Matt Sweet

I don't usually post twice in one day, but this was too funny.

I had 5 minutes before a couple's session--during which I was supposed to demonstrate safer sex techniques--and I could not find my little plastic penis.

I had the whole office looking: "Has anyone seen Matt's penis?" "If you know where Matt's penis is, please tell him." "Matt needs his penis; he's about to meet with a client."

The errant penis was returned.

A couple of days ago I received yet another job offer. (Regular readers of this blog will note that I've gotten about 6 job offers in the past year--each one of them unsolicitated. Only a couple of them were actually full-time positions; the others were consulting or contractual positions.) This one is some contract work for a psychologist I know, doing some evaulation work. This one I am seriously thinking of doing. I'll let you know.

Did I ever mention that I find the computer tech guy at my office hot? He's here today... there's just something about him that I find hyper-sexy. And today I'm lucky enough to have him working in the cube next to me... ahhh.... moment for Matt...

News:

A little piece from the NYTimes about Bush and same-sex marriage. Quoth That Man: "What they do in the privacy of their house, consenting adults should be able to do. This is America. It's a free society. But it doesn't mean we have to redefine traditional marriage." How magnanimous of him to remind the country that we still have a right to exist, just not a right to equal treatment. Compassionate conservative indeed!

Barbara Ehrenreich's latest column about the dangers of groupthink.

A Novel therapeutic approach, for those who are interested in this sort of thing.

Same-sex remakes of classic films. Seriously, this rocks. Check it out.

OK, so... this has been my day today.

First, I woke up, and Jay says: "Honey, there's no hot water." So I go downstairs and check the hot water heater. Well... there's no pilot light. And there's no pilot light in the furnace, either. And there's no smell of gas.

Then I remember a little red tag on our door yesterday--which, upon closer inspection, states: "Your gas has been turned off at the meter. Please call us."

After further investigation, I find that our gas has been shut off because my loving partner did not pay the gas bill. Ever. Apparently, he thought that the electric bill and the gas bill were both together. So when Consumer's Power sent us a shut-off notice, he threw it out.

I'm really not mad at him, although I was pretty mad earlier. Shit happens, and you go on.

So I rearrange my schedule to take the afternoon off work so I can be home when the gas gets turned back on. And I go to work for the morning.

While at work, I try to change my cubicle (yes, I'm a therapist with a cubicle) to make it "more HIPPA compliant." This means turning my desk so that passers-by can't see my computer screen. (This has the added advantage of freeing me up to look at porn non-work-related websites at work, without anyone seeing what I'm doing.) Everyone in the office has to do this, so it's really not a big deal. But in the process of moving my desk, I broke the cubicle connector. So now my cubicle has only two walls.

I tried to fix it, and I thought I had done a good job, but it fell down again. And as I leapt up to keep the tumbling wall of my cube from injuring anyone, a co-worker leaped out of his cube and started taking pictures of me wrestling with the side of my cubicle. I wanted to die.

I am going to go home in about an hour and 15 minutes, and I can't promise that I won't eat an entire carton of ice cream.

News:

Here's an article about same-sex couples competiting in ballroom dancing. Women everywhere cry out: "Now who will dance with us?"

The Senate votes to ammend the Constitution to make sure I stay a second-class citizen. I draw your attention to the quote from Edward Kennedy: "Trying to write discrimination into the Constitution is bad enough, but throwing the Senate's rules out the window and proceeding with a discriminatory amendment that the majority of Americans don't want and a majority of senators don't support - solely for the purpose of trying to score points in a presidential election campaign - demeans this institution and all who have served in it." Amen.

President Bush campaigns in Michigan's Upper Penninsula. Michiganders ask themselves: "Why?" Bush is the first President in almost 100 years to even visit the UP (upper pennisula), let alone campaign there. For those who don't live in the Great Lake State, let me just say that the denizens of the UP do not really have what you would call a strong political influence on the rest of the state. In fact, relations are strained. We call them "Yoopers," they call us "Trolls." (Because we live under da bridge, don't ya know.) Most of us who live downstate view the UP as a kind of forgotten, forsaken backwater, where getting drunk and shooting at stuff (moose, traffic signs, the moon) is the great cultural event of the year.

Here is an unusual page about engineering super-large chickens.

What a wonderful world we live in.

There is this thing called Dance Dance Revolution. If you haven't heard about this yet, it's this hyper-frenetic Japanese videogame where you do the dance steps as the game tells you. It's addictive, and at times, exceptionally difficult.

Jay and I were introduced to this little creation by our friends Bill and Laura on Saturday night. I really want one of my very own. But I know that if I actually owned the DDR game, I would get nothing done all day in my house. I would just dance and dance. I would be thin and beautiful (because, trust me--this thing is exercise) but I would live in my own filth. So, I will have to content myself to playing at my friend's house.

