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For a little while there, I was fairly certain that God just didn’t care for my presence in this world and was attempting to cause my death. Strike me down, Sith-style, if you smell what The Hearn is braising. In an effort to limit my girth, which has once again neared Rosie O’Donnell proportions, I have taken up running. Sadly, the good Lord appears to want me to be overweight, because as it turns out, running hurts. A lot a lot.

I was even going slow! We have a track around the buildings at work that I measured (with my bike, which has an odometer computer thingy) to be .55 miles (designed by Etruscans, or something, I think), and I was doing laps at a pace of nearly 7 minutes per lap. For those of you adding at home, this means I was running a mile every 12 minutes, 44 seconds, which isn’t enough to outrun a Swiss glacier. And I actually managed to run 5 solid laps, a distance of nearly three miles.

I’m told that after a short distance, your body wakes up to the fact that you are causing it INTENSE BLOODY PAIN and begins to flood itself with endorphins, which amount to naturally secreted heroin. For me, this was never happening. I began to think that God, in His wisdom, had simply not granted me the ability to create endorphins. I nearly gave up.

Then I had a brainstorm. Well, two, actually. The first was, “Screw this, let’s just see if we can get over 300 pounds and get on disability.” The second was, “Hmmm…perhaps I’m simply not causing my body ENOUGH pain to start the endorphin rush!” The next day, I laced up my venerable New Balance cross-trainers, stretched a bit, and took off. I wasn’t running flat-out, but roughly 85% of my maximum effort. By about halfway around the track, I was sure I was going to die, but I didn’t let up, and lo and behold, just a few hundred yards later, I had the unmistakable feeling of calm and lightness that comes only from high-grade opiates. It was delicious! It was delightful! It was probably Gordo sticking a dirty needle in my arm. Still.

I ran a bunch more laps, setting a personal record time for 3 miles, and went inside to shower. It was hours later before I figured out the downside of running without pain: the pain just hits full-force when the endorphins wear off, usually by dinner. And I was crippled. Oh, was I crippled.

Which is why it was probably foolish for me to have done it again the following day.

If you want to party, let me tell you, Seaford, Delaware, is the Place To Be. There’s a Friendly’s, and a Walmart, and a strip club right next to the middle school! And you thought London was classy.

Okay, I’ll stop burning Seaford, because it really is a nice little town, and also because the residents are just close enough that they might consider repaying the favor and burning my house. We were in town Tuesday and Wednesday so we could do “Billy Lee’s Washington” at Seaford High School for various groups of school children. The first show was at 10am Wednesday morning, so rather than make us all get up at the buttcrack of dawn to be there by 8:30 to get costumed and painted, the organizers put us up at the Seaford Best Western on Tuesday night. As a hotel, it’s everything you could possibly dream: it had a beds, and an alarm clock, and shady characters wandering around at all hours (some of which were in our group).

I was in charge of Charles (of his days, and also sometimes his nights) until Sarah got home from class on Tuesday, so I got a late start, arriving at the hotel around 9:30. I got settled in my room and looked over my score for Carmen (oh, I’m appearing in Carmen with Opera Delaware, I may not have mentioned that; more later) for a while, until Jenny (previously referred in this space as My Illustrious Costar^TM) arrived around 10:30, and we decided we’d like to have a beer. So we went a-driving, looking for an open restaurant.

Apparently Seaford basically shuts down around 10, because no restaurants were open, and no liquor stores either. We ended up driving to Federalsburg, MD, in a search for a 7-11 over the state line that might sell beer. We found a Citgo with a liquor store attached, which was of course closed. So we returned to the hotel and to our respective rooms, and bemoaned the lack of booze in our lives. Total time spent failing to find tasty liquor: about an hour.

The next morning we enjoyed the hotel’s Continental breakfast. By “Continental” I assume they mean Africa, because there was hardly enough food for a family of one. They had set out roughly a gallon of milk, some cereal, and, strangely, a waffle-maker and about 20 gallons of batter.

Seaford High’s auditorium is really nice, though, and seats some ungodly number of kids. The performances went just great, and we followed them up with one more at Caesar Rodney High in Dover yesterday afternoon, and now we are D-U-N, unless the folks at Mount Vernon call and ask us to come perform there, which I’m not sure is going to happen because the cost of renting the costumes again would be prohibitive.

