I hope everybody had a superb Christmas, particularly since I didn't bother to wish you one in my last column, because I'm a self-centered butthole! Merry Christmas, anyway, and a happy New Year. Today's topics: why too much religion makes me hurt; why Christmas r0x0rs; and a few potential New Year's resolutions.

Being a semi-professional singer, this time of year gets rather busy. I actually had to miss a few money-making performances this year because of our move, but I still got some significant bank out of what I did do. The downside of all this is that I usually end up doing 3 services Christmas eve, plus another one Christmas morning, and by noon on Christmas day, I end up not being able to talk and I have to coat my cords with significant amounts of rum-spiked eggnog before I can phonate normally.

I sang two Eucharists, at 4pm and 6pm, at Christ Church, Christiana Hundred, each of which lasted about 75 minutes, which is about average. (My hot sister Liz got to sing a solo in a world premiere of a piece by Philip Ledger, the name of which escapes me. She was the bomb.)

Then I had to go to the Cathedral for a late evensong, the equivalent of the Catholic "Midnight Mass." We first sang a short concert from 10:30 to 11pm, and then settled in for the long haul, as Bishop Wayne Wright was presiding (he's a wonderful person, and by all accounts a superb bishop, but to say that he reads the liturgy slowly is rather like saying that Yao Ming is somewhat tallish. The Bishop, coincidentally, is also well over 6 1/2 feet tall). The service ended at 12:40am, and we headed over to Dana's to get drunk, and then stumbled home around 2:30.

Next morning, I woke up at 8:30 and just barely made it to church in time for the rehearsal, followed by a quick service, followed by showing up at Sarah's parents' house for breakfast and presents. Eggs...with bacon in 'em...::drools:: Got some great stuff there, particularly neat knick-knackity jaunpiece to put up at the new house. Then it was off to my parents' place for further giftage and much tasty food.

The presents ruled, and the food was totally bomblicious, although I was so wiped out from lack of sleep that I passed out for a short nap after dinner. I was a mess. Plus, something gave me hives; it was either the shrimp (I had never gotten an allergy to shrimp, or indeed ANYTHING, before last night, so who knows), or some body moisturizer that I rubbed on my face 'cause it itched. Apparently body moisturizers ain't so good on the sensitive skin of the face, but how on earth was I to know that? What I know about moisturizing I learned from Kyan Douglas, and he never mentioned it. Perhaps I should sue.

After eating at the 'rents, Sarah and I headed home to open OUR presents, after which we fell asleep watching an ER rerun. (Abby is so hot.)

As to why Christmas kicks much izass: presents. (And, um, the celebration of the birth of Everyone's Personal Savior, of course. Reason for the season, and all that.) Nevertheless, our friends and family took our request of "stuff for the new house" to heart. Dana got us a beautiful framed print of a cello; my pops printed out a totally kickass picture he took of the Sound (remember the view from the back porch of our Thanksgiving beach house?) that features the back of my head (he had it printed at Ritz camera, and it looks about 300 times better than what I can do with my $100 Epson); Kinné gave us a totally money little outdoor table made of painted glass, with piano keys running all around the edge; plus countless other knick-knacks, and a lot of clothing (always appreciated, now that Queer Eye has turned me into a clothes horse). Many thanks to everyone that gave us stuff to make our house a home!!!

So now I figure I should probably come up with some New Year's resolutions. I'm gonna list a few here, but if anyone has some they think I should add to my list ("Hearn, you should definitely start wearing deodorant," for example), shoot an email to spam at matthearn dot com and let me know. On to the potential list:

• Improve my work ethic, so that I actually get things done at work, instead of, say, writing lengthy columns.
• Drink in moderation.
• Avoid catching herpes. (This should be relatively simple, provided Sarah isn't cuckolding me with her boss, who is a woman, but this is the 21st century after all, and one must stay openminded at all times.)
• Read more.
• Use voodoo magic to try and get my head to shrink to a more manageable size. Failing this, purchase a large metal vice.
• Invent wormhole technology. Colonize Alpha Centauri.
• Lose 30 pounds. Get ripped.
• Give more money away to charity.
• Come up with some funnier resolutions.