In other Matt-related news: I'm wearing my hair longer these days. I know... excitement. But it's a big deal for me, because I have extraordinarily curly hair. Like, Justin Timberlake curly. In the past, I just shaved my head about once a month, and that took care of the whole "styling my hair" thing. Lately, however, I have felt the urge to actually do something with my hair. So I'm experimenting with hair product for the first time in my life. So far I have managed to make myself look like a tumbleweed or a dandelion that has gone to seed, alternatively. Once I get the hang of this, I'll let you know.

Big doings:

Clear Channel Communications refuses to allow an anti-war group to run an ad, because it upsets the hotel that is hosting the Republican National Convention. Clear Channel has donated almost $600,000 in unregulated money to Republican canidates over the past 4 years. I wonder if that has anything to do with it?

The title of this article says it all: Experts in Sex Field Say Conservatives Interfere With Health and Research. I wholeheartedly agree. Conservatives are killing people with their "family values." My favorite line of Conservative bullshit for the week is this one, spoken by Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition: "There's an arrogance in the scientific community that they know better than the average American." Is that what this is about? Whether or not someone with a PhD in sociology knows more about sociology than Sally Minivan and Joe NASCAR? How is that arrogance?

Barbara Ehrenreich is an amazing writer. Read her latest piece about the Bush administration's plans to help impoverished women by making it easier for them to marry. Two quotes:

"I have been endeavoring to calculate just how many blue-collar men a T.A.N.F. recipient needs to marry to lift her family out of poverty. The answer turns out to be approximately 2.3, which is, strangely enough, illegal."

"Silly old social-engineering-type liberal that I am, I had actually doubted that marriage education might be helpful to couples doomed to spend their married lives on separate cots in the shelter."

And here it is:

Act your age:	You're not the boss of me!
Born on what day of the week:	Saturday. The day before Mother's Day.
Chore you hate:	Mopping, and doing the dishes.
Dad's name:	Carl.
Essentail make-up item:	None.
Favorite actors/actresses:	Vin Diesel; Glenn Close
Gold or sliver:	Silver.
Hometown:	Sterling Heights, Michigan
Instruments you play:	Bassoon, Piano, drums (esp. the djembe)
Job title:	Technically: Family mental health psychotherapist. On the street: Shrink
Kids:	None.
Living arrangements:	With partner, and two cats, in a house.
Mom's name:	Elinor
Number of socks you own:	Way too many to count.
Overnight hospital stays:	Ummmm.... maybe about 10?
Phobia:	Not really a phobia, but I don't climb ladders.
Quote you like:	"Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
Religious affiliation:	Other.
Siblings:	None.
Time you woke up today:	7:00 am
Unusual habits:	I eat Oreos with beer.
Vicious thing you've done:	I'm not telling.
Worst habit:	Probably swearing in public; usually in front of children.
X-rays you've had:	Maybe about 5.
Your favorite season:	Fall.
Zodiac sign:	Taurus.

[the alphabet survey] brought to you by BZOINK!

News:

The Department of Fear Homeland Security are warning us again: "Osama is still out there! Don't relax just yet!". Thanks, guys.

Youths are incarcerated because mental health services are unavailable. Funny... every therapist I know is currently taking new clients. So the problem isn't a lack of professionals... what could it be?

Disease cards. I wonder if they come in packs with bubble gum? If they did, I wouldn't eat it.

My two favorite activism groups of all time are The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and Billionaires for Bush.

These two groups are remarkably similar. They both wear costumes (Sisters, Billionaires), their members adopt humorous aliases (Sisters: Sister Dionna Cross, Sister Edith Myflesh, Sister Roxanne Roles; Billionaires: Mo Bludfer-Oyle, Mille Tarybucks, Les Foryeux), and they both seem like they're having a good time. Anyway... I just wanted to share that.

News:

Ken Lay turns himself in to the FBI. I wonder why it took so long to bring this man to justice. Half of me says that the system moves too slow, half of me says that it smells like political maneuvering.

"Dick Cheney can be President," is the response That Man gave to the question, "How does John Edwards stack up against Dick Cheney?" I think that "President Cheney" are the scariest words in the English Language.

Thomas Friedman suggests that we stop scapegoating poor blacks and start scapegoating elderly whites. He makes a cogent argument.

Fin.

Let me be the first to propose this: IQ tests for the Presidential candidates. Why not? It would be just one more piece of data that could be used to help us, as good citizens, choose our leader. A few years ago there was an urban legend that George Bush has the lowest IQ of any President. This could be a chance for that web-footed, inbred, hill-dwelling monkey Bush to prove he's not as dumb as people think. Or confirm our suspicions that W would probably score in the low 90s on the WAIS.

Anyway.

News:

Europeans consider working longer hours. Most Western European countries have work weeks between 35 and 38 hours; but faced with competition from us workaholic Americans, they are thinking of going back up to 40 hours. If this really happens on a wide-scale (and good luck convincing the French!), then it may indicate a significant change in European culture. Too bad for them. Hey, M. Chirac! Check this out, before you decide to change your country's focus from life to work. (That's right kids! In America, we get about half the vacation days as people in Japan!)

This piece, about psychoanalyzing public officials, is worth a read. Be forewarned, though: The author is a scholar at The American Enterprise Institute, which has a pretty conservative bias.

