matthearn.com

Holy natural disaster week, Batman! First we get the strongest earthquake on the East Coast in over 60 years, and then this weekend we’re getting treated to a Category 4 hurricane this weekend. Hearnwife, who loves a good disaster (she once forced me to watch a movie entitled “Atomic Twister,” which was as painful as it sounds, although in her defense Mark-Paul Gosselaar was in it and he’s so dreamy Freud has a chapter about him in Die Traumdeutung), is so excited she’s having trouble controlling her bladder, although that also because she’s 8 months pregnant with what we can only assume, based on how hard he kicks, is a wallaby.

(Here’s how you can tell Matt Hearn is back in the blogging groove:

1. One paragraph with 17 million links


2. A 79 word run-on sentence


3. A lengthy, pointless parenthetical remark


4. A numbered list

Sadly, it turns out some Washington, DC landmarks sustained damage. The Washington Monument and Smithsonian Castle are both closed pending repairs and structural analysis, and the spires of the National Cathedral got straight jacked-up, son, although at least it happened yesterday instead of, say, early July when I was singing there, so on the plus side I do not have a gargoyle-shaped dent in my cranium.

We’re all particularly excited by the prospect of Irene, since it looks like we’ll be travelling while it passes through, so we get both the thrilling possibility of being blown off the road into a bridge abutment and minimal traffic because everyone with any damn sense is staying home. As an added bonus, I’ve still got plenty of big trees available to fall onto my house in high winds.

In case you’re curious about the best way to prepare for a hurricane, it turns out it’s also the best way to prepare for a big snowstorm, and handily enough, also earthquakes and riots of soccer hooligans: the makings of french toast (stale bread, milk, eggs, and honey), a flashlight or two, and at least two cases of really fine india pale ale. In the case of hooligan riot, you might also invest in a shotgun, or at least a big katana.

As I believe this gentleman would say: “Things are about to be unpleasant for you.” I’d like to show you a picture of the sky, which is currently as black as my wife’s zombie heart, but I’m far too lazy to go downstairs and do it. Instead:

Red=moist

I am so tired of the rain that I may do an Anti-Rain Dance. I haven’t worked out all the details yet, but I think it will entail drinking a crapload of Olde Fenestre while shaking my fist at the sky and yelling “Thank you God! Thank you so bloody much!“

Phillies games keep getting rained out, I can’t mow my knee-high grass, and worst of all, Charles has SERIOUS cabin fever and is bored as all get-out. (Actually, if you ask him, “Charles, are you bored?” He replies, “No, I’m a little boy.) It looks like Thursday is going to be nice, so Charles and I are planning to hit the Flower Market for one last fun evening before the baby comes, so obviously the baby will probably come early because, based on the insane acrobatics she does inside my wife’s torso, my daughter is a saucy wench.

After Thursday, of course, it’s going to rain some more, except for Mother’s Day, which is fantastic except that we’ll be in hospital enjoying hospitality. On the plus side, the lawn is growing nicely, except that I have no idea when I’ll have time to cut it, so I’m sure I’ll get to it after the baby comes and it will be 17 inches high. Unless the neighbors complain, and the county comes to do it and bills me, which if the price is reasonable may become my means of lawn maintenance for the summer.

Mmmm…autumn. The time of year when I leave my house in a heavy jacket and long pants because it’s 54 degrees at 9am, and end up having to strip to my knickers when I get out of work because it’s over 80 and the AC in the house isn’t on. I kid, because this is pretty much my favorite season. I love the leaves changing, I love the cooler temps, I love wearing layers, I love the smell of people getting their fireplaces going for the first time since March, I love the way my wife smells in the fall. (Musky.)

I’ve always been conflicted, though, because growing up I was not such a fan of school. And September was the beginning of it. I remember going to first grade on rainy Tuesdays and depressed all day, not least because I was a Talker, and was therefore usually on punishment. I think I spent the entirety of that year with my desk pushed far away from the rest of the class because I had problems “shutting the F up,” as Mrs. Morgan put it to my parents during parent-teacher conferences.

(Note: Mrs. Morgan probably never said that. I don’t know, I wasn’t there. But I wouldn’t be surprised if she had. I was . . . frustrating.)