Now if I could get the songs out of my bloody head. Rochambeau est bon camarade! Rochambeau est bon camarade! Rochambeau est bon comarade, que personne ne disputer!

Please shoot me in the face.

Martha and George, pimpin’ it ol’ school. And whatnot.

John Mayer’s new CD, “Continuum,” came out about 3 weeks ago, so it goes without saying that I have been listening to it largely non-stop for approximately three weeks. I thought it might be a nice idea to give a quick review of the CD, but first, a couple disclaimers:

1. I am singularly unqualified as a judge of music. For example: I agree that “Lips of an Angel” by Hinder is not a very good song. It is harmonically depraved, and devoid of any real musicality or virtuosity. However, if it pops up on my XM radio, I will listen to it, possibly twice because my radio can record up to half an hour of tunes for later playback.
2. I am also pretty much absent of any emotional depth, so my grasp of lyrical ability is tenuous.
3. I have a pretty serious man-crush on John Mayer.

Nevertheless, you should totally trust my opinion that “Continuum” is the best album released this year, and possibly in my lifetime, and I include “Pyromania” by Def Leppard in that statement. A quick run through of the tracks, in order:

1. “Waiting On The World To Change”- Sure, it’s only been on the radio for 2 months and it’s already wildly overplayed, to the point that I actually have been skipping it when I listen through the CD. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s a cool retro tune with some kind of bell organ that makes me giggle like a schoolgirl. Plus, I guess it explores what a lot of people my age are feeling about the state of the world, or something. This song is the first thing he’s released that is actually too high for me to sing. I was like, whaaaa?
2. “I Don’t Trust Myself (With Loving You)” – The first time I heard it, I thought the tweeters in my car stereo had stopped working. The introduction simply doesn’t contain any high frequency sound. It’s like they recorded under a blanket. Still awesome.
3. “Belief” – This is the only one that I’m sort of cold on; I don’t think 28-year-old singers should really spend a lot of time expostulating on world affairs. That’s what we have Jackson Browne for. I wanna hear songs that I can learn to play at a coffeehouse and have hot girls hit on me afterwards. Not that they ever would, because I have the stage presence of Crisco^TM, if that Crisco was in the shape of a guy with a lot of restraining orders against him.
4. “Gravity” – I do not know what this song is about, and I have it on two JM albums now. Still makes me bop my head.
5. “The Heart of Life” – Speaking of head-bopping: this song basically makes the CD for me. It couldn’t be simpler, really; undistorted electric guitar, light percussion, occasionally the bass player stops smoking and plays a note or three. After the guitar solo, the chorus comes back in with a cymbal roll, and I get a feeling in my pants that could best be described as “moist.”
6. “Vultures” – This song seems to be about John being sad about being famous and how people bug him. While I can feel his pain, perhaps he shouldn’t have sold so many albums. I usually sing along with this one and ignore the fact that it’s kind of a sad song.
7. “Stop This Train” – I read a review in which the critic didn’t like this song, and I wanted to kick him right in the pills. This is the best song on the CD, I think. Sure, it seems to take a while to get anywhere, but that just heightens the anticipation. This song would have made Hitler cry, if Hitler had spent all day smoking weed and listening to Rush albums.
8. “Slow Dancing In A Burning Room” – This is one of several songs on this disc that seem to indicate John was breaking up with a redhead. At one point in the song, he makes a guitar sound that makes me think of stabbing.
9. “Bold as Love” – Jimi Hendrix cover. Totally incomprehensible. Totally rad. The guitar solo in the middle may not be strictly anything Jimi would do, but it’s got a taste of Stevie Ray Vaughan, and the whole thing is constructed, musically, better than anything Jimi could manage. Part of that is because John’s backups, Pino Palladino (bass) and Steve Jordan (drums), are absolutely light years beyond Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell (the rest of the Jimi Hendrix Experience) in every way. Also, John Mayer and Jimi have similarly-sized lips.
10. “Dreaming With A Broken Heart” – Dreaming about lost love. Example lyrics:

    Do I have to fall asleep with roses in my hand?
    And would you get them if I did?

