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Matt
Sweet A
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I’ve
returned from the edge of the abyss. Rumors of my death have been
exaggerated, and all that jazz. (I am such a drama queen!) I began feeling
better about Yesterday
southeastern Now,
I can could understand if some areas were plowed and not others, given that I
drive through half a dozen cities and three counties during my commute. (I
only live like 15 miles from work, but I live on the border of 3 counties.) I
just don’t get it. Enough
about that. On What
can you do to make someone realize what it takes to be happy? Sometimes they
shouldn't be. Yet if they are that unhappy, maybe they need to look at
changing their lives. Even diseases that will eventually be terminal will
give someone the time to change the world around him. Maybe they need to do
something to better themselves, or to purely make themselves
happy. When dealing with someone who is of limited means and/or short life
span, I always like to remind them that how they look at the world is how the
world looks at them. If they are happy the world may be better, or at least
remember them better. It may be something small, but it can be worthwhile. I like
the idea that the way we look at the world is the way it looks to us. I
believe that people of limited means can take a positive view of life. Still,
my partner, my nice car, my warm apartment, my friends, going out to eat, my
private practice, my two cats, my laptop, my CD player, a good book and a
glass of sherry make it a lot easier to look at life through a positive
lens. It’s just easier to see life as
pleasant when you have things and people that are designed to improve it. Oh, and I took the
“What Kind of Queer Are You?” test. Here
are the results. “For
this relief much thanks; ’t is bitter cold, --Bill Shakespeare Today I am home sick. I thought I was fighting off
a minor cold. Nope. Apparently I have the plague, or something. I will spare
the reader the gory details. When a therapist takes a sick day it is a
complicated business. I had to call all the clients I was going to see today
and reschedule them. I also had a meeting scheduled with my accountant today.
Consequently, the rest of my week is going to be very busy. I hate being stuck at home sick. I feel like I
should be productive somehow, but I don’t feel like doing anything except
eating and napping and reading Bartlett’s
Quotations (where I found the appropriate quote from Hamlet
given above. I do so enjoy Shakespeare). I have been snacking on
The Sweet Potato Queen’s Chocolate Stuff. Major good stuff here. If I
didn’t feel like crap all over I would be having a great day. It is snowing today. Various Weather Oracles tell
us that we should have between 4 and 6 inches, give or take an inch. This is
not terribly unusual for In a few minutes I will go get the mail; I expect
the latest New Yorker to be there, so I will read it and spend the rest of
the afternoon lounging. “I
am dying, That’s
how I started my day this morning. (Nothing expresses illness or curmudgeon-iness quite like the Sweet Swan of Avon, and I felt
a little of both this morning.) I am still fighting this damn cold. Of
course, Jason was über-sympathetic, saying something
along the lines of, “You’re fine. Now get in the shower. And make me
breakfast.” I
was in session this morning with a client when I sneezed fitfully. And then…
my nose started gushing blood. Apparently the sneeze was so powerful that I
hemorrhaged. Sigh. I had to cut the
session short so I could tend my wound and avoid passing out from loss of
blood. Mostly I feel sorry for the client, who got short shrift. I’ll
be getting back to my Dayquil-induced stupor now. What
to write… Do other people ever wonder what they should write in their blogs? I want to say something witty and insightful about
current events, or make astute and candid observations about daily life. But
today my brain seems to be otherwise occupied. All I really want to do today
is go home and go to bed. I have kind
of a sore throat and I feel all… stuffy.
Whine whine whine… Jay
starts another semester of law school tonight. In a way, I’m glad that he’s
going back. Now we are both doing 12-hour days again. I was beginning to feel
like I was overworked when he was home at That’s
really all I’ve got today. I’ll try to be more engaging tomorrow. Jay and I spent last night with our friends Bill
and Laura. We went to a small brewery near our house. The place was really
noisy, which made conversation near to impossible. There were TVs everywhere
in the place, and they were showing I went shoe shopping this afternoon. I really
needed new shoes, which is the only thing that can get me in a shoe store.
