Weeknotes: December 30, 2024 - January 3, 2025

Monday December 30

The sun returns after several days of drear and what a difference it makes. I visit my parents and eat chili seasoned with brown sugar. My mom puts brown sugar in everything, a secret ingredient of her long happy life. My dad and I work down in the woodshop cutting and sanding some lumber for a couple home improvement projects I hope to complete before my vacation ends. Last night I saw the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, and was unexpectedly moved by it. It made me think of my parents and I urge them to go see it while it's in theaters.

I've had a lifelong respect for Dylan, but he's never really been my guy. I’ve owned various records, sung his songs, watched documentaries, and even read his memoir. I've flirted with "going through a Dylan phase" many times in my life, but it just never quite clicks. I didn't really have any expectations for Timothée Chalamet; my only reference was the recent Dune movies, but I've seen David Lynch's version so many times, it's hard for me to accept anyone but Kyle MacLachlan as my Paul Atreides.

Anyway, I loved the movie and was won over by Chalamet. I think biopics are always more successful when they set limitations and examine a specific era of a subject's life. The Greenwich Village folk scene of the early-'60s has always held an allure for me. Although they grew up in Chicago, my parents were the perfect age for that time. Together since they were 16, they graduated high school in 1963 and loved music more than anything. They were bopping around the clubs and coffeehouses of Chicago, steeping in the cultural abundance of that era during their late-teens. How lucky for them. I loved my teendom in the mid-'90s, but if there were another era I could be young in, I bet I would have thrived in that one. I'll just have to try and thrive in the present, a worthy goal for 2025.

Tuesday December 31

I've just come back from a run -- my 146th of the year, according to Strava -- and there's a knock on the door. A guy from the water utility crew asks me to move my car out of the street so they can dig a hole and inspect my water main. I knew this was coming; the massive potholing truck has been lumbering ever closer to my house all day. It's part of a survey that's been going on for months and is actually quite a helpful to city residents.

I receive printed instructions to flush my taps for five minutes to clear any potential debris from my water stream. Outside, the truck sounds like a jet turbine shaking my windows and driving Islay crazy. She won't stop barking at the men standing out on the sidewalk. I'm trying to cook lunch and something is burning in the oven, setting off the fire alarms. All is chaos. I receive another knock and the foreman sheepishly asks me to test my water pressure. They've accidentally broken the ancient pipe which is now leaking steadily into the storm drain out front. 

My water pressure seems fine and nothing is leaking inside the house. An orange and white emergency barrier has been set up around the hole and the crew vows to return on Thursday after the holiday. I'll just have to trust that it won't become an emergency in the meantime.

At midnight, after a convivial evening with friends, I'm standing in my living room listening to Pete Seeger's "Russian Folk Themes and Yodel" and managing a flurry of well-wishing text messages. I drink two glasses of water to dilute the mezcal and go to bed. 

Wednesday January 1

I'm reading Chris Frantz's memoir, Remain in Love, about his career with Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club and his marriage to bassist Tina Weymouth. I picked it up in at a record store in November, but quickly abandoned it because I didn't love the tone. I tried again a few days ago and managed to get into a groove. Clearly, he has had a lot of friction with David Byrne over the years and certain passages come across as too accusatory for my taste. I get it. I've been in bands for years. I know how relationships suffer, but I don’t read memoirs for the gossip and grievances. Otherwise, it’s a decent read and I spend a quiet morning with it.

Midday, I set a cozy little blaze in my portable fire pit while I take down my Christmas lights and work in the shed. Lighting a fire on New Year's Day is a tradition I've held for the past decade. Even if the weather is foul, I'll find a way to hold my little ceremony and welcome the coming year with light and combustion. In the evening my brother and his girlfriend invite me over for an English roast complete with mushy peas, roasted potatoes, and Yorkshire pudding. We drink Boddington's and toast the new year which, 18 hours in, has already been tumultuous. Just weeks away, the doomsday inauguration looms.

Thursday January 2

At the entrance to Lowe's I run into an old co-worker from my previous life as a violin technician. We catch up and he enthusiastically tells me that he still listens to one of my albums, which is very sweet. He can't remember which one and insists that we figure it out on the spot. After laboriously searching his iTunes library, he brings up a record by a Detroit band called the Juliets which I was not in and haven't thought about in years. They were good, though! I think we played a couple shows together in 2010.

We part and I head over to the last chance plant cart and rescue a gently browning palm with tall waving fronds which has been marked down to $10. 

Friday January 3

When I wake up I have the Burger King "BK, have it your way" jingle in my head. My holiday vacation is coming to a close and I've accepted that even with ample time off, I will only ever reach a certain level of leisure in my life. The urge to fill up my hours with endless self-assigned tasks is just too strong. 

After installing a low oak shelf I've built for my bathroom I meet with a city contractor to plan the replacement of my water pipes which are apparently galvanized steel from the 1930s. When they came back yesterday, they were unable to make a partial repair. It seems we'll have to get the full monty with an excavation and all the trimmings.

In the afternoon I drive to IKEA to buy a planter for my discount palm tree. On Ford Road I follow signs for an estate sale sign into a subdivision of beige McMansions. The house is large, uninspiring, and filled with bland items that reveal little about their owners’ personalities, yet a part of me still feels nostalgic as I explore in my stockinged feet. Everything here is outrageously overpriced. In an upstairs bathroom a small can of Axe body spray, presumably used, is marked $5. I leave with buying anything and head for the Nordic bounty a few miles away.