We moved this weekend.

Those of you who know me well are probably thinking, "What, you moved off the couch to get another beer?" To which I reply, HAR! HARDY HAR HAR! Jerks.

No, HW and I and many of my semi-retarded friends gathered up most of my belongings and moved them from our old home to our new home with a miraculous minimum of injury to body and furniture. Well, except for Kyle, who may not be able to reproduce, depending on how well the doctors are able to reconstruct his genitals. Sorry about that, Kyrone!

Anyway, I went and picked up a 26 foot U-Haul truck on Saturday morning at 8 am. It was a manual transmission, which was kinda fun, although the gear pattern was apparently designed by a committee of blind Mongolian horse breeders, each of whom had as much experience with automobiles as I have with gynecology. Also, the truck had a tendency to not want to go into reverse, which caused the fiberglass hood to come to grief against a tree. (I was trying to back up, and the truck just kept rolling forward, and CRUNCH.) I even managed to back it into our small driveway, because I'm the bomb, and had 11 people standing around yelling "Okay, cut it right! No, RIGHT! That's left, you idiot! Wait . . . okay, back it up . . . keep coming . . . now stop. Stop. HEY! STOP! WHOA! WHOA! Great, you ran over Brian. Does anybody have some duct tape so we can reattach his legs?"

Loading went largely without a hitch, except for dropping a piano on somebody's foot, and much arguing about the proper way to fill the truck with my possessions. Craig came up with the idea that every time somebody came up with a good idea, we should all take a sip of beer; after a bit, someone realized that drinking beer was in-and-of-itself a very good idea, but luckily the vicious cycle of shotgunning Miller ended when we ran out.

We drove over to the new place without incident, except for the fact that the clutch on that beast was a bit frisky, so I'd usually end up lurching the hell out of it. I'm glad we put the good TV on the floor, else it would have been greatly shattered. We even managed to unload most of the stuff without all that much effort, except for the piano.

Ah, the piano. Many hundred pounds of wood and metal. I had borrowed some piano dollies from my good friend Kinné, but they turned out to be only moderately helpful, mainly because they were old and a bit fragile. In the end, we just took them off and lifted the heavy sumbitch, down the truck's ramp, onto the porch, into the house (thank God for our double front doors), and up 5 steps.

I wanted to try and do it one step at a time, but once we got our momentum going we just said "GO! GO! GO!" and managed to haul the thing all the way up and slide it into the corner. Good times. Except for the extremely painful hernias suffered by all 6 of us who lifted it.

After that, all we had to do was eat pizza, drink beer, and contemplate how many 7-11s I'll have to rob every month to afford our $1500+ mortgage payment.

You know you've had one hell of a good weekend when, within 24 hours, you get harrassed by a bobcat, and charge the field at a football game.

Perhaps a bit of background is in order. Jared and I, being insane, decided it might be fun to go camping. In December. On a night during which temperatures were expected to get down to 25 degrees. As our friend Courtney put it: "White people have issues." So I reserved a campsite at Killen's Pond, one of the few, and possibly only, campgrounds in Delaware that stays open year round. (There might be one at the beach that's open, but I'm WAAAAAY too lazy to actually look that up.)

Meanwhile, The University of Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens (tm) have been steadily marching through the playoffs, blowing out teams left and right. We went to the NCAA I-AA quarterfinals LAST weekend and had a great time watching the Hens win, so we had Craig pick us up tickets for Saturday's semifinal match.

Anyway, the plan for this past weekend: load up the truck, drive about an hour downstate, get drunk at a campsite while eating smores, and then awake the following morning, hang out for a while, and drive to the game. That's largely what happened . . . but like any story, the fun is in the details.

We left on Friday around 5pm, so traffic SUH-UCKED. More annoyingly, we got past all the significant traffic and were on route 1 and cruising when Jared remembered he forgot his drill. (The tent we intended to use was of a civil war style, and consisted of nothing but canvas, wood, rope, and some short metal pins; he needed to be able to drill into the wood to install the pins.) So we turned around, fetched the drill, and only lost about an hour of time.