    My heart skipped a bit at that. Seriously. I called 911 and everything.

11. “In Repair” – If there’s anything with which I can identify, it’s being broken. I’ve been miswired and faulty for years.
12. “I’m Gonna Find Another You” – Post-breakup song, which had the potential to be kinda creepy-stalkerish, but the melodies and harmonies take it in completely the opposite direction; it comes across as totally fun. Great way to end a CD.

Does it measure up to “Heavier Things” and, before that, “Room For Squares?” Absolutely. John changes his style so much from CD to CD that it’s like a different artist, and personally I think he could release a dozen more discs without ever once repeating anything.

If only he would answer my letters.

So I was talking to the French Ambassador to the US, Jean-David Levitte, and his wife the other day, and I said . . .

What? Of course I’ve met the French Ambassador to the US, Jean-David Levitte, and his wife. Hasn’t everyone? Oh right, I’m sorry, I’m just That Special.

Ha ha! Just kidding! I’m not THAT much of a tool. (Yes I am.) But I did meet the French Ambassador to the US, Jean-David Levitte, and his wife, on Friday night. Let me back up a weeeeeee bit.

I may or may not in this space have mentioned that I am playing George Washington in a new musical written by noted local composer Evelyn Swensson. We spent most of September rehearsing, and opened at the “Baby Grand” (a new, small theater built next to the Grand Opera House in downtown Wilmington) on Friday morning for a bunch of school kids bussed in from all over creation. On Friday night, we had our “gala debut,” which involved some extra scenes with Revolutionary War reenactors, and the presence of the French Ambassador to the US, Jean-David Levitte, and his wife.

The show itself is lovely; it’s approximately 75 minutes long, and features music from the 17th and 18th century that Evelyn adapted with different words to fit her story and script. The cast is quite good, featuring a group of talented kids and some of their parents. Even the ever-remarkable Jennifer Kennard (whom you may remember as My Illustrious Costar^TM from Brigadoon in 2004) appears as Martha Washington.

After the show was over, I was introduced to the French Ambassador to the US, Jean-David Levitte, and his wife, at which time I apologized for what I had done to their language (one of the songs I sing is “Rochambeau Est Bon Camarade,” the French-ified version of “Rochambeau’s a Good Fellow”), and we had a lovely conversation in which I pointed out that Washington himself was probably sterile, which caused a brief awkward look between the Ambassador and his wife. If there’s anything that Matt Hearn knows, it’s embarrassing himself in front of foreign diplomats.

I’ve decided I would very much like to be His Excellency something. Even if it’s just His Excellency the Royal Garderobe Sponger.

I have decided, unsurprisingly, that I really really really REALLY like hanging out with my son, babbling and tickling and drooling and all that. In a similar vein, I have also discovered that I really really REALLY don’t like showing up to an office every day, during which time I have to go for like 8 hours without seeing my son.

(This is something you sort of have to have kids to understand, but I can probably, in the space of this massive parenthetical aside, make an analogy for my pet-owning readers: imagine you have acquired a pet. A cat, dog, gerbil, whatever. Now imagine that your spouse attempted, for 13 1/2 hours, to squeeze this pet through an orifice on her body that is, normally, much smaller than the pet itself, and in the end they had to actually cut her open to get the pet out because the pet turned out to be ridiculously large. Imagine that this pet is completely unable to fend for itself, and you are required to tend to its every need, including feeding and elimination of poo. Then, imagine that this pet looks just like you. And lastly, imagine that every morning when you wake up, you go into your pet’s room, and he is so happy to see you that he grins from ear to ear and giggles. You can probably begin to grasp the nature of the awesomeness of this.)

So anyway, I think I need to figure out a way in which I don’t have to work anymore. My Plan A, inheriting the Viscountcy of Sidmouth, doesn’t seem to be working out, so I’m trying to figure out a Plan B. Possibilities include:

• Inheriting from actual relatives – a possibility somewhat limited by the fact that I am descended from no one with any wealth to speak of.
• Winning the lottery – In order to do this, I would actually have to play the lottery with some frequency, which is something I can’t bring myself to do.
• Writing a book, or recording a Grammy-winning CD, or something – That still seems like an awful lot of work.

