matthearn.com

Permit me to set the scene.

Saturday morning: Sarah and I went for a nice long walk around our development, and then returned home to shower and prepare to meet our friends for drunken revelry and poker. Sarah jumped in the tub while I watched Norm Abrams carve wood, and when she was done I stripped to my skin and went to start the shower. Then my cell phone rang. The following conversation ensued:

Me: Hello?
Brian: Two things. First, I’m going to go to the Phils game today [instead of coming over to play poker with you]. Second, do you have a minute?
Me: Uh, sure, I guess.
Brian: Okay, you’re about to be interviewed.

Here’s where I should explain that Brian works Saturday mornings at WDEL (1150 on your amplitude modulation dial). So here I am, standing in my living room, nude, on my cell phone (which doesn’t work very well in the house), and the following thoughts are foremost in my mind:

1. I’m about to be WHAT?
2. I doubt I should mention on the air that I’m buck naked.
3. Don’t drop the F-bomb . . . don’t drop the F-bomb . . . don’t drop the F-bomb . . .

That last was what was running through my head for the duration of the interview, which is why it’s surprising that I did NOT say it. It was the most nerve racking 9 minute phone call of my life, and most of it was spent on hold listening to commercials. I was about paralyzed for about 4 minutes, and then I managed to squirm into a pair of shorts, and tell Sarah so she could turn on a radio.

Then I got to talk to some woman whose name I never caught while trying not to pee my pants. If you don’t mind the 1.3MB filesize, give it a listen, and let me know if you can hear the abject terror in my voice.

Of course, I’d do it again in a heartbeat, of course, because I have an ego like Antarctica has ice.

More Brigadoon pics AGAIN! It’s like I’ve completely given up on my ability to write! Which I probably should have done years ago!

(Must stop babbling . . . must stop babbling . . .)

Anyway, this particular set is DEFINITELY worth a look, since I finally got some great pictures of Ariann and Jennifer, the two ladies in Tommy’s life. They are rad.

New Brigadoon pics! And for those of you who missed the first bunch of pics, just go straight to http://www.matthearn.com/Brigadoon2004.

Whew, LOOOONG weekend. I’m sure you want to hear all about it! It’ll be great! Have a seat! Hey, where are you going, come back! Really, you’ll enjoy this. It involves livestock!

NOW I’ve got your attention, you perverts.

Anyhoo, the weekend began with a nice day off on Friday during which I cleaned out the garage. I then promptly filled it back up with more junk, particularly my buddy Craig’s refrigerator, which I’m storing for him until he moves into his new place in a few weeks. My mother was also kind enough to give me boxes and boxes of useless crap that I’d left in my old bedroom at her house.

I did manage to get my motorcycle free, so hopefully I’ll get it running soon and be able to ride it around the neighborhood a bit; I could use the practice before riding it to the repair shop for further maintenance, since I figure it might be nice to not crash into a tree on the way there. As we shall soon discover, I’m fragile enough as it is.

Friday evening, Brian and Mary came over; we moved a piano, and then went to a bar and ate things that are not on my diet.

Saturday, we went to Home Depot and purchased all kinds of paint supplies, steel brushes, spray paints, many grood things, and after spending a few hours chatting with our friendly peeps Dan and Lynn, got our paint on. We had to begin painting the living room because I want to be able to tune the piano. The logic of the previous statement is explained thusly:

1. The piano is in the living room.
2. It needs to be tuned.
3. Per #2, it is scheduled to be tuned on Thursday.
4. When you move a piano, it tends to go out of tune.
5. We wish to paint the living room.
6. To paint a living room wall, it is usually necessary that there be nothing blocking your access to that wall.
7. The piano was against a wall.
8. Ergo, it needed to be moved.
9. Per #4, I didn’t wish to pay $150+ to have it tuned (it’s very out of tune) and then have to move it a few weeks later to paint, thereby putting it out of tune.
10. We needed to move it out of the way and begin painting, which we did, so that when the piano-wall was done we could move the piano back into place to be tuned. Which we have done. Q.E.D.

