matthearn.com

I was never what you could describe as a Whitney Houston “fan,” for whatever reason. I’ll stipulate that she had what is probably the most prodigious talent of any pop singer ever, but none of her songs struck a chord with me (get it? lulz). I don’t say this to demean her accomplishments; we all know my taste is ridiculous and absurd. I mean, I have an “Evan and Jaron” mp3 on my phone.

You know what? Let’s come back to this.

Last fall, after William (our latest and last offspring) was born, and HW and I spent much of the day sitting in front of the TV either feeding him or trying to get as much rest as we could while he slept, we watched a fair amount of TV. This is how, for example, we plowed through 4 entire seasons of DVR’d “The Big Bang Theory.” We also spent a lot of time watching “Hoarders” and “Toddlers and Tiaras,” and I’d like to compare and contrast those shows a bit.

We watch them, like everyone else, because they make us feel better about ourselves, as homemakers and parents, respectively. If you’re ever feeling depressed because you don’t have time to keep the house spic and span, spend 15 minutes watching Matt Paxton and his crew bag up dead cats and rotting adult diapers, and you will feel much better about your cleaning skills. If your kids are misbehaving and driving you up the wall and you’re thinking “What the hell am I doing wrong with these maniacs?” then you should spend some time with the crazy-ass moms (and, occasionally, dads) who drag their daughters to pageant “lessons” and makeup artists and dress fittings and you will realize that whatever you may be doing wrong, at least your daughter is about 1/10 as likely to become a streetwalker as the girls on your TV.

America loves both shows (along with similar ones like “Hoarding: Buried Alive” and “Dance Moms”) because Americans love a good train wreck. The feeling you get when the door opens on a bedroom filled to the ceiling with old clothes and rat feces is pretty much the same one you get when you watch a 5-year-old girl stubbornly refuse to try on her new pearly false teeth while her white trash, coffee-can-shaped, and faintly maple-syrup-scented mother says “Now c’mon Pixeelu honey, we need to try these on, and then we’ll go get some sugar donuts.” There is, however, a key difference: enabling.

On Hoarders, you watch people who are clearly at a low point in their lives try to resolve their issues with the help of psychologists, organizers, and professional cleaners provided by the show. It doesn’t always work, but at least there are stabilizing elements there to try and improve the lives of the subjects. “Toddlers and Tiaras” has none of this. Every person that appears on the show is there to add to the insanity, from the “dance instructors” to the pageant officials to the make-up artists to the mothers themselves. Every one of them is either telling the child how perfect she is, or how she’s screwing up royally and has no chance of winning or ever becoming anything and it’s no wonder Daddy left. No one disciplines, no one models good behavior, every activity is carefully (and poorly) designed to get the child to perform on the stage and fulfill her parents’ dreams. Occasionally you’ll see some poor henpecked father, clearly not thrilled about what’s going on and certainly unhappy about his failings as a parent and husband being put on television for the world to mock. For the child, it’s a life of work, expectations, bribery, and the life-or-death world of “pageanting.” What she learns from this is, as long as she’s pretty and performs well, no one will ever tell her “no.”

Which brings us back to Whitney. Once she had established herself as a superstar, how many people do you think ever told her “No?” She was a meal ticket to everyone around her. Who would risk losing that? If Whitney wanted to go party, Whitney got driven to the party. If Whitney wanted to try cocaine, the mirrors and straws were instantly out. Adding Bobby Brown to the mix was like tossing a hand grenade under a propane tank.

Whitney was hardly the first talented person too achieve rapid fame and then burn out, and she won’t be the last. What’s the solution? Hell if I know. As long as there are people who profit from meteoric rise of talent, we’ll watch as talented people slowly kill themselves. Sometimes brilliant folks just need to be told, “No.” Ya know?

I’m becoming less and less of a professional football fan every year, because at heart I am a 77-year-old man that doesn’t like children on his lawn. I don’t like all the celebrating, I don’t like that nobody but Jesus-freaks in Denver run the option anymore, and because I am a complicated fellow, I dislike both the frequent concussions and the complete wussification of the game in the name of eliminating concussions.

Mostly I don’t like that during football season there’s not much baseball on TV.