Any ideas? I’m willing to try anything at this point. In fact, if you are interested in having me do some difficult work (political assassinations, wedding planning, etc.) that only requires a day or so of work per week but pays exorbitantly, I would entertain any offer.

You should totally call me.

A surprising fact that you may not realize is that I graduated from high school in 1996. Sure, I act like a 4-year-old, but I am in fact 28 years old. We celebrated these facts on Saturday at a 10-year reunion at Costa’s, a Greek place in Wilmington.

Now, I’m not much of a drinker (cough, cough), but to be on the safe side we dropped our little boy off at Sarah’s parents and rented a hotel room near the restaurant for the evening. So we checked in with some friends at about 5pm and hung out, watched a little football, and walked over to the bar at around 7:45 (trying to be fashionably late, and all).

We were, of course, among the first people there. Well played, Trebek. I rented a Heineken from the bar and began the chatting. There’s no need to come up with a complete replay, but here are the highlights:

• Hearing TJ joke about the time that he caught his jacket on fire in chem lab on a Bunsen burner being operated by me and Josh. In 1993, it was not funny, as TJ seemed likely to kill us. 13 years later, it was life-threatening funny, as we had been drinking.
• A nice gentleman whose name I won’t reveal here, let’s call him “Kansas,” passed out in the men’s bathroom covered in excrement (whether it was his own or he had somehow acquired someone else’s was unclear). He later reappeared and got in a cab, but not before Brian touched him. I will never shake Brian’s hand again, and I recommend none of you do either.
• My wife decided that, as the party wound down, we should go to Mikimoto’s. She doesn’t like sushi. HW is remarkably unpredictable after between 2 and 7 cocktails. As it turned out, they were closed anyway, so we went to the Washington Street Alehouse and rented some more beer and met some more friends.

The next morning was tragic and painful, but we applied emergency McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches and felt much better. And that was about that. Not much of a story, really. Possibly because I don’t remember much.

I feel James Lileks’s pain, I really do. He probably wouldn’t believe me; his response would be something like “That’s ridiculous. You wear XL. Everything is XL or bigger,” which is true. But there’s XL, and then there’s XL.

For example: I have long arms and a fairly sizeable neck, like a football player crossed with a spider monkey. As a result, I buy shirts of neck size 17 1/2 inches, with 36 inch sleeves. Just finding shirts like that is a major challenge; most shirts are built such that the sleeve length is exactly twice that of the neck, so a 17 1/2 usually has 34 or 35 inch sleeves, depending on maker, leaving my wrists exposed, which leads to much tut-tutting from Goodwife Smith next door. (I think they already believe I’m a witch. I don’t wish to be branded a trollop as well.) When I do find a shirt that fits my extremities, however, I’m faced with another sad fact: major clothiers seem to assume that if you have a 17 1/2″ neck and 36″ sleeves, you have a 72″ waist. It’s like wearing a tent with buttons. I end up tucking 2 or 3 yards of material into the back, which is basically a signal to everyone “I BUY FAT MAN CLOTHING.” Luckily, my mother-in-law is able to remove most of this extra material and make my shirts look non-ridiculous.

My size problems exist with pants as well, though. I have an inseam of 34 inches. Luckily, pretty much every store carries pants in that length. Unfortunately, they tend to stock them up to only a certain waist-size, which is invariably smaller than what I wear. It’s as if the buyers make a certain assumption: people heavier than 225 pounds do not exist in their reality. Anyone who is tall enough to wear a 34″ inseam is also going to be built like bloody tent peg and require a 30″ waist. Anyone who needs a 38″ or 40″ waist, well, they can’t possibly be more than 5’8″ tall, so we’re not going to offer those pants in anything longer than a 30″ inseam. My favorite store shopping experience on earth is the mecca that is Target, but I can’t buy pants there. Their 34″ inseam pants stop at 34″ waist. The only things I can get in 36″ or 38″ waists are 32″ and 30″ inseams, respectively, and it’s getting too cold out for capri pants (though my ankles do look stellar in them).