Of course, I neglected to think that I might want to be ripping up the carpet if I discover that there’s hardwood under it. I’m not a great “plan ahead” kind of guy. Anyway, Saturday afternoon and evening was paint day. We thought of going out for a nice dinner Saturday night, but I was on call, and I knew as soon as we sat down I’d get paged. Did I get paged? No, of course not, because we didn’t go anywhere. My job is so lame.

Sunday, we got up and went to church since my Moms and El Maj were singing duet-type jaunpiece. It was very nice, even though poor Sarah got a little confused from time to time. (I’m trying to actually get to church with reasonable frequency this summer to try and stave off my eventual damnation.)

After that I put another coat of paint behind the piano and on myself, and we headed over to Mandy and Speech’s for drinks and grub. While there, we noticed that they had a girl’s 10 speed bike on the front porch, that Mandy immediately gave to HW. So I get to go over there later and pick that up, which will be nice, since Sarah will take any opportunity to injure herself on two wheels. (Says the idiot that fell off his bike during the motorcycle course 2 years ago.)

The remainder of the evening became rather anacreontic, as we went over to The Boys™ for vast amounts of food, wine, and political argument. (My parents friends are rather liberal; I am rather, um, not (Vote Libertarian!).) I was asked several times during the course of the evening whether or not I had an off switch. (Answer: hells no.) I was also chided by my friend Michele for pronouncing the word “absurd” in this manner: “abzurd,” as opposed to “abssurd.” I, of course, looked it up later, and discovered that either pronunciation is legal (although the latter is the preferred), so I offer this in response: Nah. Nee Nah. Nee Boo.

Boo.

Man, was I hammered on Sunday. Luckily, Sarah drove home.

The next morning, we dragged ourselves out of bad in a BAAAAAAAD way. I actually got outside and ran a mile before we got in the car to drive to Lancaster for the day, stopping first at my Aunt Rebecca’s house, where we ate crab-toast, cinnamon flop, and Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding. My mother made it. I’m pretty sure she’s a hecubus, or at least a sizeable imp of some kind.

Next, we headed over to Aunt Nanette’s farm, where we feasted on rosemary-coated lamb (as opposed to Rosemary Clooney lamb) and I ate the rest of the cinnamon flop. I also took the opportunity to take pictures of her sheep and calf. The calf will be a steer in a few weeks, and looked exceptionally tasty. The lambs, of course, looked absolutely succulent. Before I remembered myself I found myself gnawing on the thigh of one of the larger ones, which earned me some strange looks from the other barn-dwellers. My relatives, of course, took it all in stride.

Last, but certainly not least, we went over to Uncle Gord’s place, where we stuffed ourselves with dessert and swam in the pool, not necessarily in that order. Because Uncle Gord no longer drinks, nobody else was drinking, so we were even able to stay sober for the 90 minute drive home! I even managed to get off of Rt. 30 at Rt. 741 and didn’t get lost once! Man, I’m hell of brilliant. Sometimes being me hurts.

Tuesday started off poorly when I ran for 6 minutes and then threw out my back. (See? Being me really DOES hurt.) Particularly when I realized that I’d be moving our dining room furniture, and the piano, later that morning. Not good times. Excruciating times. So I pounded half a bottle of Advil with a vodka chaser and got to work, driving up to Sarah’s parents to pick up the furniture, load it into my truck and their van, and then drive it back down to the house. Luckily, it was mostly veneer-type stuff, so it wasn’t terribly heavy. The piano, on the other hand, is never getting moved again without the benefit of a crane. We’ll just leave it with the house. Or perhaps burn it, while drunk. I’m looking forward to that bacchanalian extravaganza.

The day didn’t improve when, at 4pm, I got paged for the first time all weekend, and the issues escalated from there, to the point that I missed most of Brigadoon rehearsal, for which I still feel rather guilty, since as a lead, my presence is rather important. Plus I lend an air of sexiness to the whole production that it sorely needs. I ended up being stuck at the data center until almost 1am, after which I passed out in my bed in the nude. (That’s right, picture it. I was lying face up. Blind now, aren’t you? Welcome to my wife’s world.)

I told you you’d want to read this.

My main homegirl Jodi sent me another of those amusing email questionnaires! Of course, since I’m averse to adding to other folks spam collections, I’ll just go ahead and respond online so everybody can read how I’m a freak.