That being said, I did watch maybe 2/3 of yesterdays Big Game, and have the following comments:

1. I did not watch the National Anthem, out of protest. I’m told that Kelly Clarkson did an admirable job, but since she’s not a brass band, I don’t care. (This protest does not extend to refusing offers to let me sing the National Anthem at sporting events, because of being a complicated fellow (see above). However, while I am not personally a brass band, I do insist upon performing the entire number with a trumpet impression that I am told sounds remarkably unlike a trumpet.)


2. Nor did I watch the half-time show, partially out of protest, and partially because I knew Sarah would want to watch it off the DVR later and I didn’t feel the need to subject myself to Madonna twice. I hear she was great. Since she was not a marching band playing music written before 1920, I expect to be all meh up ons. (Translation: I will be indifferent to Ms. Ciccone’s performance.)


3. The game was pretty rad, though I would have preferred the Pats winning, because I dislike the Giants. (Oh well. At least the Mets still suck.) Also because Eli Manning just has one of those faces that you want to punch over and over to see if you can change it. Unfortuanately, Tom Brady looked pretty dinged up after his left shoulder got slammed into the turf, and The Gronk was clearly about 60% of himself. Also, if you’re Bill Belichick, your receivers drop two passes that hit their hands in the closing seconds of the game, and you’re not breaking clipboards over their heads, I don’t know how great a coach you can really be.

After the game was over, my younger son refused to go to sleep, so I stayed up with him until about 11:15 watching Rugby Sevens. Holy crap. If you’ve been watching football, and said to yourself, “You know, this game is nice, but it’s just not dangerous enough for me,” you might want to look into Rugby. Full contact, no pads, no helmets, cheerleader-style pyramids to block kicks, and a ball shaped somewhat like an enormous whale testicle. Quick comparison; this person is a professional American football player:

This person is a rugby player:

Which of those two people would you be happier to see at the opposite end of the Octagon? Just looking at the rugby guy picture made me wet my pants just a little bit. I’m gonna go find alternate pantaloons. The football player looks like he might work as a bagger at Shoprite.

Have a pleasant Monday. Try not to dream about rugby players.

In case you hadn’t heard, I have just a crapload of children, I swear there’s like 17 of ’em running around the house. As a result, I haven’t seen a movie in a theatre since, if I remember correctly, “Quantum of Solace.” (Which was not as good as Casino Royale, but I’m still pretty excited for the next Bond, tentatively scheduled for release in 2072.) If I get to see a film, it’s usually something that’s played on Spike (I’m far too cheap to get any premium movie channels) 2 years after the original release, which is why the most recent full-length film I’ve seen was “Crank 2: High Voltage,” which may be the best worst movie I’ve ever seen. For reals, there’s a scene where Jason Statham and the man he’s beating up turn into enormous Japanese monsters and whale on each other in the middle of an electrical substation.

So, I’d like to do some movie reviews. Keep in mind: I haven’t seen any of these films, so my opinions are based entirely off of 1) stuff I’ve read online and 2) the TV trailers. So, get yourself ready for the first ever Matt Hearn Reviews Movies He Has Not Actually Seen!

• The Grey: Liam Neeson ends up in the woods with some people and defeats a pack of rabid wolves that hopefully play banjos and engage in a little light sodomy. Now, I’m a big Liam Neeson fan. If “Taken” is on, I’ll watch that jam, despite the fact that I have a little bit of a hard time believing that a 55-year-old man can take on an entire kitchen full of armed Albanian bad-asses (spoiler alert: Liam opens a fresh can and kills everybody while remaining utterly unscathed). I’m gonna give The Grey 3 out of 4 stars because it doesn’t feature Katherine Heigl’s cleavage, which brings us to:


• One For The Money: I thoroughly enjoyed the 3 or 4 “Stephanie Plum” novels I’ve read, so I suspect I’ll probably enjoy this movie, plus it contains the aforementioned decolletage. Also I don’t believe any movie with Debbie Reynolds in it has ever gone wrong, she’s like MAGIC. 3 out of 4 stars, only because to the best of my knowledge Liam Neeson never appears to beat the piss out of a wolf.


• The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: I have a policy of never seeing a movie based on a book without first reading the book. So, I gotta get on that like Foghat. In this case, I think I’d also like to see the original Swedish version, although I’ve heard tell that certain scenes are even more visceral than the US version, and I think you know exactly what scenes I’m talking about. Normally any movie with Daniel Craig in it gets 5 out of 4 stars, but I have to deduct a few stars here because Rooney Mara’s character reminds me of a bad experience I had in a bus station bathroom in 1997. (Warning: it can be really hard to tell the difference between spider bites and track marks on a hobo’s arm.)


