Weeknotes: August 19-23, 2024

Monday, August 19

It's my last week of summer. One week from today, I will be one of those middle aged adults in a classroom full of teenagers at my local community college. My path of higher education ended indefinitely in April 1996 after two unfocused semesters at Central Michigan University, a school I attended mostly because my brother was already up there and it was the expected thing to do. My high school years were heavy on arts and humanities. I was a theater kid, president of my Thespian troup by senior year. I formed my first band in 7th grade and began gigging professionally at age 15. My brief college experience was half-hearted at best. I just didn’t have it in me. I wanted to make music.

For a couple weeks during Christmas break I landed a part-time job at Schoolkids’ Records down in Ann Arbor. By the end of spring semester I’d dropped out to go work there full time and start a band with my brother who had also skipped town. Even though he and I haven’t played music together in over a decade, we both still work in the music industy for the same company, shepherds of the vast musical database we’ve been studying since we were kids. Neither of us ever got a degree, we just transferred to the school of life.

Every now and then I've felt an inclination to give college another try, but the feeling usually passes and I move on with my life. This April I was again toying with the idea of higher learning and went so far as to apply for the Michigan Reconnect scholarship. Then I surprised myself by registering for a couple fall classes. All of a sudden, I'm one week away from entering my first classroom in 28 years.

Will I be able to keep myself interested and engaged? Can I overcome my long-held self image that I'm not cut out for school? Can I manage even the two classes I’m registered for? I honestly don’t know. Probably.

I have a lot of patience and self discipline. I’m very organized. I'm slow, but steady, and have a tendency for late blooming. I don't know how this back-to-school experience is going to go, but I'm trying to keep an open mind. At the very least, it will get me out of my comfort zone.

Tuesday, August 20

Finn the cat wakes me before dark. I'm in Brighton house-sitting for my parents and as soon as I stir, I hear all three dogs come running down the hallway in anticipation. Willow and Gracie prance around like sweet little idiots while I prepare their breakfast bowls. Islay is more subtle, but not without her enthusiasm. 

After work I do a trail run on the Penosha, following a path I’ve known intimately for almost my whole life. Later, I drive up I-96 to Twelve Oaks Mall. Novi was already a yawning sprawl of chain stores and malls when I was growing up and it’s still one of Metro Detroit’s big shopping hubs. I wrote a song about this city. With two vacant anchor stores (Sears and Lord & Taylor) Twelve Oaks looks more lonesome than I remember from the outside.

I walk the perimeter of both floors, browsing sale racks, trying a couple things on, but I come up empty. Like most Gen X-ers I have an ingrained sense of nostalgia for shopping malls, but nothing here looks like me and I just feel out of place. I get a few mental flashes from teendom and early adolescence. My friend Ed and I sitting outside of what was then Hudson's (now Macy’s) drinking mochas from Coffee Beanery. Me and my brother with our notebooks from the previous night's Headbanger's Ball episode looking for Savatage and Killer Dwarves cassettes at Tape World. Trying a Haribo cola-bottle gummy for the first time. Mingled aromas of hairspray, cologne, fabric, fast food, and moisture from the fountains. 

I’m feeling pressured and a bit rundown, so I bail on almost all my social commitments for the week. Passing on a dinner meetup in Brighton, I tell Amanda I've gone to Twelve Oaks to look for back-to-school clothes and she sends me photos from the previous week when she took her daughter there for the first time. They live in England now, but she has her own sentimental attachment and claims her "psyche has become obsessed with it, in my dreams and all." 

Wednesday, August 21

About two miles into today’s trail run I almost stumble over a kitten. The feral little tabby hustles into the undergrowth and I spend a few minutes beating the bushes trying to follow it. I end up on an adjacent mountain bike trail and circle back around to the main spur where I again find the kitten, now sitting right out in the open. I issue soothing sounds and approach carefully, but it spooks again into the brush. I give it another five minutes, trying to follow, but it's tough going and I lose sight of it. There is nothing more I can do at the moment.

I complete my loop and spend part of the afternoon helping a friend move furniture into his new home. On my drive back I detour to Bishop Lake and park near the trailhead where I’d spotted the kitten. This time I'm armed with a tin of cat food from my mom's pantry and a towel in case I'm able to scoop it up. The sandy path hides my footfalls as I seek out the bowed branch I’d laid across the trail as a hasty marker. I canvas the area, stopping often to listen and offering reassuring calls, but it's either moved on or doesn't want to be found.

If I could coax this cat from its hiding place I would probably adopt it. Taking in strays is a family tradition. Many of the cats we had growing up wandered in from these very woods and it would be a very Monger way for me to acquire a new pet. My house-sitting gig ends today and I'm going home to Ypsilanti, but I worry about the kitty and wonder if I should drive back out and look again tomorrow.

Thursday, August 22

After another two weeks of headaches and lackluster customer service, my new glasses finally arrive. I make a special midday trip into Ann Arbor to get the lenses transferred from my broken frames into the new ones. It seems like a minor event in this busy week, but the saga of these glasses has lasted more than a month. To celebrate I stop for bibimbap at Kosmo's, then go home for about an hour. I'm barely back to work before I have to leave again to make my haircut appointment. 

My last two hairstylists both disappeared without warning. The first of them I'd been seeing for over a decade before she completely vanished. I never heard from her again or found out what caused her abrupt departure. I hope she's okay. I try a new stylist from the same salon as my last one and it's a win. New glasses and hair, a banner day.

Friday, August 23

In back to back transactions I am wished good luck. The first by the owner of the local hardware store as I buy yet another garden hose connector. Experience must have taught her it's a 50/50 chance the customer will get the right one. As it turns out, luck is not on my side and I have to return later in the day to exchange it.

The second comes from the friendly clerk at City Hall. I'm here to renew my residential parking pass and she seems mildly impressed that the new credit card machine is performing as it should. We keep up a good natured banter the whole time I'm here. She suggests that I have some sort of machine-whispering mojo and that it just might be my lucky day. She tells me I should consider buying a lottery ticket. I know there isn't much luck involved in the renewal of a civic permit, but I appreciate her attitude just the same. 

Heading home from my second hardware store trip, I stop at a taco truck and eat my meal at Frog Island, watching a lawn crew kick up a dust storm as they mow the dried out soccer pitch. I feel exhausted and my feet scuff uncharacteristically against the pavement during my walk home. I lay on the couch and watch the final two episodes of Michelle and Robert King’s fantastic series, Evil. It's been one of my favorite shows of the past few years and I'm disappointed it hasn't been renewed. Still, four seasons is about right. Fewer chances for shark-jumping.