1. What time is it? Well, this is in intriguing way to start a list. As of right now it’s 10:42, although by the time I finish it will probably be much later. It turned out to be 11:06.
2. Name as it appears on your birth certificate? Senor Cardgage. Oh wait, sorry, no. Matthew David Hearn.
3. Any nicknames? The Hearn, Waffy, “That Sexy Guy With Great Hair.”
4. Parents’ names? Unfortunately, they’re in the witness protection program, but I can tell you that one of them was previously named “Alphonse.”
5. Candles appeared on your last birthday cake? I think you’re asking my age. I didn’t have a birthday cake. (I prefer pie.) I’m 26.
6. Date that you regularly blow them out? I like to let them burn for a few months before I get to them. It’s kinda like the olympic torch; we get special gas-powered candles. Leaves a funny aftertaste in the frosting, though. Anyway: August 27th.
7. Pets? I think we started with 1 cat. Now we have like 11. My house smells like pee.
8. Tattoos? Not much of a drummer, personally. Oh, you meant skin art. Got me a cowboy hat and geeeeeeeeetar on my shoulder. It’s why I spend so much time shirtless. That and my incredible ab.
9. How much do you love your job or jobs? Computers: Like the work, like the people (mostly), hate the company. Music: All about it. Can’t get enough. Anybody wanna hire a full-time choral singer and pay me like 80 grand? That’d be rad.
10. Ever had a car accident? My attorneys have advised me not to mention details. (Short answer: yes.)
11. Your fault? Most DEFINITELY not. I’m an excellent, an excellent driver. Excellent.
12. Favorite vacation spot? Any warm, uncrowded beach, where I can drink heavily and bodysurf.
13. Ever been to Africa? Nope. Not a huge fan of populations of AIDS-ridden poor people. That probably sounds selfish, because it is.
14. Ever Stolen anything? Just the hearts of ladies (and mens) worldwide. ::wink::
15. Croutons or Bacon bits? Oh, you gotta go with the bacon bits there. I’m on the Atkins joint, so Croutons are out, and I have a love for bacon that’s only rivaled by my love for middle-aged grandmothers.
16. 2-door or 4-door? Not particularly picky on this point. My truck has 4 doors, but if I ever got around to fixing up a 1987 Monte Carlo SS Aerosport, it would have two doors. And a MONSTROUS engine.
17. Coffee or juice? I like both, but juice is out (Atkins again) ’cause of all the sugar. I drink coffee, although not often recently because I’ve been singing so much and caffeine plays with one’s vocal cords.
18. Favorite Salad? Tossed. I PREFER SYRUP.
19. Favorite type of car? Large trucks, medium-sized muscle cars, and massive 1972 Pontiac Grand Villes in hideous colors.
20. Favorite type of movies? Comedies, action, porn. I mean . . . not porn. I would never watch that kind of thing. It makes your eyes bleed!
21. Favorite Holiday? Christmas. Thanksgiving is a close second, but Christmas RULES. I love presents.
22. Favorite Food? Beef. Pretty much any form, although medium-rare prime rib is better than sex.
23. Favorite day of the week? Today.
24. Favorite song? Not sure. Right now, probably “From This Day On” from Brigadoon (Get your tickets now! 478 3355!). I tend to get attached to songs that I sing for one reason or another.
25. Favorite TV Show? Probably Family Guy, although Sports Center and Band of Brothers also could be tops.
26. Toothpaste? Would I like some? Probably. I taste like cat butt right now.
27. Most recently read book? Uh…Stalker, by whatshername. Just a fluff murder mystery. I’m also working on a book about Hold-’em poker.
28. Perfume/Cologne: Can’t stand the stuff. Clogs my nose up. Sarah sprays on some kind of flowery crap from time to time and my whole head just fills with mucus. BAD TIMES.
29. Favorite scent? Cotton candy and scotch. (You should hung out, maaaaan!)
30. Favorite Fast Food place? Right now, Taco Bell. If only ’cause each soft taco, if you just eat the innards and throw away the shell, has only one net carb. So I eat 8 in a sitting.
31. When was your last hospital stay? Hm. I’ve never stayed overnight, but I did have to sleep there for a half hour or so while I was getting an EEG in 1991. (I had fainted in health class, so they thought I had a seizure, although in reality they were talking about surgery on testicles and I ::THUD::

    What happened? I was in the middle of a parenthetical aside and I woke up on the floor in the fetal position with my thumb in my mouth. Weird. Oh well, moving on.

