Matt Sweet

This morning was quite nice. My early client rescheduled, so I had time to relax and enjoy my morning coffee while reading the news and returning phone calls from yesterday afternoon. That's the way that life should be.

NPR has released a cookbook. NPR recommends movies, books, music, and now... food. NPR is becoming a lifestyle leader. Kind of like Oprah, but for smart people.

News you can use:

Ha! Eat your hearts out, all of you who were not born in the month of May!

Here is a story about a cat that was in a shipping box for 30 days. (Poor kitty.) Jay and I have a running joke about our cat and boxes, so maybe this is just an inside joke kind of thing.

And this story, which technically isn't news, because it's from The Onion. I couldn't figure out how to link to it directly, so I'm just cutting and pasting:

Study: Uneducated Outbreeding Intelligentsia 2-To-1
CHICAGO-In a report with dire implications for the intellectual future of America, a University of Chicago study revealed Monday that the nation's uneducated are breeding twice as soon and twice as often as those with university diplomas. "The average member of the American underclass spawns at age 15, compared to age 30 for the average college-educated professional," study leader Kenneth Stalls said. "America's intellectual elite, as a result, is badly losing the genetic marathon, with two generations of dullards born for every one generation of cultured literates." Added Stalls: "At this rate, by the year 2100 there will be five smart people on Earth, swallowed whole by more than 12 billion mouth-breathers incapable of understanding the binary exponentiation that swamped the Earth with their like." High-school dropout Mandi Drucker, 16, said of the findings, "All I know is, we're in love."

Fin.

Jay and I watched Charms for the Easy Life last night. It was really good--I laughed, I cried.

So far, today is just one of those days--it's been spit-in-your-face-fantastic! Rather than dwell on it, I'm going to ignore the crap that keeps landing in my lap. In the spirit of doing just that, I give you Amy's Diary. This cracks me up.

News:

This is of medium interest.

Maybe the queer liberation front can get businesses to lobby for legalization of same-sex marriages, in the hopes that they will profit from the weddings.

This column from Dan Savage is a little offensive, to a bisexual like myself who is with a same-sex partner.

"'Social workers are consummate professionals who work with some of the most vulnerable residents of our state,' Granholm said. 'This new law helps ensure that only the most hightly qualified men and women are performing this critical work and that the citizens served by them are getting the most professional care.'"

It's official! Social workers in the State of Michigan are now liscensed, instead of registered. God knows it's about damn time--Michigan was the last state to grant liscensure to social workers.

I get to go home early today--Yay!--which means I'm only working from 9 until 5 and not until 7:00, as usual on a Tuesday. Cool.

Instead of writing something original, here is a quiz (via madlife):

1.Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says:
"As I mentioned earlier, our needs must be understood in terms of our personal growth and our interpersonal growth." (Our Six Emotional Needs, by Doug Meske, M.S.W., Ph.D.)

2: Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first?
The wall.

3: What is the last thing you watched on TV?
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I watch it every morning while I get ready.

4: WITHOUT LOOKING, guess what the time is:
About 9:00 am.

5: Now look at the clock; what is the actual time?
9:10 am.

6: With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
The heating system, a co-worker coughing.

7: When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
I was walking from my car to my office

8: Before you came to this website, what did you look at?
The New York Times

9: What are you wearing?
A red shirt, blue jeans, sneakers. (I dress pretty casual for work.)

10: Did you dream last night?
Don't remember.

11: When did you last laugh?
This morning, while getting ready for work, because my partner was doing something cute.

12: What is on the walls of the room you are in?
A World AIDS Day poster, a couple of cartoons, a picture of a red dragon, a chart listing usual starting doses for first-line antidepressants, a couple of awards that I've won, and a guide to psychological diagnoses. Oh, and my liscense to practice.

13: Seen anything weird lately?
Not really... I'll keep looking.

14: What do you think of this quiz?
It's a little long.

15: What is the last film you saw?
Hellboy. It was pretty entertaining.

16: If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first?
Probably a house, or maybe a car.