• Tintin: This movie is remarkable for the real-looking animation, which leads me to what seems an obvious question: rather than spending gobs of money making the most realistic animation ever, wouldn’t it have been cheaper to just film a live-action movie with lots of CGI? 2 out of 4 stars.


• Alvin and the Chipmunks, Chipwrecked: This movie is worse than terrorism. -37 out of 4 stars.


• Haywire: This movie seems like the best combination of “The Grey” and “One For The Money.” Plenty of action, and the mind-bendingly hot Gina Carano, who could probably beat me to death and have me thanking her afterwards for the mere privilege of having touched me. 6 out of 4 stars.

Last thing: Tomorrow is the 15th anniversary of “Waiting For Guffman,” one of the top 10 movies EVER MADE, and yes of COURSE I include “Bloodsport 2” in that statement. In that vein, I present to you the following quotes:

There’s a saying in Missouri, if you don’t like the weather just wait five minutes. In Blaine, with hard work, I think we can get that down to three or four minutes.

He can act and he can sing and he can dance. There’s only one other person in the world who can do all that, and that’s Barbra Streisand.

My aunt brought out her atlas that I look at a lot. This big blue book and opened up to New York and it’s an island, is really what it is. It’s this island full of people of different colors and different ideas and I can’t- It sounds like a lot of fun to me. You know, we don’t see much of that in Blaine. I’d like to maybe meet some guys, some Italian guys, you know… watch TV and stuff.

So what I’m understanding here – correct me, if I’m wrong – is that you’re not givin’ me… any money… so now I’m left basically with nothin’, I’m… left with ZERO, in which, in which, what can I do with zero, you know? What can I… I can’t do ANYTHIN’ with it! I need to, this is my LIFE here we’re talking about! We’re not just talkin’ about, you know, somethin’ else, we’re talking about MY life, you know? And it’s forcing me to do somethin’ I don’t wanna do. To leave. To, to go out and just leave and go home and say, make a clean cut here and say “no way, Corky, you’re not puttin’ up with these people!” And I’ll tell you why I can’t put up with you people: because you’re BASTARD people! That’s what you are! You’re just bastard people! And I’m goin’ home and I’m gonna… I’m gonna BITE MY PILLOW, is what I’m gonna do!

Fin.

It’s still Monday in Guam or somewhere, right? Good enough.

You may or may not (probably not) be curious about what’s been going on with my fitness program. Well, here’s the low diggity down. Since mid-November I’ve been what’s called “bulking,” which means deliberately putting on weight to add muscle. You’re probably thinking, “Dude, uh, you weigh somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 pounds, I’m not sure that ADDING weight is what you want to be doing. Why don’t you diet and just turn that fat into muscle?”

I laugh at you. Har! Hardy har!

A common misconception, popularized by almost every fitness or health magazine in every single issue, is that turning yourself into Chris Evans is merely a matter of craploads of cardio and occasional weight-lifting. I believe we’ve talked about this previously, but in case you missed it: it don’t work that way. The human body has three modes: gaining fat and muscle, losing fat and muscle, or staying pretty much exactly the same, depending entirely on caloric intake. If you eat less than you burn, you lose fat and muscle, and if you eat more, you gain it. The proportion of muscle to fat lost or gained depends on whether or not you stress your existing musculature with weight training, signalling it to divert calories to muscle gain in an effort to adapt to that stress.

Short version: if you want to add muscle, you have to gain weight. If you want to lose fat, you have to lose weight. Those two processes cannot happen simultaneously.

So, I decided that over the winter I would do a “bulk,” which means eating more than I burn, and lifting weights in sufficient volume to stress my muscles and signal them to grow. The decision was based solely on the fact that I’d been “cutting” (losing weight and fat) for 3 months and my lifts were not progressing in weight, for the simple reason that in order to get strong past a certain point your muscles have to get bigger, and mine couldn’t get bigger because I wasn’t eating enough for them to do so. And it was pissing me off to be bench pressing 180-190 for 5 reps over and over with no gains.