32. How many times did you fail your driver’s license? I assume this means my driver’s license TEST. Ah, gotta love English and the people that speak it. Anyway, I never failed, although getting a license in Delaware is roughly as difficult as finding a heroin dealer in Newark.
33. Where do you see yourself in 10 years? Two possible paths: 1) living here in Delaware, suffering at some computer job, have a couple of cool kids that I’m teaching to snap Sarah’s bra, and doing some musical stuff on the side. 2) Touring as a professional actor or musician. No, I’m not drunk again.
34. What do you do when you’re bored? Work on my house; answer questionnaires.

How about it? Do I get the job? Oh, wait. Sorry, got confused. I must’ve hit my head when I was typing about testicular surgery earlie-::THUD::

What you are looking at over on the right is a map of a portion of New Castle County. It lists my 4 primary locations for the next 6 weeks: My Office, The Data Center, My Criznib (that’s my house, for the un-Snoop-initiated), and Aldersgate United Methodist Church (where we have Brigadoon rehearsals (get your tickets now! 478 3355!)).

You may notice that some of the roads have been over-colored with pink or red. This is to show you where construction is happening near me.

That’s right, every single major road I use to get to any destination! WOOHOO!

I’m pretty sure that DelDOT found out I was moving to New Castle and they had a big board meeting about it. Apparently everybody that I ever pissed off in my life (all four of them, including my wife) is on the board, and figured the best way to get vengeance was to make sure I could never drive anywhere again.

Here’s a little more detail (speaking of which, you can click the picture to look at the large version if it’s hard to read): the red sections are parts that are currently under full construction, including road closures, sign holders, the works. The roads with pink on them are roads that are either under periodic construction (every few days, they inexplicably close a lane of 95 all the way through Wilmington and do some kind of jackhammering at the bridges. I have no idea why.), or are scheduled to be worked on later this year (like when they basically shut down Route 1 south of 273. I almost cried when I heard that).

The real fun is when things happen like what went down Tuesday night. Bill had let us out of rehearsal early, around 9:50, so I got in the truck and headed south, down 95, to my usual exit at Route 1, which was closed. Dammit. So I get off at 273 East, which was open, but a little slow. Then slower. Then stopped.

Up at the front of the line, just at the top of the hill, was a massive dump truck that had inexplicably halted, with no way for anyone to get around. It had broken down.

It was at this point that I realized how badly I had to pee.

Eventually, some good Samaritans walked down to the exit and started routing traffic away from 273 East so we could slowly back our way down and take 273W and make a U-turn. I consider these people to be the coolest people of all times, even eclipsing me and Dustin Diamond.

Okay, sorry for the extended (and highly stupid) rant. I just had to let it out. So that I can stop crying, and stuff.

Tomorrow: day off to clean out the garage! I do have some pretty artsy-fartsy pictures to upload, and hopefully tomorrow I’ll have a sizeable collection of Brigadoon shots from tonight’s rehearsal. If I find time I’ll get them uploaded.

New Brigadoon pictures! Just an update of 5, though. If you already saw the previous nine, you can skip ahead to the new ones by clicking this jaunpiece, or if you weren’t paying attention when I posted the original set, you can click this defness to view them all.

Textual update tomorrow. Subject: road construction, and why it SUH-UCKS.

Can someone please explain to me America’s fixation with not-so-great singers? I’m not talking about Kelly Clarkson, although pop stars as a rule usually do reach a level of suckage normally only approached the experimental prototype Bissell built a few years ago that runs on weapons-grade plutonium. No, I’m talking about actual “classical” singers, like Ronan Tynan and Andrea Bocelli.

I was just listening to a recording of Bocelli singing “Con Te Partiro,” and it was, well, bad. I guess he must be putting all kinds of emotion into the performance that I can’t sense, because all I noticed was that he kinda sounded like a 74 Datsun. He was wheezing, and hitting high notes with a technique that he clearly developed in an effort to sound as much like canine flatulence as possible.

