Wednesday I was supposed to have a doctor's appointment, and thank God they cancelled it due to retarded receptionists overbooking the poor MD. It meant HW and I got a chance to rest at home a bit before our usual Wednesday evening rehearsal, and the added fun bonus is that we detected Pete's issue before he got too sick.

I was sitting playing a video game, motionless but for my thumbs, unblinking and drooling, when I hear a caterwauling from downstairs that rouses me from my reverie. There's yowling and hissing and spitting, so I figure Pete and Veronichort are having a triple-X throwdown of some kind, and yell at them to cut it out. The unseen violence stops, and I go back to playing GTA: San Andreas, in which I believe I have killed 274 peace officers.

After a few minutes, the feline yelling began yet again, but this time Pete had come upstairs. I turned around to see what his problem was, and he was lying on one haunch, his legs splayed out, with his little thorny cat wang pointing at me and waving. He was alternating screaming at the top of his lungs with periodically reaching down to gnaw on his junk, and anytime any of the other cats went near him he hissed at them. (As a result, of course, the other three cats wouldn't leave him alone, and kept wandering over to see what the big deal was.)

So I went over and took a look at his "area," (©2002 Liz Hearn) and noticed that there was a small amount of dark yellow goo leaking out of it. This did not seem healthy, so I called our vet friend Tolly, who said, "Better get him to a hospital right away, he might be blocked up."

So we called Pike Creek Animal Hospital, and they said they could take him, so we stuffed him in a carrier (he doesn't like those; I'm still bleeding in a few places) and drove him over. The technician weighed him (almost 15 pounds. He's a monstrous animal), and took his temperature (rectally. He was absolutely THRILLED with this turn of events, but at least the temperature was normal). Then the vet came in and laid hands on him, pressing on the poor guy's belly to try and squeeze out some pee. She got a drop or two, but not much, and she said, "He's blocked. I'm gonna have to unblock him."

I winced a bit at this.

"Hopefully it's just at the tip, in which case I won't have to use anesthetic."

My first thought was, if anybody ever tries to "unblock" my junk without completely knocking me unconscious and supplying me with a minimum of 1000 grams of uncut heroin for my recovery period, I will plunge a scalpel into their taint, but I remained silent.

"If it's deeper," [big wince] "I'll have to knock him out."

Lovely. The technician brought us a form to sign (I honestly haven't the least clue what it says), and then picked him up, and he did his usual death-defyingly cute move of just flopping into her arms and resting his head on her shoulder. It was so pathetic, we almost got choked up.

Yesterday afternoon I called to check on him, and he still hadn't peed yet, so they wanted to keep him for more observation. Apparently he would sit in the litter box and just stare at the technician. I can't say I blame him though, since I would imagine trying to pee through his ravaged manmeat would be just about the worst pain of all times. So hopefully we'll hear from the vet this afternoon and we can go pick him up.

Everybody pray for the health of the wang of Pete, aka His Holiness Pope Peter II, aka Kreplach, aka Krepiss, aka Furdiß, aka Dog.

posted at 9:04 AM | 0 comments

I entered a Vocal competition! It's run by the Center for Contemporary Opera in La Grande Pomme (New York, you hillbillies), and was pretty easy to enter, due to the power of modern technology. Long gone are the days when you had to sing in front of a bunch of people to audition for something. Now they only do that when they intend to have mediocre has-beens make fun of you and put you on TV. For this audition, all I had to do was make a CD of songs fitting certain requirements, fill out a form, and send it all in with a check for forty smackers (ow).

Making the CD was a bit of a trial because I only had a few weeks to get it done. Adding to the complexity was the fact that their song requirements were rather stringent:

• Two songs from the standard repertory
• Two arias written after 1950, at least one of which is in English
• Three 20th or 21st century songs, at least one of which is in English

Finding that stuff was a challenge, since most of my vocal music is in foreign tongues. So I had to spend a lot of time at the library, going through scores and photocopying tunes, until I found 7 pieces that would suit. (Even so, I ended up replacing one of them.)