I won’t go into great depth about hats, but there’s a certain fact that I wish hatmakers would realize: when a person’s head gets wider, it also gets deeper. I can get most ballcaps on, at the very end of their adjustment band, but they sit atop my head like a bloody beanie. Two notable exceptions: a John Deere hat that I bought in Texas many years ago that’s big enough to hold a moderately-sized watermelon, and an NRA hat that I got back in college when I joined for a year. (Don’t ask.)

All of this is frustrating, but compounding the situation is the fact that I appear to be on the cusp of “big and tall” status. If I go to an actual “big and tall department,” everything is WAY big. Like, 48″ waists and 40″ inseams. Ridiculous, gigantor stuff. Plus, it’s all made by Dickie’s, and looks like something my grandfather would have dismissed as “awful conservative.”

One shining beacon in the darkness has been Old Navy, which James doesn’t like because it’s Staggeringly Hip, but which I like because they have pants and shirts aplenty in my varying sizes. At this point I get 90% of my decent clothing there.

Now if I could just convince Nike and Adidas that some of the people walking the earth have feet requiring more than a C-width shoe.

I’ve decided I should get a job with Microsoft, or some other large company, to come up with better error messages. The old “fatal error: 0x03F33B458C out of memory” just isn’t cutting for me, because it doesn’t have much meaning to the average computer user.

“Fatal error? Am I going to die?” they ask, and I have to reply, “No, it’s just fatal to the program.”

“Oh. Am I going to have to buy a new computer?”

And I weep.

No, what we need are error messages that convey the true importance of the problem at hand. Here are a few suggestions I’d like to make:

I think this would be totally way better than the current messages, right? At least it’s entertaining. 404’d!

Whew. Things seem to have calmed down a wee bit in my office, and I think I finally caught most of the way back up on my mail and various tasks. By which I mean, I’m only like 2 years behind at this point. As the old saying goes, “God put me here on earth to perform a number of tasks. Right now I’m so far behind that he’s probably going to smite me and give my tasks to someone competent.” Or whatever.

Does God still smite people, or are we assuming that it’s just dumb luck and poor medical care? Discuss.

So: Texas, and trip thereunto. I had purchased plane tickets back in June, not long after Charles popped out, and long before we realized an important fact about him: at about 6pm every day, he gets moderately cranky and displeased with his lot in life, mostly because he’s tired, and partially because of the whole Hezbollah thing. Our flight down was, of course, scheduled for 5:20pm. The flight back up: 6:25pm. Peak Charles Sadness Time.

Even better, we decided it would be best to fly into Austin, to which there are no direct flights from Philadelphia. So we were dealing with layovers, and plane changing, and the distinct possibility that a baggage handler would lose the base to our carseat, which would force us to secure Charles to the backseat with chewing gum and strands of hair.

Charles was, of course, a perfectly good boy. Sarah and I were, of course, sobbing wrecks. Imagine the last time you were on an airplane with a screaming infant, and how annoyed you were at being trapped in an enclosed space with it; now, multiply that stress by a factor of ten. Luckily, for most of the flights Charles didn’t make a peep. This did little to alleviate our stress level. Scotch, however, did.

We discovered at some point that airlines routinely don’t assign passengers to the first 2 rows of coach class, reserving them for who knows what, and when you get to the gate you can request to be placed in them, if you get there early enough. So we did. On the first flight, from Philadelphia to Austin, we were in a three person row with some poor soul who clearly had done the same thing, but hadn’t counted on the presence of a small infant, and was NOT pleased about it. He avoided eye contact with us at all times, except for once when glanced over his way and he immediately poked himself in the eye with the safety instruction booklet.

Charles must have sensed the animosity somehow, because he tried to pee on the guy. We were doing a quick in-cabin diaper change (simpler than carrying him all the way to the back to use the john), and Charles decided to let fly just as Sarah was starting to peel the diaper back. We caught it just in time, although I did get pee on my jeans. This is something I’ve grown to accept about fatherhood: I will, most of the time, smell strongly of urine and rancid milk.

We landed around 10:30 Central time, gathered our luggage (packing light is not an option where infants are concerned), and made our way to the rental car counter, which was right by the baggage return. Handy, that. Even better, the rental cars were parked right across the street! We didn’t have to take a bus driven by a toothless drunk to get to our car? I nearly wept for joy, which meant I dropped a suitcase on my toe, which caused me to weep fo’ realz.