Now, of course, I have to work my 8-9 hours a day year round, and I combat the depression with ill-gotten meds, but I look at Charles and think: dang, boyo. If you’re anything like me (and he’s almost identical to me, so far), in about 5 years you’re going to be sitting in first grade, talking a mile a minute, until your teacher throws a stapler at your head.

(Note: no teachers ever threw staplers at my head. Mr. Eshelman hit me in the eye with a piece of chalk once, but he assured me it was on accident. Though I did see him collecting a sawbuck from Ms. Shepard later, as if he had won some kind of bet.)

And as much as I enjoy cooler temperatures, the timing of them kinda sucked; it was warm most of last week, until I drove to the beach on Friday and the temps hovered in the high 60s all weekend. Not exactly “fling oneself into the surf” weather. Luckily, we (Sarah and I and her coworkers and friends) combatted this by drinking staggering amounts of red wine, and eating enough Mimolette that I still ain’t poopin’ right. (Which you totally needed to know.)

Welcome to Spring! It couldn’t have come soon enough, as far as I’m concerned. You may recall last week we had SNOW, and just 4 days ago the wind and rain and temperatures were that of a normal January day. And it sucked. Like whoa.

Now we’re going to get a week of warm temperatures, which is nice because most of next week I’ll be working nights, enabling me to rest and relax outside during the day. Which I will undoubtedly spend sleeping. Come on, summer!

The warmer weather does enable me to exercise more; I ran twice this week in the cold and was very unhappy about it, although I did set personal bests for 3.3 miles and 1.1 miles. Yesterday I ran a mile in 8 minutes 27 seconds, which is the fastest I’ve run a mile since 8th grade, when I managed a 7:45 once. At the time, I weighed maybe 130 pounds. I, uh, don’t weigh that little anymore.

Since I hate lifting weights, but want to exercise my arms and abs and back, I decided to supplement my running with some batting cage fun. I have the interesting problem of throwing left-handed but batting right; this is the result of teaching myself to hit when I was little by throwing the ball in the air with my left hand and swinging across my body at it. The end result of this is that I’ve always been next to useless from a baseball/softball perspective, since left-handers can’t play 2nd or 3rd base or shortstop (because a left hander throwing to first has to turn his body around before whipping the ball over, which takes extra time), and right-handed batters are as common as pigeons. (Not that this makes much difference in softball.)

Anyway, I thought it might be fun to actually learn to bat left-handed, thinking that as an actual lefty I would be a better hitter from that side, and also give myself the benefit of batting switch, so I can direct softballs to weaker fielders (who are invariably at first base and right field). So I’ve been swinging from the lefty side, and I can report the following: apparently there are muscles in my body, that you only use when batting left-handed, that have completely atrophied. Because I am in Pain.

I went to the cages on Monday and was completely crippled until Wednesday, including bizarre unexplained pain in my NECK muscles, which I had not believed were involved in the act of swinging a softball bat. I thought myself recovered today, so I went back, and within 20 swings I was reminded of why exercise makes Baby Jesus cry. Ow. I’d be in less pain if I had simply handed the bat to someone and told him to go to town on my arms and torso.

The lesson, as I believe I have mentioned: I’m a wuss.

I know nobody really wants to read about the weather; either you’re local to me, and already aware of it, or you’re not, in which case it’s not a concern for you. Nevertheless, what in the ham-handed hell? There was SNOW this morning in North Wilmington, which is like 10 miles north of me. It was sort of sleeting when I left the house this morning, and the wind about caused me to dent my car with my head. As B pointed out, we basically went through a category 2 hurricane. And Al Gore wasn’t anywhere near us!

Anyway, I’m tired of this weather, and I’m tired of being sick, as both are preventing me from exercising, since there’s nothing worse than riding a bicycle in cold weather, and jogging sucks bad enough when it’s dry. I seriously need to exercise, because I keep doing things like making pans of cinnamon rolls and eating the entire batch in a weekend, despite the fact that they kinda sucked because the dough never rose properly (I blame low-fat buttermilk, which I think was acidic enough to kill the yeast before it could get its rise on). I did get a LITTLE exercise on Saturday, mowing the lawn and putting dirt around my patio and whatnot, but the end result of that mess is that my back hurts and I still weigh 240+ pounds.