17: Tell me something about you that I don't know.
I hate croutons.

18: If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
He he he.... power.... I would make myself King of Everything.

19. Do you like do dance?
Not really. Although once upon a time I was a pretty good dancer.

20: George Bush: is he a power-crazy nutcase or some one who is finally doing something that has needed to be done for years?
A little bit from column A, a little bit from column B. Mostly column A, though.

21: Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
Anne.

22: Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
Benjamin.

23: Would you ever consider living abroad?
I have in the past, but I don't think I would again. Not unless I could take Jason with me.

News:

Go here and vote pro-gay marriage.

This story on near-death experiences is worth checking out.

Maybe I should start doing Tai Chi.

Easter is a funny holiday, isn't it? It's not really a "big celebration" kind of thing. It's more like a wake up early, eat chocolate, go to brunch, sit around all day and watch TV kind of holiday. If it didn't happen on a Sunday, I wonder if we would even have the day off. (Or, as my overly sentimental boyfriend puts it: "Easter's not the kind of holiday that drives the economy.") But it's not a minimal little holiday, like Columbus Day or Administrative Professionals Day, either. When I was a kid Easter was my favorite holiday of the year. I was a lot more religious then. But now, well... I'd really just rather skip the whole event.

Here is a snippet of a conversation I had with Jay while he was on his cell phone, while he was stuck in traffic downtown.

Jay: I can't believe all the traffic down here for the Tiger's game. All these scared little surburbanites, trying not to make eye contact with anyone.
Matt: Mmm...
Jay: There's this homeless guy that's just having a ball with all the frightened white folks. He's pushing his shopping cart into traffic, just to stop cars and shout at people.
Matt: OK...
Jay: Now he's standing in the cart.... Oh, now he's taken down his pants and is mooning us all.... Now he's shouting "Go Tigers!"
Matt: That's what I love about Detroit. Our crazy people are just so much more bizarre than, say, Boston.
Jay: Whatever.
Matt: Hey now, don't make fun. This sort of thing ensures that I'll always have a job.

Nick and Mary Yankovic (parents of Wierd All) were found dead in their home. The news story is kind of sad, but make sure you check out the photo that Yahoo! News choose to run with this story. Yahoo! does this all the time! Who chooses these photos, anyway?

This article, which is about Antonin Scalia not permitting journalists to record his speeches, is a little disquieting.

There is a certain social worker in the Metro Detroit Area (who shall remain nameless) whose voice sounds remarkably like the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons. From time to time I have occasion to phone this gentleman, usually in the process of procuring a referral for a client. I am consistently amazed at the resemblance.

This evening Jay and I are going to dinner, since I don't see clients, since it's Good Friday. (Thank you, Jesus!) Tomorrow we will hang with our friend Carrie, and Sunday we will entertain until we pass out from the effort. Just once I would like to have a relaxing weekend. But do I get to relax? Noooooo..... Always something to do. ('Tis the season for martyrs, don't you know.) OK, I'm blasphemed enough for one day.

What's up:

Bravo is creating a show for women, based on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. They're going to use gay men again, instead of lesbians, which is what I immediately thought. Then I thought, "When will the lesbians get a chance to teach their skills to straight America?" Oh, the inequality of it all.

This is really fucking disturbing. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with people?

As the header indicates, today is an all-day training for me and the rest of APM's staff. The training is "Prevention for Positives," and reflects a growing trend in HIV/AIDS Prevention: Targeting prevention messages at people who are already positive, instead of at people who are negative. The theory being that if positive people don't pass it on, then it won't get passed on at all. I guess that sounds logical. I'm curious to see how much of the training is dedicated to stuff like, "Putting on a condom," and how much is dedicated to stuff like, "Dealing with rejecting if your partner won't practice safe sex." I think HIV/AIDS Prevention professionsals will have to start addressing the second issue, or else their efforts won't be worth much. That's my two cents.

Oh, and I don't know who the boys are. But they're brightening my morning.