So then I rolled up on my parents' phatty criznib and with the able assistance of my father (who, despite having torn a muscle in his right calf, can still play the piano similarly to how you or I might ring a bell), laid down mad trackz, doggle, onto my homewok Jill's extremely rad DAT playa.

Then it was home to begin the horrifically painful process of listening to multiple recordings of myself and figure out which is the "best," which is a lot like choosing between being shot and being stabbed. Throw a little reverb on, remove the dog barking in the background, and I give you:

Songs In The Key of RIGHTEOUS
Matt Hearn

Two arias from the Standard Repertoire:

• Quia fecit mihi magna, from Magnificat by J. S. Bach, aka "MC BaroQ." This is actually not one I got from the library, but Dad and I decided to throw it in 'cause I knew it already, having learneded it for auditions back in high school, which admittedly was 10 years ago, thanks for making us feel old. (Punk.)
• Papageno's Aria from The Magic Flute. It's a little long, but it's worth it, mostly because the piano part is bitchin' hard and Pops nailed it like he was putting up siding.

Two arias written after 1950:

• Little Elegy, by Ned Rorem. Short, sweet, and not too weird, for Rorem. (Listening to him is a lot like drinking bongwater and then hanging out at a construction site.)
• One Hand, One Heart, an old favorite by Leonard Bernstein. From West Side Story. I'm sure even YOU have heard this one, you uneducated riff-raff. How did you get in here, anyway? Shoo!

Three 20th century songs:

• When I Am Dead My Dearest, by John Ireland. Yes, it's as depressing as it sounds. Pretty rad, though, and the piano part is easy enough that even I can play it. (I am not a very good pianist.)
• On A Quiet Conscience, by Paul Bowles. It's mad weird, but extremely enjoyable. Not too long, either, so you can put up with the strange tones coming from your cheap headphones for a while, and dream of kings and starlets and fire.
• O Mistress Mine, by Roger Quilter, words from Shakespeare. This is a personal fave of mine, and as such of course I don't think I sound very grood on it. Still, worth a listen.

So I threw all that crap on a CD and sent it off on Saturday. According to the US Postal Service, 'twas delivered on Monday afternoon. I wonder if anyone's listened to it yet and wept bitterly.

posted at 2:35 PM | 2 comments

Things have been ungodly busy at the office, and I end up staying late and then not having time for anything in the evening but my usual crap. So the daily postings have suffered, and for this I apologize.

Even today, I don't really have much to offer you, except that I'm going to post something that Brian made, that he probably should have posted first, but since he didn't, I'm going to do so. The legality of this re: copyright is somewhat shady. Okay, it's very shady. I AM A SHADY MOFO.

But it's too funny not to post:

More tomorrow, I hope I hope I hope . . . even if I have to write it tonight in a drunken stupor.

posted at 2:04 PM | 2 comments

Ah, the weekend. RAMBLE ON:

• We played our second doubleheader of softball love on Friday, and get this, WE WON A GAME. It was unbelievable. I still can't believe it, although I can definitely FEEL it. I haven't been able to walk for 3 days. Every part of my body hurts. Obviously this means I plan to go on a lengthy bike ride this evening, and possibly go to the batting cages. Am I a glutton for punishment, or am I just stupid? Only time will tell.
• Funny line from the weekend, as reported by my mother: apparently our friend Evelyn took her old cat to the vet, and the vet reported sadly, "I'm sorry . . . your cat has Feline AIDS." To which Evelyn replied, "Wow! I didn't even know he was gay!"

  Apparently the vet did not find this amusing, but on hearing about it, I definitely peed my pants a little bit.