Which would be fine, if the drill had functioned. The battery was almost dead, so Jared couldn't drill everything that needed drilling, so we had no tent. For sleeping outdoors. In below-freezing temperatures. Clearly, to survive the night, I was going to have to drink most of the large bottle of Dewar's I brought. (Note to impressionable young viewers: alcohol is bad for you.)

So we busied ourselves unloading equipment from the truck, assisted by a handy wheelbarrow we found, and trying to start a fire. The wood we had was some that I brought from my house, and which unfortunately was both incredibly hard and fairly wet. So getting a strong fire going required chopping the wood into smaller chunks, which was incredibly hard because it apparently was from a type of tree named "Oakus Titaniumus."

Nevertheless, with some attention, a fire could be maintained. So we started cooking some sirloins that Jared brought up from DC. After a few minutes of cooking, we heard some weird noises in the trees; being outdoors, we figured it was the wind.

Until it growled.

Loudly.

Jared and I assumed a defensive posture that consisted mostly of holding each other and screaming. Then we remembered we had multiple knives and hatchets lying around, so we picked them up and tried to figure out exactly what kind of critter we were going to have to kill, since there was absolutely NO way we would be sleeping outdoors, with no tent, and some feral predator wandering around.

Luckily, we had brought a couple of air pistols that we could use to scare our foe off. Unluckily, we had left them in the truck. As an added bonus, we couldn't actually SEE what we were facing. We would hear it shuffle around a bit, but couldn't see exactly where it was. We assumed that it wouldn't come near the fire, so we sort of huddled around it, our hatchets never far from our sides, and waited to see what happened. Jared also took the opportunity to cry a little bit.

After a bit, it started moving around, so we saw it; Jared loaded some film in his camera and took a picture in hopes that the flash might scare it off. He took a few snaps of it, but it stayed put, though at least we got to see sort of what it was. It was very dark in color; in fact, after we'd spotted it, we could see it moving around because it was darker than its surroundings. It also appeared to be very fuzzy. If anybody knows what kind of animal might be black, very fuzzy, and growls like a bobcat, I'd be interested to know what on earth it was.

After that bit of excitement, I went out to the truck to fetch my air pistols so if it returned and decided to come closer, we could frighten it off with a hail of slow-moving lead pellets. Jared, of course, took the opportunity to make weird cat noises while I was walking back, making my heart skip a few beats until I realized it was him. (I got my vengeance later, though, by farting on him while he slept.)

After we made sure the cat/wolverine/alien left (by spraying pellets into the woods in random directions, like Schwarzenegger in "Predator"), we retired for the night. I wrapped myself in blankets and sleeping bags, and was actually reasonably warm until 5am when Jared awoke me to report that something was eating our food.

Those that know me are probably aware that any creature that takes food from my mouth is risking its life; fortunately for all involved, I had neglected to bring any CO2 powered firearms into my sleeping bag with me. The cat (as it appeared to be for the brief second I saw it) immediately shot off the picnic table and flew off into the woods, probably frightened out of its skin by Jared's frantic whimpering.

Shortly after that, we got up and tried to get the fire restarted, since it was COLD AS ALL HELL and we wanted to get our blood flowing. We got the fire going, started warming up some bacon, burned much of it, made some truly retarded pancakes, drank some tepid coffee, loaded up the truck, and drove back north. The drive north was uninteresting, except that Jared and I semi-spontaneously started singing "A Penny For Your Thoughts" together, in perfect harmony, as we passed around Dover. This does not make us any less manly, I tell you.

Then we drove to Tubby Raymond Field at Delaware Stadium for the semi-final playoff game of the Wofford Terriers (seriously, Terriers) vs. The Mighty University of Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens (tm). I had the foresight to pack a flask full of whiskey and a plastic bottle of martinis, so by game time I was in top form and ready for some FOOTBALL.