So in mid-November, my stats looked like this:

Weight: 242 pounds

Bodyfat Percentage: 20% (estimated)

Squat: 280x3x5 (280 pounds, three sets, five reps per set)

Bench press: 190x3x5 (and badly stalled)

Deadlift: 370x1x5

After 3 months of hardcore bulking (eating like a pig, and lifting like a beast):

Weight: 271 pounds

Bodyfat: 24%

Squat: 345x3x5

Bench press: 217.5x3x5

Deadlift: 395x1x5

Now, you’ll probably say, “Man, your deadlift didn’t go up, are you a wuss?” The problem there was that I actually ran out of weights, and was stuck DLing 390 for about 4 straight weeks before I got a bunch more 45 pound plates and rocked 395×5 yesterday like Paul Bunyan. You may also say “271 pounds? Holy crap you’re fat!” Here’s the thing, though: my BF% (estimated, but measured using the same function each time, so accurate relative to itself) only went up 4%. If you do the math, my “lean body mass” went from 194 pounds to 206; LBM includes bone, muscle, and most importantly water, so don’t think for a second I actually gained 12 pounds of actual muscle in 12 weeks. Still: if even HALF of that LBM gain is muscle (and I bet it’s more), that’s 6 pounds of muscle. That doesn’t seem like much, but believe me, pro bodybuilders would sell a kidney to gain 6 pounds of lean muscle in 3 months.

It’s also worth noting that the squat and bench press lifts went up 23% and 14% in 3 months, which are significant gains.

So, what now? Well, I won’t lie, I have a pretty significant gut going on. Oddly enough, though, I’m still fitting in most of my regular 38×34 pants, although I have in issue in that my thighs have gotten so large that I’m in constant danger of hulking through them if I bend over, twist awkwardly, try to walk, etc. I could continue bulking, really get my lifts up to the “advanced” level, but frankly I’m in this to look rad, and being able to lift heavy crap is a secondary goal, so I think it’s time to lean out a bit and see if I can get myself reasonably svelte for summer so the ladies be all “wooooo” and the dudes be mad jelly. With that in mind, I’m going to start a low-carb diet, as well as switch routines from “Starting Strength” to “Madcow 5×5.”

Why low-carb? Well, one of the problems of cutting fat is that, as mentioned above, you tend to lose muscle as you lose weight. You combat this by making sure you have a LOT of protein in your system (your body is less likely to start tearing down muscles to get protein if you have plenty of it available via food), and continuing to lift heavy so your muscles are signalled to maintain as much size as possible. Well, there is no more protein-heavy diet than one that consists mostly of meat. Yesterday, my first day on the diet, I managed to get 365 grams of protein, a pretty staggering amount. I believe the RDA recommendation for someone my size is 80 grams. And today’s lunch consisted of an entire rotisserie chicken. So from a protein perspective, I should be A-OK. Some folks also say that the reduction of insulin production from eating so few carbohydrates also contributes to the body losing fat, although I think it’s more that after a while you just naturally start eating less because the protein and fat sit in your belly and make you feel full. The downside of this diet is that until my body gets used to burning fat for energy, my workouts will suuuuuuu-uuuuuck, and I will likely be missing a lot of reps.

I combat this by switching to a routine that incorporates a 4 week “deload” period, namely Bill Starr’s Madcow 5×5 program. This gives me time to rest my body (which has been taking a beating over the last 5-6 months, and I can feel it) and also give it time to learn how to burn fat instead of carbohydrates so that when I got back to setting PRs in a month my body’s all “Yeah word.” It’s also a slightly lower volume program than Starting Strength, but still features plenty of intensity and aggressive weekly progression, and includes 2 weeks of “deload” out of every 6 to keep me from burning out. So instead of squatting heavy 3 times a week and hitting a new PR each time, I get a “rest” day on Wednesday with fewer, and lighter, sets. It also includes curls on Fridays so I can get crazy big arms, so don’t you worry, ladies.

My lifts will undoubtedly stall as the cut goes on, so I’ll just try and stay about where I am strength-wise until the end of the summer, at which time hopefully I’ll be down to a slim 235 with a 15% body fat and I’ll just be wearing a speedo everywhere including work and church.

Look forward to that.

I know I said last week that I’d be doing updates every Monday, but yesterday was a holiday, so I’m not counting it. Today’s my Monday. Take that.