All went well. I spent about an hour of debating, “Does this shoe look too
‘old?’ Does it look professional enough? How about this one?” I think that
Jason probably would have divorced me if I’d picked up one more loafer and
said, “Should I buy something like this, or something more youth-identified?” I also finished the first volume of my newsletter
for my private practice. If you want, you can read it here. Currently I’m watching wrestling. Randy Orton is on at the moment. Randy
Orton, and others like him, is the reason I watch wrestling at all. Of
course, I have the sound off (I can’t handle the announcers) and Liszt
Hungarian Rhapsodies on. I feel the music balances the sports
entertainment. Tonight is a new season of Charmed, in 5 minutes. I’m
going to pour a gin and tonic and enjoy it. So lately I’ve been thinking about the meaning of
life. Well, perhaps that’s a little too broad. Actually, I’ve been thinking about
the things we do to make our lives about something. I sometimes ask my
clients, “What is your life going to be about?” I think that It’s essential
to happiness to have some sort of a purpose, a meaning, a raison d’être.
Now that I’ve written raison d’être I
realize that the French actually have a couple of words to describe what I’m
talking about, including the famous joie de vie. Maybe our culture
does not place enough emphasis on a person’s meanings, instead underscoring a
person’s accomplishments. Existentialism, in its French incarnation as put
forth by Sartre and DeBeauvoir (and to some extent Camus) is often haunted by the consequences of the search
for meaning… many people feel that the very question “What is the meaning of
life” is an existential one. I do not think so—I think that the philosophy of
the French existentialists focuses highly on Freedom because that is a
necessary characteristic of the search for meaning. We must be free if we are
to choose a meaning, after all. In this culture we do not focus on “being” so
much as on “acquiring” and “doing,” which could be why Existentialism tends
to fall a little flat on our ears. Well, the gist of this long-winded post is that
I’ve been wondering about the ingredients for a happy life. Specifically,
I’ve been wondering how to help someone realize what it will take to give the
some kind of satisfaction about their life. Is their any essential component?
Is there some kind of combination of things? How do we know what makes us
want to get up in the morning? Maybe I think too much. I invite others to comment on
what makes life have meaning. I know, I set that up as an e-mail, but that’s
too bad. Comment in e-mail, if I like it and I have the drive, I’ll post it
here. Hey, I’m the blog tyrant ‘round these parts. It’s
Friday! Even though I work on Saturday, I still feel some glee when Friday
rolls around. Here
are some random thoughts, in no particular order: My
partner Jason is so cute at times. Last night he was standing in the middle
of the living room, transfixed by the television. He was watching VH1’s
countdown of the 100 hottest celebrities. They had gotten to Sarah Michelle
Geller, and Jay was just so happy that his TV pal Buffy had made the list. It
was so cute, I was almost sorry to have to interrupt him to turn on
professional wrestling. This
morning I was reading a piece in the New Yorker about top ten lists. The
author of the article proposed, flippantly, that there should be a Top Ten
List of the Best Top Ten Lists of All Time. Mmm…
that’s good satire! If you want a laugh at the expense of
conservative Iowans (and who doesn’t, really) go to the Club for Growth web site and
download their anti-Dean political advertisement. Basically, an American
Gothic couple have this to say about Dean: Husband:
“I think Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding,
latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times reading…” Wife
(Interrupting): ”…body piercing, Hollywood-loving,
left-wing freak show back to I seriously doubt that Howard Dean, the
Governor of Vermont, drives a Volvo.
Please—I’m sure he has a Lexus or a Mercedes or something. I mean, get
it right, people! Today
I had a meeting with a medical team at the hospital. Meetings like this one
are usually fast—they last about 30 minutes, tops. Well, the Poor Time
Management Fairy visited me yet again today, causing this meeting that I had
allotted one hour for on my schedule to go on for almost 2 hours and 30
minutes. The meeting was essential,
and it had to happen, and I’m glad we got it done. That is the upside. The
downside is that I have about 20 minutes to eat my lunch and update my blog (and read all the other blogs
I like to read) before I have to go facilitate the support group for
ex-felons. That’s right, boys and girls, every Thursday afternoon I run a
support group for people coming out of prison. I’m not complaining about the
group (because I enjoy my work—truly) but I am complaining about not having
time to eat lunch and read about my cyberfriends. Oy. This evening I have a meeting
with Joe, and then I see some clients.
