Vickers went for an ultrasound on Monday. The vet said his liver is failing and he needs to be put down by the end of the week. So I’ll be taking Vickers in tomorrow morning to be put to sleep.

Vickers has been my closest companion for 14 years and I’m broken-hearted. I’m finding it hard to believe that he’s here today and he won’t be tomorrow. The vet says he is in discomfort and is probably experiencing headaches and nausea. I don’t know what a cat headache looks like. He seems fine to me which just makes it harder. We’ve just been hanging out and everything seems so normal. But I guess there is no sense in trying to pretend that this isn’t happening.

Vickers has definitely lost weight. He’s skinnier and I can feel his bony shoulders and the ripple of his backbone. His demeanour is the same as always though.

He still climbs up on the couch at my feet, same as always, and walks up the arm and along the back of the couch and down the other arm, and figures out where the Macbook is so he can sit right in front of it, same as always. He’s lying across my shoulder purring right now as I pet him with one hand. I feel so guilty. Would he still be purring if he knew I was planning to snuff him tomorrow morning?

The veterinarian said to forget about what’s healthy for a cat and let him eat whatever he wants this week. So I’ve been feeding him bacon and eggs and coffee, and a can of tuna everyday, and a hamburger, and peach yogurt and Mars bars and fried chicken and steak and mozzarella cheese. And gin and tonics and a fine cigar. I hope he is having a good time.

And tomorrow morning, that’s it. They’ve given me three options: I can take away his body, or they can cremate him, or they can cremate him and I can take away the ashes. I’m not really happy with any of these choices.

For half a second I thought about taking away the body and burying Vickers in a hole in Gaspereau Forks cemetery right next to the place that’s reserved for me. But I suppose it’s not a good idea to be burying stuff in the cemetery anytime I feel like it. They might have a system or something.

I considered taking away the ashes but only if I could have the remains conveyed to me in a coffee can à la The Big Lebowski. Vickers must’ve seen that movie at least as many times as I have. But Vickers has been an indoor cat ever since we moved to this big old house. If I were to scatter the ashes in the place he loved best I would wind up making quite a mess of the bathtub. I’ll probably leave it all to them because I don’t want to deal with it.

It’s been a hard week. I’ve known for months that it was coming but I still can’t believe this is it. Hanging out with Vickers tonight it seems like he’s got plenty of life left in him. I guess I just have to trust the vet.

At least we can say Vickers lived a long happy life and never suffered. That’s about the best any of us can hope for.

There is a bottle of Advil sitting on the kitchen counter back at my house. I’m thinking really hard about that bottle right now. I have one of those headaches that makes me think God is punishing me for being an asshole. I would like to find a construction site somewhere and lay my head down on the asphalt and run over it with a steamroller so that my skull squishes like a cherry tomato and all the bad stuff comes running out. I didn’t even drink last night, so fuck you, God, you spiteful little twerp.

Last night I did sound for the Divorce Records showcase featuring Secret Colours, Husband and Knife, Dead Wife, Grand Trine and Nadja. Secret Colours were the pleasant surprise of the night for me… I found some of the songs surprisingly pretty and poppy underneath the swirly washes of ambient sound. From there the night became progressively noisier, I loved Husband and Knife, Dead Wife and Grand Trine were chaotic and punk as fuck, and Nadja closed off the night with their deep doomy soundscapes. There was a vinyl giveaway and I came away with a free test pressing of the new Dog Day record courtesy of our good friends at DIVORCE RECORDS.

When I got off work I went to an afterparty at the Rock Garden and ate a bunch of pizza. Here is a picture of me and James Reid going ham on some Hawaiian slices.

DJ services were provided by Graham from Holy Fuck and last night’s Paragon headliner Cadence Weapon. I enjoyed talking to a few friends but I wasn’t really all about tearing it up on the dance floor. I’ve had this mindset where I’m in Halifax to work and I can have my fun when the shows are over. I’ve been invited to perform at Saturday’s afterparty, and more details are sure to follow somewhere on this Internet.

I bailed on the afterparty when Prince came on the sound system. I’m not dissing Prince but I have a rule that when the ’80s music comes on, it’s time to get the hell out of the party. Unless it’s Italo-Disco. Or Acid House. Or DAF, or Front 242. Or Devo. Or the B-52s. On second thought I am dissing Prince after all.

I’m wearing a Moneen hoodie that Dish lent me and someone told me it smells like my house in the country but to me it smells like cigarette smoke. Today at 2pm I made myself some breakfast consisting of vile spaghetti in a disgusting mushroom sauce. The crew had all gone out to eat at the Spartan and I ate by myself in silence while wishing I had gone with them.

Tonight I will be at Coconut Grove doing sound for some East Coast boy-bands. Soundcheck is in three hours and right now I am about to go have a nap in my car.

I’m sitting on Mark and Brendan’s couch listening to some Government Issue on a dreary Thursday afternoon. I’m in Halifax to do sound for a few shows during the Pop Explosion.

I start tonight but I came down last night just to hang out and go to the punk rock show at Gus’s Pub with Fear Of Lipstick, The Hemingways, The Stolen Minks and The Fat Stupids. There was tons of stuff going on last night but I really just wanted to hang out at the punk rock show.

After years of doing live sound I grew to dislike big rockstar shows, attending them as well as working them. I got sick of road manager types and huge load-ins and all kinds of bullshit attitude… I like small shows, weird shows, punk rock shows. I like a show when it’s a good mix of your very best friends and people you’ve never seen before in your life and there’s good music and a healthy degree of clowning around.

Tonight I’ll be at the Divorce Records showcase at Gus’s and it should be a noisy good time. There’s also an after-party later on with DJ sets by Cadence Weapon and one of the dudes from Holy Fuck. The cover charge is eight bucks. Eight bucks, I came here to make money, not spend money, anyway, I hear there’s gonna be pizza, I’ll probably wind up going after Gus’s.

Today I ate an apple and a can of sockeye salmon for breakfast lunch and dinner. I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a “fish high” but I got all woozy and weird from putting away forty-four grams of fishy protein and sat on this couch for a long time marvelling at high-speed internet until the power went out and snapped me out of it.

I think I’m gonna go down to the Paragon and try to say hello to Think About Life before posting up at Gus’s Pub. And from 6pm on I’ll be hanging out at Gus’s Pub eating Tic Tacs for the calorie content and I think by the time the afterparty rolls around I’m going to be so hungry that I will take two slices of pizza and stick them to the windows of my car and then attempt to travel backwards in time to ancient Italy to give them the secret pie recipe for the betterment of all humanity forever and ever, because I love you.