Weeknotes: July 8-12, 2024
Monday, July 8
In my dream I'm exploring a vast art deco hotel. It's mostly empty, either abandoned or in the offseason. Crates of interesting goods are stacked haphazardly around a casino-like room and behind the ornate bar I notice a beat-up cardboard box advertising a Casio keyboard model I've never seen before. What I pull out of it ends up being a gig bag containing an ornate handmade bouzouki, or maybe a cittern. Its strings are strangely paired with the middle ones in overstuffed clusters of three or four, all tuned in unison rather than octaves. I also notice the wood has rotted around the soundhole and on the back. A shame, as it's a beautifully designed instrument. I decide not to steal it.
I spend some time with Pretzel, my neighbor's three-legged cat, for whom I'm caring this week. He has barfed on his white couch blanket every day and every day I carry it down to the laundry room and re-wash it. I listen to Jake Xerxes Fussell's new album as I drive to Dexter to meet up with my cousins one last time before they depart to their respective homes in Pennsylvania and Florida. After dinner we visit our grandparents' grave where last summer we also laid some of their mom's ashes in a spontaneous little family ceremony. Then it's hugs all around and off we go into the furnace of a July evening. I put on some Hawaiian slack key music and keep all the windows down even on the highway.
Tuesday, July 9
Out on my run I'm shocked by the high volume of traffic on the roads outside of town. It's 1 PM, where are they all going? On my street a neighbor has mowed his scant front lawn with a weed trimmer. It's a bit of a hack job, but I'm charmed by the little clump of daisy fleabane he left standing right in the center. I work until 5:30, then visit our quirky local gift shop to buy a birthday card. While I'm there, two customers excitedly inquire about employment. The clerk gives both the same reply "It's a full part-time position that will last at least through Christmas." Maybe I misheard her, but what is full part-time? A strong commitment to working part-time? I do love this shop. It would be a fun place to work.
Wednesday, July 10
A tropical depression. The name strikes me as funny. I feel like I'm suffering from a tropical depression. To medicate, I do what I always do which is probably too much. I cook a batch of bland food for my pancreatic dog, write several assignments for work, practice my songs, wash Pretzel's blanket, promote my upcoming gigs, go for a run, cook lunch, work on my blog, write another assignment, go to an eye exam, get my guitar's saddle adjusted, take Islay for her second walk, cook dinner, restring my guitar, practice some more, organize my finances, and probably dozens of other unconscious tasks I don't remember. K wants to meet up for a drink in the evening so I drive back to Ann Arbor and we catch up in a cozy cocktail bar. Before bed I read Robyn Hitchcock's new memoir, 1967, and note a couple interesting phrases about his father whom he describes as "an architectural Christian" and a creative "drifting across his skill set in search of his most compulsive talent."
Thursday, July 11
"Egyptian Skyline." Where do I put this? Into which journal or notebook does this errant scrawl go? I have so many physical artifacts for capturing words, noises, and ideas. The more analog ones lay before me: a composition book for lyrics-in-process, a small Moleskine pocket notebook for lists and personal data, a mid-sized Moleskine for abstract free-writing, a large Moleskine annual planner for daily journaling and life-organizing, my everyday Field Notes book for a bit of everything, and a half-sized clipboard containing a sheaf of in-process setlists. Several pens and pencils lay across my desktop and many more are stowed in a black metal container. Three inkpots (two black, one copper) service my fountain pens and a heavy duty electric pencil sharpener is about halfway filled with wood and graphite shavings.
Then there is my iPhone for videos, photos, and voice memo recordings, and on a shelf to my left are two handheld cassette recorders, an old minidisc recorder, and their related media. Five external hard drives are stacked within sight, as is an old Polaroid instant camera. There is an ancient MacBook Pro that operates my outdated DAW and the PC I'm presently typing on, a gateway to the vast cloud of information I've stored in Google Drive. I even tuck spare phrases into temporary worklists in my company's database where I will have to look at them daily. "Eugene Laundry" and "Prayer Goblin" were both the names of Spotify playlists I made before I poached them for song titles. Maybe I save too much. Not all ideas are worth keeping, but I've developed such an ingrained habit of idea-hoarding that I can't imagine a day without archiving something.
Friday, July 12
I was exhausted last night and felt scatterbrained at band practice. I had to message CC to be reassured that my vibe wasn't as off as I thought it was. We are very similar in our social anxieties and people-pleasing desires. She and her husband are visiting Hawaii next week and it inspires me to dig out my travel journals and see if I can offer some Maui recommendations. As I revisit my ten year old notes, this one sticks out to me: "Paid $5 to a guy for some dried mangoes because he danced in front of our car on a weird mountain road."
In addition to their jaw-dropping beauty, I also remember those lush volcanic mountains containing an abundance of feral cats and chickens, the latter of which were so lean and wild we referred to them as "athletic chickens." I’m also reminded of a wonderful restaurant in Lahaina called Mala Ocean Tavern where we dined on a patio just above the beach while sea turtles lazed in the gentle surf below. I Google it to see if they survived last year's wildfires. They did, and re-opened in February, but this caveat on their website is heartbreaking: "We kindly request that you avoid inquiring about the Lahaina Wildfires to our staff, as they have all been personally affected."
Lahaina is/was a beautiful little city that will live forever in my memory. I felt so emotional when the news of its near-total destruction played out last August. I can't imagine what those people went through. We took a boat from Lahaina way out into the ʻAuʻau Channel to watch migrating humpback whales. Viewed from the ocean, I was so struck by the green vitality of the island, it seemed almost unreal. I took this photo which shows the shore of Lahaina with the mountains rising up behind it.