We loaded up the car, and I drove while Sarah and Charles slept. The drive was about 2 hours, and was actually rather pleasant, except for when a deer ran out into the road and I discovered that the rental-car model of the Pontiac Grand Prix is not equipped with anti-lock brakes. Scared the bejeebers out of Sarah; Charles didn’t even wake up. I wasn’t able to ascertain the opinion of the deer on the situation, but I’m guessing it was “What the heck, man? It’s midnight! What are you doing out? Jeepers. I hate humans.”

We arrived in Mason late that night and got set up in Sarah’s parents house, which was originally constructed in the late 19th century, with additions and outbuildings built over the next century or so. It unfortunately burned a bit back in the 90s, but has been almost completely restored to its former glory. Sarah’s parents have been working hard on it for some time, taking up to 2 months out of every year to drive down and paint/decorate/repair. I myself spent a couple afternoons helping Charles the Elder rebuild the old fence that keeps cows from wandering onto the homestead.

The morning after our arrival, Sarah’s uncle Fred came over to greet us, and he and Sarah’s dad and I went out to do rancher things. We “moved water,” which means moving around the massive irrigation sprinklers that Fred uses to keep his fields moist in the drought that they’re currently experiencing, and also stopped by the cattle auction to watch them, well, auction cattle. It’s pretty much what you think; they bring a bunch of cattle in, and a guy is rattling off a patter that pretty much sounds like “heeeeeeey-batter-batter-batter-look-at-that-heifer-ain’t-
she-sweet-she’s-got-a-nice-wiggle-do-I-hear-50-no-60-no-that-was-just-a-
twitch-I-guess-how-about-55-then-okay-that’s-totally-cool-now-60-65-70-
okay-sold-to-the-fat-guy-in-the-hat-no-the-other-fat-guy-no-you-in-the-
red-yes-you-you-just-bought-a-cow-you-idiot-etc.” It’s pretty neat, and they had barbecue brisket available for lunch.

The following day we stuck close to the house, because it was well over 100 degrees outside. I spent most of it shooting at things with Sarah’s dad, trying not to embarrass him too outrageously, but what can I say? If I can see it, I can hit it. I am that awesome. You do not want to step to this.

Wednesday we went into town and did a tour of the local shops. The town square has hit some kind of boom; when we were last in Mason, 3 or 4 years ago, there were one or two small antique shops and a few other specialty stores. Now, the stores completely ring the courthouse square, and we went into most of them so Sarah could buy presents for people that she likes. Luckily, Sarah doesn’t really like that many people, so it was a quick trip.

Thursday, we went to nearby Fredricksburg for more shopping and exploring. Fredricksburg is an interesting place; I sort of describe it as a mini-Austin. It caters to a sort of artsy, hippie crowd, and has a fair amount of upscale shops and art galleries and the like. It also has the Chester Nimitz Museum, celebrating the town’s favorite son. We bought a few things, and went to a hot dog place and had some seriously loaded down 1/4 pound dawgs. Mine: chili, cheese, and onions. I gassed up the car real good on the way home, if you catch my drift.

Friday was a travel day, heading to Waco, where Sarah’s grandparents live. We made a stop on the way at Harry’s in San Saba to purchase me some righteous new boots, as well as a stop at Weber’s gun store in Temple (also notable for being Sarah’s mom’s hometown) because I wanted a new pocket knife. We also went to a Dairy Queen for grub. The trip took, with all the stops, about 6 hours, during which Charles slept like a marathon-winner. That boy sure does love the car, I tell you what.

The time in Waco was spent visiting with family and relaxing; Saturday night was Papaw’s big 80th birthday party, so all of Sarah’s aunts and uncles and cousins were there, including Kelli and her husband Brandon and their Brood (the capital B is for big; they have 4 kids, all born within a year of each other, due to the magic of triplets and extreme virility).

We went to church on Sunday, and then just hung out on Monday and Tuesday, watching TV and playing with Charles. Wednesday we flew back home, and that was that. Then I went to work on Thursday and immediately wanted to kill a lot of people.