showing underneath — they've been out more than once. The latecomers and reluctant shovelers' paths are lumpier, but at least they made an effort. All of it is stitched together in a patchwork of cooperation and need.
Weeknotes: January 19–23, 2026
Monday, January 19
I dream intensely, though when I wake, I can't remember any details. While the dark recedes, I stand with my coffee at the window, watching a snow squall whip down the street. Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day — no work or school, though I end up devoting time to both.
In the afternoon, I drive into town to buy ink cartridges for my printer. Arctic winds shoulder my little car as I try to stay in my lane amid the blowing snow. Minutes later, sunlight pierces my dirty windshield — it's a day of extremes.
Weeknotes: January 12–16, 2026
Monday, January 12
Winter semester starts bright and clear. On WCBN, the DJ is playing a block of Bowie tunes — "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)," "Look Back in Anger," "Heroes." Great Lakes Myth Society recorded a cover of "Look Back in Anger" many years ago with our friend Stirling, but it was never released. It was produced by Mike E. Clark of Insane Clown Posse fame.
I feel anxious about so many things lately, but today I'm nervous about the amount of work I'm taking on. Career, school, gigs, recording projects, this blog. I've been able to maintain it all well enough over the past two years, but the classes are getting more advanced and I'm not good at removing tasks from my life. I only ever seem to add more. There's a lot of winter left — I have to make sure it's not a joyless slog.
I pull into a parking spot behind a silver sedan whose license plate frame reads "I'm Speeding Because I Have to Poop."
Weeknotes: January 5–9, 2026
Monday, January 5
Driving west on Cross Street, there is a police barricade just past the Domino's Pizza. Typical Ypsi drama, I think, and detour around it. At the vacuum cleaner store I present two of my kitchen knives for sharpening. Why is that a combo — vacuums and knives? The woman in front of me is having a new motor installed in her KitchenAid mixer. I guess they do a little bit of everything.
I need to drum up a some cash for next week, so I spend the next hour Door Dashing. At La Marqueza Taqueria, Jodi B's order isn't ready yet, so I wait on a stool and listen to a young AT&T salesman make an awkward business pitch to the cashier. I get the sense that everyone in the room — even the salesman — is just waiting for it to be over. Despite the lateness of her order, I get a small tip from Jodi.
At home, I pull out the red plastic milk crate that holds all my percussion toys. I lay down shaker, maraca, tambourine, and vibraslap parts, but when I listen back, I realize I've accidentally left the monitors on — there's a ton of bleed and I have to track them all again. Meanwhile, my phone is blowing up. Behind that police barricade on Cross, a man with a sword is holed up inside his house after a neighborly dispute. When officers first arrived at the scene, he brandished his weapon at them. The standoff has now exceeded 20 hours. Typical Ypsi drama.
Weeknotes: December 29, 2025–January 2, 2026
Monday, December 29 – Friday, January 2
Silver days and cozy nights. The illness that tugged at my throat just before Christmas reached its crescendo on Sunday, then persisted to a lesser degree through the new year. It ran parallel to a week of dazzling snowstorms, reminding me of childhood winters, sledding hills, and runny noses. I always seemed to have a cold during the holiday break. I even spent a night in my boyhood bedroom, house-sitting for my parents, re-examining my hometown, and hiking snowy segments of the Penosha Trail. I bushwacked my way to the reedy edge of Deidrich Lake, frozen over like I remembered it, though not enough for skating. The next morning I stood on the high ridge above Mt. Suicide, a classic thinking spot from my earnest teenage years.
New Year's Eve, stepping from the ambient glow of Andy's bar into the December hush to find the Frog Island pathway draped in a mat of virgin snow. That's how you start a new year — you make your mark on a blank page. My footprints mirrored the river then crossed over it at my favorite bridge. At home I hugged my pets and said good riddance to a year of tumult and chaos.