The world around us:

This story about Details Magazine, well... just read it.

This article just adds to my anxieties about buying a house.

This reminds us that everyone is undefeated on opening day. But anyway, Go Tigers!

Because I'm a bad man, and I laugh at things that are meant to be serious, I went to www.checkyourself.com and took the tests designed to indicate if teenagers have a problem with drugs or alcohol. It was not as much fun as I would have liked. And I would have posted the results here if the graphics were more interesting. Also, I apparently drink slightly more than a good teen should. I don't know exactly how to take that. But in any case, I believe that this is just another fruitless attempt by caring (yet misguided) adults to get kids to stop harming themselves. I know that if I were a teen (and even as an adult, really), I would look on this as just another internet purity test. I can see it now: Kids all over America comparing their scores in their blogs, trying to one-up each other. Much like I'm doing now. Perhaps this is more symptomatic of a deeper psychological issue on my part. Call me a Freudian, but I blame my mother.

Today is Wednesday, which means this is my Day of Sloth. Tonight I look forward to lentil soup (a less caloric alternative to my former Day of Sloth meal: BBQ ribs) and a glass or two of Chateau Detrot River. I like to imbibe a certain quality of the chateau's extra ordinary red wines each week. (Reference the paragraph above on this point.) I do so in hopes of prolonging the shelf-life of my heart, which needs all the help it can get. And also, I find it keeps me regular. Was that too much information?

This is what the world looks like today:

This pisses me off--Lea Fastow has withdrawn her plea agreement, most likely because the courts did not want to sentence her and her husband in such a way that would allow one of them to be consistently home to take care of her 4 and 8 year old sons. Hmmm... maybe they could get some of the out-of-work Enron employees to babysit--they probably need the cash. Sigh. I hope they put her away for life.

Girls Gone Wild: the history, the franchise, the creative minds. Notice the announcement that there will be a "Guys Gone Wild" this year. I can barely contain myself.

That's all. Go forth and prosper.

Seriously. Life is good. It's shaping up to be another beautiful spring day in Southeastern Michigan. Cold, but sunny. My coffee is hot and my clients are doing well. Life is good.

Last night I was so tired I could barely hold my head up. I went to bed at 9:30 pm and slept until 7:00 am. That's pretty unusual for me. But today I feel pretty good--I guess I needed the sleep.

So far, my diet is not making any significant difference in my weight, which is disappointing, because I'm hungry all the time. I hate that. I'm hungry right now. I dream of food. I'm even hungry when I'm eating. Sigh. Here's the news that caught my eye:

This is a very thought-provoking interview. I particularly like this quote: "Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego, not preserving it eternally in optimum conditions."

This article is long, and probably only of interest to other mental health professionals. It's about a new medication that can erase memories of traumatic events. I think someone saw Men in Black one time too many.

If you're a dork like me, you'll like this article about the solution to a long-standing math problem.

What a wonderful Monday morning. I keep looking at clocks and thinking, "Oh, I've got an extra hour!" Even though I'm wrong, it's a wonderful feeling.

I've had 2 clients call to cancel in the past 10 minutes. At this rate, I'll have the week off by noon.

So. On Saturday Jay and I agreed to the terms as presented by the seller of the house. Yay! Jay and I should be the proud owners of a new house in a couple of weeks.

Honestly, buying a house has created a lot of anxiety for me. Jay and I moved into the apartment we currently live in when we graduated from college. Our incomes have gone up considerably since then. So now we have a fair amount of disposable income (is money ever really disposable?). Instead of continuing to live the way we have been (eating out several times a week, spur of the moment vacations, therapeutic shoping) we decided to invest in a house. Which is, objectively, a good investment. And we decided to stretch a little so we could buy a pretty nice house in a fairly desirable neighborhood. Which is, objectively, a good decision.

