Jon’s birthday today. It wasn’t like last year. He didn’t have much planned. And I worked so I missed the brunt of it. By the time I got home, Jon was already hitting blackout time. I was a bit angry for some reason. I don’t know what it is, but it’s different seeing your boyfriend drunk than it is when you witness your friends.

I started cleaning the kitchen because it was a mess. When it gets messy I get scared that the ants might come back, and Jon got up and ripped one of the stove burners off to clean underneath. Then he had trouble putting it back in, and JoHN came up and tried to help him, but Jon said that he was fine. Then, once the burner was back in place, he turned the stove on and I yelled at him because I thought that he was going to put his hand on it. Evidently he was just testing to see if it worked.

So in the end, I was kind of a fucker tonight. And I feel bad and I want to apologize. But Jon is going to be out of it tonight. He’s asleep and sweating profusely on the couch right now.

To be honest, I don’t even know how old Canada turned today.  Sometimes it just doesn’t matter how much you love something; you’re still going to be too damn lazy to bother to show up for the party.  Or to even write a card.

My day started bright and early at six A.M.  And then at ten past after I hit the snooze button once.  As one might imagine, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.  Part of that had to do with the heat.  Part of it had to do with the drunk fuckers who were, once again, chilling in the parking lot outside.  Thirdly, Jon was snoring, so I managed to get the bulk of my sleep in my hot as fuck bedroom.

Jon had a nap today at eight-thirty, which was why he wasn’t really in the mood to go to Ryan’s for a BBQ.  There was also a storm tonight, which was probably the only good thing, because now the air is actually cold outside.  I didn’t really want to walk through the wind, though.  I feel bad that I’m not on Ryan’s patio right now, but I didn’t feel like leaving Jon when he didn’t feel like going.

I’m okay with today, though.  Even though the most Canadian thing I did today was listen to The Birthday Massacre on the way to work.

The day after the Matt Good concert, I had another day off, and I figured that, for the most part, I would spend it feeling half-dead, trying to write. Then Steve called, because he had the day off as well. So I figured then that, for the most part, my day would consist of Steve playing XBox, and me not writing. Then we got hungry, so we went to McDonald’s, and I figured that the rest of the day would be a mess of us complaining about how disgusting we felt afterward. And, of course, me not writing.

Afterward, Steve decided that we should drive down to Total Pet to pay Padze a visit. So we did that, and Padze was on his lunch break, and we spent our time waiting for him looking at animals. Steve suggested that maybe I should buy a new betta fish to replace Dwight since he died (I know I never mentioned that here, but he did, and may he rest in peace). I figured that I would, up until we went to see the kittens. Usually Total Pet doesn’t have them, but there were two of them there, and one of them was already on hold.

Padze came back from his lunch break. Normally, if this post was anything like television worked, I would have ended up writing something genius. I just came out of the store with a cat.

Originally, Steve and I decided to name him Sir John A. MacDonald Cat, but then I realized that I would be living with three John’s. I was alright with that at first, but Rachael hated the idea when I told her about it, and I also realized that the name “John” didn’t suit him. So Rachael suggested “Higgins”, and that seemed about right.

I tried to take pictures, but my cameras aren’t so great and this cat is too young to move slow or hold a pose for more than a quarter of a second. He also the biggest attention whore I know. Here’s a shitty video.

Last night’s show was a blow-away. Despite the fact that there were three of those women who tend to get too impacted by music sitting in front of us (waving their hands and grooving away), I sat in that third row and just watched and listened to the entire show, amazed. Normally, when people say these things I just want to roll my eyes, but I guess there’s something about hearing some of your favourite songs live that changes things. Maybe not because you’re hearing it from the musician; you’re experiencing it, too.

Matt’s opening act was a band called The Spades from Peterbourough, Ontario, who weren’t exactly my normal cup of tea for music, but they were quite a feat, nonetheless. The lead guitarist was some kind of wonderful, and as a group, they worked together amazingly well. At one point during their show, they did this long instrumental bit, and it was so intense to watch. Jon and I were just blown away, and, during the intermission, we bought their CD. A song that Jon really enjoyed was “The Next Round”, which reminded Jon a lot about his days in Princeton. That’s what small-town songs do, I guess.

