Better now

OK, so following my Friday night meltdown, I had a good weekend. I got up early on Saturday and went out for breakfast at The Abbey, a semi-hip downtown coffeehouse where I drank a bottomless cup of coffee and read. Spending some time with the bohemian set made me feel a little better about Indy. In the afternoon I got a massage, and in my relaxed state, I decided to remove some clutter. As Phoenix says in their song Everything is Everything, "The things I do possess, sometimes they own me too." So now there's a lot less owning going on in my apartment. When I got home from my massage, I gutted my CD collection, packed up a huge amount of clothes for Goodwill, and disconnected my XBox with the intent to eventually sell it. There's still a lot more to go, but this was a good start. The rest of the weekend was spent buried in The Collected Gormenghast Novels (Titus Groan, Gormenghast, and Titus Alone) by Merwyn Peake. The books are the story of the new heir (Titus) to the gigantic, sprawling castle of Gormenghast, and his interactions with the rather Dickensian characters who live in the castle with him. I'm still deciding whether I like it.

Today, I discovered the music of Ted Leo & Pharmacists. I've read about them a lot, but never listened to the music until now. My friend Todd turned me on to a great blog, Chrome Wave, and through there, I made my way to the Ted Leo site, where you can download several mp3s from each of their albums. I recommend "Me and Mia" and "Ghosts". The music is different, but Leo's voice brings to mind one of the Finn Brothers (Neil and Tim, Crowded House, Split Enz) at certain points.