But--what this all means is that Jay and I will be locked into our jobs, because we will depend even more on the income. And We will be responsible for this house, and its upkeep. Unlike our current apartment, if something breaks, we will have to fix it, or pay for it to be fixed. For example: Two years ago, our air conditioner went out (our current apartment has central air). The nice people came out and replaced the whole unit, at no additional cost to us. If our air conditioner (again, the house has central air) goes out this summer--God forbid--Jay and I will have to have it fixed, out of our pockets. And so on with the roof, the furnace, the water heater, the washing machine and dryer, the dishwasher, stove, electrical, plumbing... and the list goes on.

I'm assuming that all first-time home buyers have this kind of anxiety. And maybe I'm making too big a deal about this. I don't know. I'll keep you posted as events unfold.

The news:

This article from The New Yorker is cute.

Doonesbury is funny today.

This article about sexuality and the workplace is fascinating. Notice the statistics that show that people who are out of the closet earn more than people who are closeted.

Here is an article suggesting that file-sharing does not actually hurt record sales at all. Not that I'm a big file sharer myself, but I don't always trust big corporations to make good laws.

Today has been relatively calm. Jay and I have been embroiled in the midst of our negotiations for our new house. We requested that the seller perform some fairly routine upgrades before we take possession (for example: “Please bring all the electrical up to code”) and the seller has basically told us to get bent. I am going to quietly steam about this for a while, before I call Jay and we decide what to do.

While I fume, read this:

Once gain, Canada embarasses the US by having more tolorant and progressive laws.

Read this article. Particularly the quote, "We cannot let judges in Boston or officials in San Francisco define marriage for the people of Georgia." That sounds awfully like the arguments made against civil rights legislation once upon a time, doesn't it? It's like the old "Not here, not in Mississippi," type of thing.

Today Jay and I had our home inspection. For all of you who don't know what that is--we had a guy come out and walk through the house we are looking to buy and detail exactly what is wrong with it. That's good for the Ol' Self-Esteem, I assure you!

Seriously, home inspections are a good thing, because then you know that the person selling you a house is not selling you a death-trap. Our home inspection went without a hitch.

Well, there was one thing: About 20 minutes into the inspection, we are all standing around on the front lawn ("we all" being me and Jay, my parents, Jay's parents, and the home inspector) when an angry man approaches and says something to the effect of: "Who are all you people?" I thought I'm Queen Elizabeth. Who the hell are you? I responded, "We're doing the home inspection." The angry man replied, "Well, I'm the owner, and if would have been nice if someone had called me. The people next door have been freaking out." I thought, We are not responsible for the emotional reactions of the people next door, nor are we responsible for telling you that we're doing the inspection--that's your realtor's job. I also thought, Oh! Get her!

However, our inspector kept his cool and said, "The buyer's agent is inside if you want to discuss this," or something to that effect. The man left. And by left I mean, got into his SUV and drove away angrily. I suggested to Jay that we write a clause into the purchase agreement that we never have to speak to or hear from this man again. And honestly... he knows that an inspection must take place within seven days of the signing of the agreement (which happened last Saturday), so what the hell does he think is going on? "Oh, we're just casing the joint to find out if we can dig an elaborate tunnel from your basement to the nearest bank. Don't mind us."

On the plus side, at least we know that the neighbors will keep an eye on our house and make sure that everything is as it should be.

Someone pointed out that I should have mentioned in my earlier post that the house being inspected is unoccupied. That's right... it's not like we showed up and put this man out of his living room... the house is EMPTY. That's all.

I was reading His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. This trilogy was reviewed positively in The New Yorker, The New York Times. and on NPR all in the same week. It was a sign, I tell you.

I was also reading Siegfried, by Harry Mulisch. Again, this was an NPR recommends.

And, to keep my clinical skills fresh, I was working my way through Lesbian and Gay Families Speak Out.

Music:

I was listening to:

Oasis (What’s the Story) Morning Glory. I still like this CD.

Joshua Bell, playing Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy. It’s sublime, and he’s hot.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Time Out. Take five is the coolest piece ever written, period.

Links I visited often:

Amazon

Ask Oxford

Le Monde

NPR

The New York Times

WDET

Yahoo! News