When Matthew Good came on, he started off with “Champions of Nothing”, which is the ten-minute opening track of Hospital Music that just grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let you down again until a few seconds after it’s over. And yet, you’re let go, unharmed. Hearing it live was just experiencing that same feeling over, tenfold. Most of the night’s songs were from Hospital Music, which I appreciated, but Matt also threw in some unexpected songs in there, one of which was “Blue Skies Over Bad Lands”. That song has always been one of my silent favourites, and hearing it live was such a treat.

Between songs, while taking a break for some water, Matt would take a while to make comments and whathaveyou. I never knew that he was such a sense of humour. I always knew that he could make a joke, but he was just damn entertaining.

My favourite songs of the night, aside from the ones I already mentioned, were “99% Of Us Is Failure”, “Weapon”, and “Born Losers”. After the encore, the band came back onstage for three more songs, the first of which included Beautiful Midnight’s “Giant”, as well as a new song, and the night’s closer, “Girl In The War”. After the show, Jon and I pulled the whole obsessed fan move and waited outside of Matt’s bus with a few other people for photos and autographs. I’m assuming that he wasn’t feeling very well, considering that he stayed inside of the bus and was in his pajama pants at the time, which is alright. Earlier during his tour, he mentioned something about not feeling well on his blog, so I wouldn’t think of him as being an ass for it.

The last time I ever waited backstage after a concert was when Heather and Rachael and Louise and I had free tickets to Kalan Porter, and for some stupid reason Rachael and Heather really wanted to see him. And so we waited amongst a bunch of twelve-year-old yuppies and their scary moms for him to come out. We waited for ages. And Kalan did come out, everybody started screaming and his bodyguards threw out some pre-signed pictures and Kalan went into the bus and that was that. Thank God the people I was around were much more sober in their obsession; not that I expected them to go nuts.

So one by one we went into the bus and had our photo taken and an autograph signed. I bought in my Hospital Music CD and got him to sign that. Then I had a picture taken and that was that, really. There was not intimate conversation or anything. I don’t know why. I’m sure it may have had something to do with him not feeling well, or perhaps he just didn’t want to deal with fans at the time. That’s fine, because I can easily picture myself being sick of fans left right and centre if I was remotely famous in some way.

Needless to say, it was grand. That’s the only way that I can really put it. Sometimes pictures just work better anyway:

Tonight is a big night for me. I’ve been waiting for this day for several months now, and I’ve had the tickets burning holes in my wallet all this time. Tonight I get to see Matthew Good, who has come through Kamloops on several occasions, only I was either broke or didn’t know or didn’t have anyone to go with or was just too damn lazy to really care much at all.

June has been pretty epic by way of events. I guess all the parties and get-togethers that have been occuring have taken all the excitement out of me, because during the last few days, I would think about this concert and not get all bent up about it. Last night, though, I mentioned it to my co-worker, Frank, who is also going tonight, and I started to feel more enthusiastic about it. Now I’m listening to Hospital Music and I am more than anxious, because when I heard this album last summer, I remember hoping that I would eventually get to listen to Matt play these songs.

I’ve been a Matt Good fan since he was still a part of the Matthew Good Band and had just released “Apparitions” as a single on Much Music. To this day, it’s still one of my favourite music videos, and is also what I consider to be the first good song I ever actually listened to. I kind of lost touch with the band during the days of Beautiful Midnight, but eventually my love was rekindled when I heard Matthew’s first solo single, “Weapon“, on the radio in the ninth grade. Since then I’ve been a die-hard, as Matt is not only an amazing musician, but a very wonderful person on the whole. I don’t know him, but I admire how much of a person he really is, what he can proudly stand up for, and the things he can so easily (or perhaps not so easily?) say. Normally I hate it when fans talk about their favourite artists as through they know them, but I think the reason why this pisses me off is because for most of these musicians (mainly mainstream ones), there isn’t a whole lot to admire.

Perhaps I sound like one of those dumb-ass fans as well. I don’t care. Matthew Good has been with me for a long time; his songs have inspired me and been with me all these years. And for once, I was able to go and buy the tickets. And for once, I’ll go and walk all the way to the damn Sagebrush Theatre to see him perform. And it will be, in one word, amazing.