No rest for the wicked. WWE Smackdown is going to
be on tonight, and I should be able to catch most of it. Yes, I enjoy
professional wrestling. I mute the sound on the TV, turn on the stereo, and
watch hot bodies in lycra. Good times. President
Bush’s plans to improve the lives of immigrants in this county astound me. I
doubt if any real change will come at the hands of President Bush, first.
Second, the timing is auspicious, since this is an election year. Also,
Bush’s timetable for turning power over to Fred
Phelps is at it again, folks. He is trying to buy a park bench plaque in But
this time he has me thinking. I wonder if the First Amendment means that
anyone could get any message they want on a commemorative plaque. You could,
say, give $500 to your church and right up there in the sanctuary it would
say, “Wendy Miller is a Skanky Ho.” (Apologies to
any Wendy Millers out there.) Oh, the possibilities… Could I contribute
anonymously, too? Tonight
I do not see any clients after I leave APM. I’m going directly home and
I’m going to read the latest New Yorker,
which has what looks to be a fascinating article about life in I
renewed my plates at the Secretary of State this morning. That’s always a lot
of fun. I got there at Traffic
was particularly heinous this morning, which gave me plenty of time to listen
to NPR. One of the stories caught my attention. Apparently the USDA is trying
to trace the origins of the cow infected with BSE found in That
was a pleasant image, wasn’t it? I’ll be going now. I’ve done enough damage
for one day. Jay and I hosted our friends Laura and Bill last
night for cards. Before playing, we went out for dinner at Jay and I went grocery shopping this morning, as
is our habit. I guess there is a winter storm warning in effect for today,
because the grocery store was packed full of people stocking up. I wonder
what instinctual drive kicks in to make suburbanites feel they have to go to
the corner Meijer in order to ensure that their
larders are filled with Chicken Helper. I don’t mean to be bitter (yes I do),
but most of these people live, like, 20 feet from a Meijer
of a Walgreen’s or a Rite-Aid. Also, the parking lot this morning was full of
giant SUV’s and pickups. I mean, what the hell is the point of having a
Hummer if you’re still scared you’ll be snowbound? Tomorrow I go back to work. I had almost two whole
weeks off, which means that the adjustment of going back to 12 hour days will
be rough. On the other hand, the advantage of being a workaholic like me
means that I am looking forward to going back to having something to do all
day long. Today
is the first day of being in my new office. My practice, like a hermit crab,
grew out of its old space and went in search of a new office. The new space
will provide more hours for me to see clients than the old place. Bonus: I'm
still in the same building near Woodward and 696 that is so convenient for
me--I'm just down the hall from where I was before. I'm still loving the new laptop.
This morning I got all excited as I balanced my checkbook with on-line
banking. Like any new romance, I'm sure I will eventually get over the
novelty of the thing and actually settle down to doing real work. (Gasp!) When
two people fall in love, their brains are flooded by a chemical called PEA.
(I believe that stands for phenylalmine.) The same
chemical is present when gambling addicts and sex addicts indulge their
habits. Eventually the PEA wears off, and the addict goes looking for a new
fix--usually a bigger dose of what caused the PEA release in the first place.
I wonder if I am under the influence of PEA from my new computer?
I wonder if that's ever been studied? I wonder if
that's even possible? Well, I know it’s possible,
because cybersex addicts (these are people who
can't seem to turn off the internet porn, even at work) experience an upswing
in PEA. But I wonder if it’s possible to get a high off the thrill of new
technology? Now I'm just ranting, but then, what is a web log for?? I
promised myself that I would write something about the movie On
the down side, the movie was extraordinarily graphic in its violence at
times. This disturbed me a little. I think mostly because I didn't expect it
than because I was actually grossed-out. One
of the big themes of the movie, it seems to me, is that life is made up of a
lot of hardship, a lot of tedium, and a lot of grief. Mixed into that, in
small amounts, is some joy and happiness. And it's the joy and happiness that
keeps us going. I remember a quote from a book or a movie or a play (and I
don't remember which one) where one character says something to the effect
of, "Life is a mix of good days and bad days. If we're lucky, and if we
work hard at it, the good days can outnumber the bad days." There is
also a lot of boredom days in our lives... these are the days we just go to
work, come home and eat, watch some TV, and go to bed. It's the exciting days
that make the boring ones bearable. I
suppose that this is not totally unlike what I started writing about. After
all, one difference between an addict and a mere participant is that the
participant continues to have boring days, whereas the addict forsakes
everything in the pursuit of constant excitement. Well, that's pretty
simplified, but you catch my drift. It's
about time for me to see my next client. Donc, je dirai, "à demain." This
afternoon I purchased a brand-new laptop. I had been looking at laptops for
about 2 months now, which included reading about them, checking out prices
and special deals, asking other people about their preferences. I never do
even a simple thing without overanalyzing it first, so you can imagine the
amount of energy I poured into this. Anyway, I decided to go with a new
Compaq, but during the process a strange phenomenon took hold of me whenever
I entered a computer store: I felt power hungry. I stared, glassy-eyed, at
rows and rows of laptops, each one more powerful than the last. I began to
crave gigabytes. Listening to the sales clerks in Best Buy became almost
pornographic—“Tell me about the hard drive,” I purred to the geek in a
heifer-spotted Gateway uniform. Take
heart, kindly reader, for I managed to rein in my passions. I began to ask
myself, “How am I going to use this computer?” instead of “What does P.C.