The game itself was largely uneventful, since Wofford was no match for The Blue Hens (tm), who won in convincing fashion, 24-9. Amusingly, with The Blue Hens (tm) up 24-3 and Wofford holding the ball in UD territory with just a few seconds to go, the student body could hold back no longer and began to charge the field, resulting in a 15 yard penalty against UD. Wofford scored one useless TD, and the students ran onto the field with no time left, and the officials had to waive the extra point.

Jared and I naturally charged down the bleachers and snuck around to find a spot to rush the field. I didn't get down there in time to help bring down the north goalpost, but I did get there in time to touch Andy Hall.

Let me repeat that.

I touched Andy Hall. The winning QB. The quarterback who just might lead us to a I-AA national championship. The quarterback who is in the running to win the Walter Payton award, I-AA's version of the Heisman. And I touched him.

My entire life is now validated.

Clearly, I'm rather pathetic.

It's list day!

List of Things You Probably Didn't Know About Matt Hearn (And Will Almost Certainly Wish He Hadn't Put On The Web For All Of Creation to See)

• The other night, I dreamt I head-butted a nun by accident. Seriously.
• As I type this, I have a Bob Wills tune sung by Willie Nelson and Asleep At The Wheel running through my head.
• Sometimes, I get nasty rashes in deeply personal areas.
• When I type nonsensical UNIX commands, I often have to suppress a giggle. Example: earlier this week I typed touch rar, which does nothing but create an empty file named "rar" in whatever directory I happened to be sitting. For no apparent reason, I almost laughed out loud.
• I'm 75% certain that I'm going to die suddenly in some kind of accident or violent encounter. Why I believe this, I do not know, although it could be that I drive too fast and like to pick fights with midgets.
• In the 2000 elections, I voted a straight Libertarian ticket, except where there was no LP candidate available. For those positions I wrote in Coco Chanel.
• I exfoliate on non-shaving days with Apricot Scrub.
• I have a cat named JD. She is actually not named after Jack Daniel's, but Jefferson Davis. (This tidbit of info greatly surprises folks that have been to bars with me.)
• Now I have "Milkshake" stuck in my head, thanks to Doug. My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, and their life is better than yours . . . and now you feel my pain.
• I typed a lengthy column about last Saturday's football game, and Blogger failed to save it when I hit "Post." I yelled many bad words at my laptop. (I'm going to the game this weekend too; I'll write about that next week.)
• I enjoy pinching elbow skin. While this may sound kinky, it's not sexual at all. I swear. Seriously.
• I own a mullet wig.
• This column sucks.

I love Thanksgiving. Of course, who doesn't? The only people I know who don't enjoy Thanksgiving are Canadians, and I think we can all agree they're a bunch of godless heathen.

This year our Thanksgiving extravaganza involved driving down to the Outer Banks (the beaches of North Carolina) for a week of eating, drinking, and lounging about in hot tubs. My parents go down almost every year, but this was the first time Sarah and I had made the trip in a while.

My father takes Thanksgiving very seriously; it is his favorite holiday. He enjoys Christmas about equally, but I think he feels particularly moved that one day a year is dedicated to nothing but preparing and eating a massive feast without distractions such as church services or gifts. (This is a man that detailed a list of his favorite foods over breakfast; 4 of the top 10 were varieties of pie.)

My mother cooked up a truly magnificent repast, consisting of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, Copes' corn, broccoli, and God knows what else I forgot. If I'd had any sense, I'd've taken pictures of my plate (like my uncles do). It was piled 3-4" high with food, and lasted me about 3 minutes. (I could've probably eaten it faster, but I had to pause to drink 3 or 4 glasses of wine.)

I, of course, gained 12 pounds. In one week. That's 5% of my mass. If I did that every week I would double in size in just over 3 months. Why can't I lose 5% of my mass in one week? Well, I guess I could, but I'd like to avoid chemotherapy unless I actually had cancer.

I could write endlessly about the trip, but I think it's easier and more amusing to share some pictures. So here are some photos from the entire month of November (a very good month, it was a very good month):

http://www.matthearn.com/November2003/

Enjoy!