Ronan Tynan, of course, is the famous “Irish” tenor that sings at all the important Yankee games. He also performed a few numbers at President Reagan’s funeral, most notably a version of Ave Maria that put me to sleep. His voice itself isn’t that horrific, but he sings with all the energy of a corpse. Not to mention that every time I see him he appears to have gained 30 pounds; if he starts waving around a snotty white handkerchief I’m gonna try to hire a hit man.

I do think that Josh Groban is pretty decent, although every time I hear about him I picture a massive lizard being interviewed by a horribly un-politically-correct John Candy with slanty eyes.

What I really can’t figure is what’s up with Americans recently that they’re suddenly into this pseudo-classical stuff. The best I can figure is that it’s all just pretentiousness, which is something I know about, because you don’t get more pretentious than I. (I own leather pants.) I mean, get a person a Josh Groban CD and they’re all “Wow! I’ve wanted to listen to him for ages!” Get him a CD of King’s College Cambridge singing an evensong, and they’re all “Uh . . . cool. I, um, sure do like organ music.” What the hell, yo? I guess the average American just wouldn’t recognize decent music if it bit him on the butt.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go sort my Toto bootlegs.

Oh, MAN. I have to stop listening to the voices in my head. Especially when those voices say, “Hey, Jared’s got a point, we should go to Hooters.”

At 9pm on a Sunday night.

Let’s set the stage: Sarah leaves town at 4pm to spend the next few days in Dover. I decide to celebrate this fact with 1 or 8 gin-and-tonics. Jared, who came up for the Blue-Gold Game on Saturday, is present. We play a few video games, watch some TV, when it happens.

Hooters commercial.

And the seed is sown. I hastily run a razor over my face (with no shaving cream, just water, which turned out to be one of the first mistakes), rub on some deodorant, and put on my muscle shirt. (Don’t ask. Just . . . don’t.) The actual visit was uneventful; we had some brews, some wings, some laughs with the waitress, and headed home. Jared was remarkably sober (Oh right, he hadn’t been pouring Tanqueray down his throat for 6 hours!), so we made it home with no incidents other than the fact that singing “Insomniac,” and hitting the 4-measure F# at the end, is not recommended by the American Dental Association.

I then went to bed, entered oblivion, and dreamt of embarrassments past.

I don’t think I actually woke up. I still have the sense of dreaming, although really it’s more of a nightmare, as I feel as if somebody is pounding a golden railroad spike into the base of my skull. And then peeing on it.

I had forgotten to activate my alarm last night, so I awoke this morning at approximately 9:45 when Discover card called to tell me they wanted to increase my credit limit (from $6500 to $7000 . . . wow! Color me honored!). Luckily I only missed about half of my Monday morning meeting, and almost nobody else was there either; I’m not sure why, as I didn’t see any of them at Hooters last night.

Not that I’d have remembered if I did.

* * * WEIRD DREAM ALERT!!! * * *

I need some analysis again. This one is just bizarre, but strangely enough it kinda makes sense, I think, although not to me, and probably not to anybody with an ounce of sanity remaining.

Inexplicably, I’m at an obstetrician’s office with Sarah and a friend of ours (who will remain nameless), who are both with child. (In the dream. In real life, neither of them are pregnant, to the best of my knowledge.) Then later it turns out Sarah’s NOT pregnant, and in fact is no longer there with us; I’m just there to talk about how long it takes for someone to get knocked up once they go off the pill. Our other friend IS pregnant (again, only in the dream), although why I’m there with her instead of her husband, I don’t quite understand.

Also it comes out that Sarah and I have moved in with the other couple in some kind of townhome, but the other couple is having a new house built somewhere in Chester County and they’ll be moving in there in a couple of months.

Then I think I must have woken up a little bit, because the dream switched gears. Suddenly I’m living by myself in a farmhouse somewhere rural. I remember going to a church nearby for some kind of meeting, at which Dean Peggy (the dean at the Cathedral Church of Saint John) may have been present. Then I got into some kind of old red Ford pickup, drove back to the farm, and changed into a strange tuxedo that made me look like a priest, to sing some kind of concert.

Then I woke up because one of the cats was vomiting under the bed. What does it all mean? (The dream, not the puking.)