I don’t know if you subscribe to the “Albuquerque Journal of Grease” (the, and I mean THE, paper of record on everything pertaining to fast food, and let me tell you it’s worth getting just for the “Chronicle of Incidents” pages; last month a guy managed to drop a lit Newport cigarette into hot fry oil and the resulting explosion killed 5 Bulgarian immigrants), but you may have nevertheless heard that Burger King, long the Jay Leno to McDonalds’s David Letterman, has recently changed its french fries. The following statements are not hyperbole:

This is a more important event than than the 2012 Presidential election. I daresay it may be more momentous than the American Civil War. Make no mistake: there is nothing more vital than for you to get your ass over to a BK to try these fries, as quickly as you possibly can, unless it’s 3am and you don’t have a 24 hour BK where you live, in which case you should probably move to civilization you bloody savage.

After years of BK producing french fries that were over-seasoned, over-spiced, and over-cooked into a rock-hard potato rod that tasted vaguely of rancid canola, they have finally seen the light and produced a fry that is not only a 3 million percent improvement over the old one, but also makes the McDonalds product look like a flaccid noodle. Burger King has improved the cut; the fries are thicker all around, leading to a nice crispy exterior and hot soft potato interior. They’ve also improved the seasoning, which is now mostly salt and pepper and possibly some other flavors that I don’t notice because I’m busy keeping my eyes from rolling back in my head with glee and bliss. They are, and this is high praise, on par with the fries at Red Robin, but available right now in fast food form probably 3 minutes from you.

If you couple this with the fact that BK’s burgers are FAR better than McD’s (which has always been the case), I think we all know where I’ll be getting my delicious fast food snacks for the immediate future, which unfortunately amounts to about 6 days because I’m going back on a low-carb diet next week and won’t be having any fries in any form and will probably have to devote myself to McD’s because I can get 6 double cheeseburgers for 6 bucks and inhale them like a chubby kid on the way home from fat camp. My life is pretty sad.

I hope you all had a blissful, gift-filled, alcohol-fueled holiday season, which of course doesn’t FULLY conclude until my birthday later in the month. Like most Americans, I have made resolutions. Unlike most Americans, they don’t have much to do with fitness, because I am already in the middle of my lifelong fitness resolution (more on this later), which is to get crazy jacked and look vaguely like Daniel Craig but without the haunting blue eyes and luscious, pouty lips (my own lips are quite full and luscious but I cannot maintain the same extruded pout without looking like a fish and/or duckface, aka duckfish).

My resolution is to attempt to produce, on time and without exception, a new update to this website every Monday that is insightful, enjoyable, and full of both fun witticisms AND as many pictures of Daniel Craig as I can fit given current intellectual property law.

What will it be? Who knows. It’s a Presidential election year, so I’ll probably make fun of the GOP. It doesn’t appear that Sarah Palin is running, as of this writing, so sadly that eliminates some easy humor, although Rick Perry is doing his darnedest to be equally stupid in public, and then there’s good ol’ butt juice Rick Santorum, and it’s only a matter of time before Ron Paul says something hilariously racist, which is a shame because in a past life I probably would have been a big Paul supporter, at least until the realization some time ago that the Libertarian ethos of “everybody get yours before I gotta get mine” is not really an effective way to govern society.

I may also do the occasional movie review, although I should warn you the movies will not be recent as I don’t like going to movie theaters, and I’m certainly not going to beg my wife for 2 hours away from her and the roughly 7 million children I appear to have at home to do something I’m largely indifferent to doing, with the obviously exception of any James Bond movie. So there’s a strong chance that any movies I’ll write about will be along the lines of “Street Kings,” a film from 2008 that I watched about 75% of the other night. (I can report that Keanu spends the entire time being Keanu, and Forrest Whitaker chewed so much scenery that I suspect he pooped drywall for a month, although at least a lot of people get shot, so it’s really the perfect thing to watch while rocking your infant son to sleep.)

I’m sure I’ll have lots to say about my fitness progress as well. A short update: I’ve been lifting hard and eating like a pig since just before Thanksgiving, and have gained a rather significant amount of weight. The gut has come back a little, but I see a big difference in my shoulders, my butt has become extremely Kardashian, and my thighs are getting so thick that 1) I’m having a very hard time fitting into pants, even though the waist and inseam fit fine, and 2) there’s not much room left for my testicles and I keep sitting on them. My back squat has gone to 327.5lbs, and my bench press is up to 212.5, although my deadlift is hampered by the fact that I only have 390 pounds of weights so I’m stuck there until I can buy more. I’ve been pretty strict about the Starting Strength program (not adding or replacing any exercises), but yesterday I decided it would be extremely nice if I had big ol’ swole-up guns so I’ve started adding a few curls and tricep extensions to the end Friday’s workout so the ladies will look at my arms and go DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN.

