Sick day

Thanks to a long doctor appointment involving a lot of drawn blood, I’m convalescing in my freshly painted apartment today. It looks pretty weird in here with all the furniture dragged into the middle of the room, but the splash of color has done a world of good to my humble abode.

The day off has also given me a chance to get caught up on some reading. I finally finished Robert Sobel’s terrific exercise in alternate history, For Want of a Nail. It was an easy and interesting read, and I would have finished it much faster had I stayed in town the past two weekends. Sobel begins at the Revolutionary War and imagines the future of North America had the British won the battle of Saratoga, and not lost as they did in real life. The book gets off to an interesting start as most of the Founding Fathers are taken to Britain and executed for treason, so the destiny of our continent is in the hands of an entirely different group of men. Taking a different tack from a lot of alternate history that I’ve read, Sobel wrote his book almost like a history textbook, following political and economic development more than individual lives. It’s a great study of what we might have been had one American general hesitated rather than acting.

Once I was done with that book, I started E.L. Doctorow's City of God, and have finished about two-thirds of it already. It’s a little less linear than most of what I’ve been reading lately, so I’ve really had to pay attention, but I’m enjoying it. The basic story involves a cross stolen from the top of a Catholic Church in New York that reappears on the roof of a synagogue, but along the way, most of the characters grapple with faith and their personal image of God.

And to keep with the theme, here’s a bit of one of my favorite Fountains of Wayne songs, appropriately titled “Sick Day’.

Air conditioning is my friend

I spent the morning sitting on the patio at one of the seven Starbucks within legitimate walking distance of my building reading The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova's enthralling novel about a hunt for the historical Dracula, but when the temperature got hot enough that I was sweating through my shirt just sitting there, I did what any sensible person would do... I went running. Now that my temporary insanity is over and I've hydrated myself back from the brink of collapse, I'm devoting the rest of my day to indoor pursuits, starting with listening to my new music purchases. Before settling in at Starbucks, I stopped by Luna Music and picked up Fountains of Wayne's new double-disc b-side collection, Out of State Plates, and Doves' Live at Eden, an import EP from 2002. If this EP is half as good as their show I saw in Chicago, it's bound to be be worth every penny of the $6.99 it cost.

I also threw together two more mixes. The first is mellow and largely acoustic, and the other is because I decided to capture a momentary bout of nostalgia for high school on CD. Here's the track lists:

Disc One:
The Man Who Told Everything, Doves
On The Bus Mall, The Decemberists
Still Be Around, Uncle Tupelo
Part of the Queue, Oasis
Going To California, Led Zeppelin
Scattered Black And Whites, Elbow
Weight Of The World, Chantal Kreviazuk
Paul Simon, The Russian Futurists
Only The Strongest Will Survive (James Lavelle Remix), Hurricane #1
The Sulphur Man, Doves
Come With Me Tonight, Bob Schneider
It's All in My Mind, Teenage Fanclub
A Message, Coldplay
Wires, Athlete
Casimir Pulaski Day, Sufjan Stevens
May This Be Love, The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Fix You, Coldplay
Buffalo Herds And Windmills, The Samples

Disc Two:
The Needle And The Damage Done, Neil Young
Get Off My Cloud, The Rolling Stones
American Girl, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
I'm Looking Through You, The Beatles
Rock & Roll, Led Zeppelin
Limelight, Rush
Can't Stand Losing You, The Police
Swingtown, The Steve Miller Band
Feel Like Makin' Love, Bad Company
White Room, Cream
Don't Stop Believin', Journey
Sweet Emotion, Aerosmith
Communication Breakdown, Led Zeppelin
Peace Frog, The Doors
You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, The Beatles
Cold As Ice, Foreigner
Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black), Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Beast Of Burden, The Rolling Stones
Eleanor Rigby, The Beatles
Baba O'Riley, The Who
Take Me Home, Phil Collins