I am a large devil, I am.

I’d like to get at least some amount of exercise every day, but my legs just can’t take running every day, based on the ankle pain I suffered through last week. So I’ve decided to hit up the batting cages around the corner from my office a couple days a week. Work the core and arms, develop some hand-eye coordination, learn how to switch-hit; it’s win-win-win-triple-X-throwdown-WIN! Plus it helps improve my odds of being called up to AAA.

Yes, I played something like 15 hours of video game baseball over the weekend. Update: you may recall I made myself a switch-hitting catcher. By “mid-June” I was batting around .320, with 11 home runs and 25 or so RBI, so they called me up to the majors, where they made me play first base. I was like, whaaaaaa? I guess they needed a temporary backup for Ryan Howard. Whatever. After 4 games (I was batting a healthy .300 or so, but only had 6 or 7 ABs) they sent me back down to AAA, where I am continuing to play first base for some reason. Argh. I’m going to try and get them to move me to the outfield, where at least I have a chance of platooning with Burrell.

Not that you care about ANY of that. Ha ha! That’s the joy of talking about fantasy and video game sports: nobody cares. It’s just like the weather.

In which I hate technology, and technology hates me right back.(All up in my grill, yo.)

It’s heck of warm out today (low 60s), so, being a forward-thinking individual, I thought to myself yesterday “I should TOTALLY go running at work and try to eliminate the enormous amount of fat located between my crotch and my boobs,” and brought in running clothes and a towel to store in my locker downstairs in the poop room that has showers. And lo, I took an early lunch, went out, and ran 2.75 miles before the agonizing chest pain and developing foot blister made me stop.

Have I reached my point yet? Not even remotely.

So I came back in, showered, and grabbed lunch, which consisted of a Salisbury “Steak” made of, as far as I can tell, pressed gerbil cremains, along with green beans and cheesy potatoes au gratin (a quality side, to be sure). A few hours later, I realized I was still pretty hungry, so I said to myself, oh man, the SNACK machine will hook me up with FLAVOR.

So I wandered into the snack room, bought a bottle of Diet Coke, and then studied the snack machine for delectables. Sure enough, they had some kind of Apple/Cinnamon-flava’d Danish, all over which I desired to jump. I attempted to stick my dollar into the machine, but was foiled! It would accept no bills. And I had just used the bulk of my change on my drink. Bemused, I pressed a few buttons on the front of the machine, which showed no sign of even being powered on. Argh!

I wandered aimlessly around the halls, looking for another snack machine, and finally found one. Sadly, it had no Apple/Cinnamon-flava’d Danish. It did, however, have a three pack of chocolate cupcakes of the type I subsisted on in high school, so I inserted my dollar and pressed the proper buttons. The machine whirred for a moment, then beeped, and a small light appeared next to some words reading “Please make another selection.”

“What?” I replied. “But the other selections are not what I desire. Don’t mess with me, machine, I COLD RAN 2.75 MILES EARLIER AND AM NOT ONE WITH WHICH YOU SHOULD TRIFLE.” And I pressed the buttons again.

“Please make another selection.”

I tried to outwit the machine by requesting my dollar back, which came back in quarters, and inserting exact change, but I came to the conclusion that whoever inserted the latest supply of foodstuffs had improperly loaded the chocolate cupcakes. In the end I realized that the machines were involved in some kind of conspiracy not to sell me anything that might increase the amount of lipids bonded semi-permanently to my stern. I relented, bought a small package of peanut butter crackers, and went back to my desk to weep silently.

Okay, so uh, what’s in the news? Apparently that girl Anna Nicole Smith died, but I joked about that yesterday. (Was it too soon? The response I got from the interwebs was cold, to say the least.) There’s some banshee crazy astronaut ho that drove from Texas to Florida in DIAPERS to kidnap and likely kill her romantic rival. Apparently she wore diapers so she wouldn’t have to make unnecessary stops, but here’s the thing:

Distance she drove: about 950 miles.

Distance most cars can go before they need to stop for refueling: 350 miles.

So she had to stop AT least twice to get gas; would it be that out of the question to maybe take 5 minutes to whiz while the gas is pumping? Here’s the lesson I have learned: women are crazy.