I was planning to start dieting again around my birthday, but I may push it off until later in the winter. I’d like to cut down to a trim 230 by summer and see how close I can get to having visible abs (something I’ve never had, EVER), but I hate, hate, HATE cutting because my lifts stall, and squatting over 300 pounds makes me feel like a real man.

So, uh, that’s what you have to look forward to. It’s gonna be real. Really real.

Number 1: The Charmin commercials with the large brown bears who are greatly concerned about whether or not the TP will leave what appears to be dandruff on their butts. I appreciate them using anthropomorphic bears so that we can pretend it’s all cute and that they aren’t talking about, essentially, dingleberries, but I’m still greatly grossed out by it. I don’t know about you, but the bogroll at our house doesn’t leave any kind of detritus behind, possibly because my wife buys single-ply in bulk from some kind of Russian mob outfit and it’s like wiping with burlap, except that burlap might be preferable because my fingers wouldn’t go straight through it.

I’m just tired of my fingers smelling like shrimp, I guess.

Number 2: The car commercial, I think it’s for a Buick, in which a family celebrates a new car for Christmas, complete with big red bow atop, and then another car drives by and the husband (who ostensibly made the purchase) realizes he made a big mistake and should have bought the other car. As in, “I know we just got a brand-ass new automobile, but I can’t be happy because the one that just drove down the street is so much NICER.” I’m no anti-materialist, but every time this commercial comes on, I think of a family of four living in a 1983 Ford Econoline.

It’s also worth noting that a dude I know bought his wife a Lexus for Christmas once, just like in the commercials, and the Lexus people would not give him a big red bow to put on it. FALSE ADVERTISING.

Number 3: The Target commercials, which are thankfully pretty much done now that Black Friday is past, featuring the crazy lady preparing for huge sales and cackling like a maniac. She doesn’t appear to have enough skin for her head.

(The actress in question is actually Maria Bamford, a funny comedienne, but for her participation in these commercials she’s earned a lifetime sentence as an elf in a David Sedaris story.)

What weirds y’all out? Other than Chuck Testa, of course.

Been hell of busy. Three kids, man. Three.

That being said, there’s been much going on. Our good friends Sarah and Zak got married over the weekend; my own personal Sarah was the matron of honor, and I did me some singing and guitar strummin’, and also got a small group together to sing an arrangement I did of “Seasons of Love” from “Rent,” a show that I have not seen and will endeavour to avoid seeing forever because I figure if I want to see La Boheme I’ll go damn well see La Boheme, but I shall admit that the song I arranged is catchy and fun.

The wedding took place at Sweetwater Farm, which I cannot recommend highly enough and which I hope to visit again at some later date and stay at the bed and breakfast. Grace Winery is on site, and the wedding actually happened in a renovated barn that also contains most of the vintnering equipment. There are little cottages and several acres of extremely pretty land to admire, ideally while drinking a nice glass of pinot noir and/or Scotch.

And now, we find ourselves in the holiday season. Thanksgiving is, in case you haven’t recently checked a calendar, merely 2 days away, and Advent starts on Sunday, even if most commercially made Advent calendars will not recognize this fact until December 1st because Advent calendar-makers are bloody HEATHENS! As usual, my holiday season is spent either singing in concerts and services or rehearsing for concerts and services, so my wife will spend most of the month single-handedly trying to corral all three of our semi-truculent children. This means that I had better come up with one hell of a spectacular Christmas present for my wife, because no matter what it costs, the inevitable divorce will be more expensive.

Since I’m all over the place anyway, might as well throw in a little fitness update. As of a few weeks ago, I’ve switched over to “bulking” mode, which I like to pretend is “clean” but which consists of large amounts of meat and the occasional Twix bar. As a result of deliberate weight gain, my lifts have been progressing nicely. Today’s workout I squatted 290 pounds for three sets of 5, failed spectacularly to overhead press 137.5 pounds (5 reps, 4, and 3), and successfully power cleaned 155 pounds for 3 sets of 5 (all this with warmup sets, obviously). The other day I also bench pressed 192.5 pounds (I expect to get to 200 next week, woooooo) and deadlifted 370 pounds, which is 1) really bloody heavy and 2) not far from what’s going to be the maximum for a while because I only have 390 pounds of weights.