• I spent Saturday during the day hanging at my parents' place, recording some tracks with my dad so I can burn a CD of myself to send to a vocal competition in NYC. Hopefully tonight I'll get the tunes moved onto my computer, and I can start putting it all on CDs and posting mp3s and things for y'all to listen to. I should mention that most of it is pretty damned AWESOME, if you ask my subtle opinion. Mostly because my father can play anything you put in front of him. The punk. Even with a tore-up leg.
• Speaking of which, I'm not sure I mentioned last week that my father managed to tear a calf muscle playing softball with us. He's now hobbling around like a gimp, which is greatly amusing to me. He has crutches; I'm not sure why he doesn't use them. Probably the same reason that I didn't use them when I tore up my ankle: they're lame and omnipresent. Everywhere you wanna sit down, you have to find a place to sit them. Totally craptastic.
• So now I'm basically off my low-carb diet, having gotten down to 225 or so (which sounds pretty fat, until you realize that I'm merely just phat). I'm hoping that frequent bike rides and a summer of softball-playing will keep me in fighting trim. As a result, I've taken to eating cereal in the morning again, and let me tell you: the awesomeness of cereal can not be overestimated. I've missed it so much. ::sniff::

RAMBLE OFF.

posted at 2:30 PM | 1 comments

UPDATE from Rick: "Dude, I had dreams last night about that picture of your crotch."

I'm so pleased.

Sometimes, the humor is just too much to bear. Some reports from friends on Yesterday's Junk Post:

From Nora:
so here i am, sitting at my friend's desk, filling in for her for the day while she is away at a wedding. i decide to check out your homepage today since i have time to play on the computer. (so this is what you "business" people do all day!) i can now proudly say i have accidentally created a link to a picture of your crotch on my friend's computer. congratulations on sharing the wealth..........

From Henna:
HennaB: he's wearing pants
HennaB: but it's a picture of the bulge
HennaB: his pants are too small in that area
HennaB: omg

Life is good.

posted at 2:03 PM | 3 comments

It is really annoying to lose a bunch of weight, and buy new pants to fit your slimm'd-down waist, only to discover too late that despite having lost inches around the middle, you haven't reduced the size of certain other things.

Wait, did I say annoying? I meant TOTALLY AWESOME.

That is all.

posted at 12:36 PM | 3 comments

People have weird food tastes. I am no exception; I'll eat pretty much anything, from sushi to curried beef to semi-rancid yoghurt. But I draw the line at lawn clippings.

On Sunday, HearnWife^TM and I headed over to my parents' place to help celebrate the anniversary of the natal day of our friend Tolly, who is tall. David and Steven, among other foodstuffs, brought along some kind of olive oil to dip bread in that is apparently the best olive oil ever devised by man. Personally, my olive oil purchases are dictated by whichever brand offers the most oil for the least amount of money, but The Boyz apparently had to travel to Greece to personally select the olives that were to be used to create this particular model of oil, so they insisted we try it.

So we all dipped some bread in there, and munched away. To be honest, I didn't see what all the fuss was about. It tasted rather bitter to me. Normally, dipping bread into what amounts to liquid fat is a wonderful prospect, but this particular experience was not up to par.

I revealed to Stephen that I wasn't sure I liked it or not, and he replied, "Are you crazy? MMMMM...this is good. You can really taste the grass!"

I . . . but . . . um . . . hold on, GRASS? I'll pass thanks. I thought I was weird because I'll eat sugar packets and have been known to chug Hershey's Syrup straight from the bottle, but grass-flavored olive oil is not something I'm going to go to great lengths to try.

My friends are so bizarre.

In similar news, a restaurant in Pennsylvania has upped the stakes in the Burger Wars, coming out with a fifteen pound burger, which contains 12.5 pounds of meat, 30 slices of cheese, and god knows what other delicious things. Milo and I are hoping to organize a road trip to eat it, and we need additional volunteers to help out. I'd ask my wife, but her idea of a "full meal" is a bag of combos and half a diet coke. She's a weird one.

Grass oil. What the hell.

posted at 10:57 AM | 2 comments