What else? The weather has been making up for lost time; it hasn’t been above freezing, as far as I can tell, in like 6 days. I can’t say I’m sad about it, since I enjoy me some cold weather, but I’d like to have a good dose of 8″ of snow to go along with it and make it impossible for me to drive to work. They say we’re supposed to get snow on Tuesday, we’ll see how it goes.

I’m low-carbing it again, but it doesn’t appear to be working as well this time, probably because I’m screwing it up. It’s not my fault! People keep making me pies! I need to get on my bike some more and see if that helps force the old belly into “ketosis,” which apparently is what they call it when your body starts burning your fat for energy. I fully support the burning of fat; I am, at last check, roughly 85% fat myself. Maybe self-immolation is the answer…I’ll look into it.

Speaking of death-wishes, Charles has been crawling for a few weeks now, and has developed quite an interest in flinging himself down the steps into the foyer. So far I’ve caught him before he does so, but we need gates; a friend of ours is going to lend us some, but I’ve yet to go pick them up, so I guess I’d better do that. You know, before my son lands nose-first on cold, unforgiving ceramic tile.

As you can probably tell, I really don’t have anything of any interest to share with you, so I’ll just point you to Vinegar Man-Douche and let you have your own fun.

Man, weird weather up in this mix. The temps are going to hit 60 today, and we’ve had this disturbing fog hovering over us, now in its third day. I can’t say I’m thrilled about it, since I keep having to drive all over creation. It’s like God farted, dude, and it’s just LINGERING.

We had our office holiday party the other day; there was much merriment. I baked a shoo-fly pie and some cinnamon rolls and brought them in. I had baked so many cinnamon rolls (in an effort to get rid of frozen bread dough) that I left two trays for the party and brought two trays up for “UNIX Team holdbacks,” as it were, of which my teammates ate maybe 5 rolls. Since there are 12 rolls in a tray, this mean I ate, by myself, over the course of 2 workdays, 19 cinnamon rolls. And yet I wonder why I don’t fit into any of my winter pants.

Our well-traveled high school pal Stefan is in town for a few weeks, over from South Korea, where he’s been living for a few years, teaching English to small children. This may seem rather innocuous information, but if you knew Stefan, you’d be as terrified as I am. Rest assured: these children will be well versed in good ol’ American profanity. We met him for dinner last night at a nice Mexican place in North Wilmington, where I had fajitas with shrimp (pronunciation: skrmzpz) in ’em. He gave me a small bottle of Korean liquor, which he described as sort of being like vodka. Apparently over there they do shots of it until they suddenly find they are speaking Mongolian.

For those of you with Sephardic or Ashkenazic ancestry: Happy Chaka Khan! Or however it’s spelt. My grasp of the English language is more tenuous than you might assume.

Went I went out to my car this morning, there was frost on it. And the grass. It’s winter! Yaaaaay!

It’ll probably be in the 80s next week. And people wonder why I spend this time of year heavily sick. I’m lucking out at the moment; I’m sure I’ll catch the full-blown flu the week “Carmen” opens.

Nothing much occurring around here other than that. I ran 3.3 miles in 32:16 the other day, my fastest time since I had to outrun those South American natives after I stole their golden idol. Man, were they pissed. Based on my calculations, I should be able to run a 5K in 30 minutes 33 seconds. I could take State with those kind of numbers. Hopefully my Lil Sis and I will set some ridiculous records for “5K time for a brother-and-sister combo weighing a combined 350+” when we run our 5K in November. I have no doubt that it will happen. Because I am hella fast. For a fat kid.

You may have noticed that my output here as increased over the last few weeks; no, I’m not any less busy, but I’m coming to the realization that if I don’t do a better job of keeping y’all in giggles, what miniscule readership I have (hi Mom!) will disappear. If I were you, I would expect to see more stuff here, mostly just pointless blog entries completely devoid of anything that makes any bloody sense, each of them probably not much longer than THIS pointless entry making little sense. Since I won’t be bothering to edit much, you’ll be noting more grammatical errors and the like, so don’t think I’ve had a stroke or anything. I’m just in a big dang hurry.

Stay loose, killers. More to come next week.