Another pair of 45 plates will be needed, but my options there are either to spend $100 on a set of brand new plates, or to call the guy I know downstate and go get a used set for $50. I’m leaning towards the latter, but don’t have the 3 hours to get down and back. Plus, if I do that I’m leaning towards getting TWO sets so I’m never likely to run out of weight (I’ll keep progressing as long as I can, but I highly doubt I’m ever going to need 570 pounds). Maybe the next time we go to the beach I can stop en route, but we probably aren’t doing anything like that until January, so I suspect I’ll just get to 390 and then keep adding reps and/or sets so at least I make progression in volume if not weight per rep.

I hope that your Thanksgiving is chock-full of tryptophan and red wine, and that you enjoy parades and football all the live-long day.

I present you, first, with a clucking chicken:



I then present you with the entire Hearn crew, post-trick-or-treating:



Hope your Halloween was rad, and devoid of horrible peanut-allergy reactions!

I haven’t been sick in almost a year (I attribute this to clean livin’ and sweatin’ to the Oldies, and also making sure I get my weekly ration of medicinal alcohol), but then I get a little sleep-deprived and BOOM I’ve come down with a cold almost instantly. It suuuuuuuuucks. Josephine’s sick too, which has led to her waking up in the middle of the night and refusing to go back to sleep. Last night’s activities:

• 3:30am – William woke up to be fed, and Josephine woke up simultaneously, demanding…well, who knows. She just cried. Mommy got her some water, and I attempted to console her. Got her calmed down, and went back to bed, at which point she started moaning again.


• 4am – She started screaming again, so I went back in to try and calm her. Sarah came in shortly thereafter, and convinced her to lie down and cover up with her blanket. We left, and she immediately started whining again.


• 4:30am – Screaming once again, so I went in, ask her what’s wrong, offer some water, lay her down, but she doesn’t respond well to this so I close the door so maybe the rest of us can get some sleep. She commenced shrilly screaming, but screw it I’m exhausted so I’m going back to bed. I walked back in our bedroom and Sarah said, “Why is she screaming?”

  
  “Because I closed her door.”

  
  “SHE’S SICK, MATT!” Sarah yelled. At that hour, I didn’t see any connection between her being sick and me closing her door so the rest of us could possibly sleep, but I also don’t want Sarah to smother me with a Boppy while I’m sleeping, so I went back in, got Josephine, and sat with her while in the rocking chair.

  
  After 10 minutes or so, she calmed, and crawled out of my arms to stand on the floor. She said something I couldn’t understand, but pointed to the changing table, so I put her on their and changed her diaper, which was dry. When I tried to put her pajama pants back on, she cried “No! No!”

  
  “You don’t want your pajama pants?”

  
  “No!”

  
  “Okay.” She started pulling on her shirt, so I figured “She’s overheated” and pulled that off too. Then she said,

  
  “Thomas shirt!”

  
  She is a HUGE Thomas the Tank Engine fan, and recently was given a couple shirts with Thomas and some of his friends on the front, and wants to wear them at every opportunity. At 5am, actual parenting becomes useless and you do whatever you think will get the child to go back to bed, so I put her Thomas shirt on, and then, at her request, her jeans. I drew the line at socks and shoes, and rocked her a bit more, at which point Sarah came in and took over so I could try and get some sleep.

  
  After 90 minutes of fitful sleep, I showered, and when I came back to the bedroom Sarah was feeding William and Josephine was once again just whining, standing in the doorway.

  
  “Josephine, are you hungry?”

  
  “Mmmm….uh-huh..mmmmmnnnn”

  
  “Stop whining. Let’s go downstairs and get breakfast.” I put my shoes on, and then Josephine did one of her super cute things, which is to simply grab my forefinger and lead me off to the kitchen, where I gave her a cereal bar and some Froot Loops.

  
  I have no idea how much sleep Sarah got, but I think I got 4.5 non-contiguous hours, so if you’re thinking “Wow this post really sucks,” that’d be why. I would like a nap. Forgive the crappiness. I ain’t even gonna proofreed this.