Magazine think I should buy?” The answer was that I am going to surf the
‘net, do some light bookkeeping and some word processing. I am not going to download unreleased
blockbusters and burn them onto DVDs; I am not going to collect exotic MP3s;
I am not going to run The Sims and edit my digital home movies at the same
time. Almost
every computer on the market would suit my needs. My primary criterion for
the new laptop (which I affectionately refer to as “Hal” because I am not
original in the least) was that it be light. So I settled on a cute little
silver Compaq, which is lighter and more compact than my partner’s Dell
(which he affectionately refers to as “Big Blue”). My
partner and I saw the movie Cold
Mountain tonight. It’s a ripping good yarn in which a Confederate
defector tries to get back home to the love of his life. All the while she is
going through her own crap. I have some thoughts about this movie, but the
truth is that I don’t really think very fast. It takes me a while for the
crock-pot that is my brain to produce something worth sharing here. I’ll
write about it tomorrow. My eyelids are getting heavy. “Come
sleepe, o sleepe, the certaine knot of peace. The
baiting place of wit, the balme of woe, The
poore man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release, Th’indifferent Judge between the
high and low…” -
Sir Philip Sydney (I
actually got out the Oxford Book of English Verse just now because I wanted
to remember the quote exactly. I declare myself King Dork.) Happy
New Year! I’m watching the Rose Bowl Parade on HGTV, which has the best
coverage—commercial free and flower-wise. We
had our New Year’s Eve party last night; it was a small group of friends
binging and drinking. Favorite foods included pig candy (this is bacon cooked
in brown sugar, people) and Twinkie pie. Mmmmmm…. This
morning, and much of this afternoon, will be devoted to recovery from the
party last night. I guess I’m getting old, because I can no longer stay up
carousing until And
I can think of no better way to recover than listening to my new CD—a recording of 2 versions of Moussorgsky’s
Pictures at an Exhibition, played
first by Byron Janis on the piano, and then by the Minneapolis Symphony
Orchestra led by Antal Dorati.
This is a treat for a music theory geek like me, because I can hear how the
orchestration was accomplished. Maurice Ravel, who set Pictures up for the full symphony, was known as a great orchestrator. He even wrote a book about it, which I have
(and which I cannot find on Amazon.com for a link), and which I may peruse
later. I want to see if Ravel practiced what he preached, so to speak. I will
stop boring you with what are probably soporific details of my nerdy life,
and go back to my lounging. |
Consumption I read: I
finished reading Fatherhood
for Gay Men, by Kevin McGarry, which is both
moving and informative. I like to keep my clinical skills honed; reading is
always a good way to do that. I
put down Eragon, by Christopher Paolini,
unfinished. I read in The New York Times that this kid was 15 when he wrote
this. Honestly, it’s not all that well written. Before, I thought I could
finish it. But now, I just don’t want to even bother. I
read Seduced
by Moonlight by Laurel K. Hamilton.
This is the I heard: Pink Floyd’s Wish
You Were Here Alfred
Brendel playing Beethoven’s Piano Sonata opus
2, number 2. Also,
John Mayer’s new album Heavier
Things. I visited: |