A mixture of my favorite things: Food and politics. Conservative condiments and Liberal libations.

First, I had a great weekend. I love not having to work for three days in a row. And so far, today has been pretty cool. I worked a major miracle for one of my clients this morning, so I'm pretty psyched about the day.

Enough of that.

Jay and I saw two movies over the long weekend: Spiderman and Fahrenheit 9/11. First, Spiderman is a non-stop thrill ride; the perfect superhero/action/popcorn movie. It is exactly the kind of thing that goes down well on a warm, lazy summer evening. Seriously. It has it's cheesy moments (I actually made little retching noises at one point) but the amazing thing about Spiderman is that these moments just contribute the Gestalt of the movie's campiness.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is a different kind of movie. There is a lot less of the usual Micheal-Moore-as-gadfly shtick. (He limits his accosting of public figures to two incidents, and given the capacity of this administration for making an ass of itself, Moore should win the Nobel Prize for his restraint on this matter alone.) This movie is divided into two parts: The first part is Moore detailing, criticizing, and exposing the mendacity, hubris, and bad governance of the Bush administration. The second part, which seems to me to be the reason the movie is so popular, is a humanization of the war in Iraq. There are interviews with the troops, with Iraqis, and with families of soldiers. There are pictures of dead people, pictures of injured people, scenes of American parents weeping over their dead children, scenes of Iraqi parents weeping over their dead children, and first-hand accounts of the dangers the troops in Iraq face. The movie is excellent, period. Of course, Moore is hardly an objective observer--but one of the things that the movie points out succinctly is that our traditional "objective observers" (the popular media, et. al.) are simply unwilling or incapable of telling this kind of a story. So Kudos to Moore, who--perhaps for the first time in his career--has created a truely unique and much-needed piece of cinema.

Take that.

Last night I was booked up until 7:00, at which time I went home and made a pitcher of New Alison's Mambo Margaritas. Or, as my lovely friend Carrie calls them: Diabetic-Coma-in-a-Glass. The recipe comes from The Sweet Potato Queens. I provide it to you below, and hope that I do not get sued:

Empty 1 can of limeaid concentrate (about 12 ounces) into a big picture. Fill the can with 7-up (under no circumstances can you use Sprite), and add that. Then, fill the can with tequila, and add that. Finally, add one yellow beer. (I like Corona.) Stir this gently--if you make it in a blender then the 7-up and the beer, which are carbonated beverages, will go all over the damn kitchen and you will end up drinking tequila out of the bottle straight to try and forget the mess you made. Trust me on this.

About a week ago I mentioned that Jay and I were going to a fundraiser, and that Michigan's Govenor would be there. Well, here are two photos of me and Jason with Govenor Granholm. The older gentleman is State Representative Aldo Vagnozzi. Gotta love fundraisers.

News:

Being gay sucks sometimes. New ads supporting the Federal Marriage Amendment are particularly hateful, and remind us of the stereotype that LBGT folks are somehow dangerous to children.

That Man markes the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. Read about it here. I would like to draw your attention to the President's speech: "The work of equality is not done, because the evil of bigotry is not finally defeated." I guess he'd know.

Measure Your Fears - Would You, Wouldn't You, You Did brought to you by BZOINK!

Pet a snake:	I would, I did.
Spend a week in an empty room:	I wouldn't.
Ride in a hot-air balloon:	I would, but I wouldn't enjoy it.
Sky dive:	I probably would, but I'd also probably wet myself.
Sing in front of a huge audience:	I did, I would.
scuba dive:	I would.
Sit in the front seat of a roller coaster:	I would, I did.
Deliver a baby:	I would.
Swim across the Amazon River:	I wouldn't.
Change careers:	I did a couple of times, but I wouldn't now.
Disappear for a long period of time:	I did, and would.
Walk through the forest alone at night:	I did, and I would.
Join a space mission:	They wouldn't want me. (Stop barfing on the multi-million-dollar controls!)
Tell everyone what you honestly think of them:	I did, I would, I do.
Call off your wedding:	I wouldn't. I'd go through with it, then anull.
Walk naked through New York City for 10 minutes during rush hour:	I wouldn't, because I don't believe in torturing others.
Walk up to Mike Tyson and call him a girl:	I would. I could use the settlement money.
Disarm a bomb:	I wouldn't.
CLean the outside windows of a skyscraper:	I wouldn't.
Draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa with a permanent marker:	Jesus! Why would anyone do that?
Go on tour with Elvis:	Ummm.... He's kind of dead. So, no, that's just gross.
Go swimming during a thunder storm:	Stupid. I wouldn't.
Preform surgury on your best friend:	I like my friends, so I wouldn't.

Here is this week's unreasonable pop-culture obcession:

VH1 has been running commercials for I love the 90's, which will start on July 12. It's kind of embarassing to admit this, but I'm looking forward to this show that way a junkie looks forward to another hit of the sweet, sweet dope. "What's that? VH1 is doing a count-down show? I'm there!"

Other news:

Thanks to Madonna, "Pop Judaica" is increasingly popular. After you read this, check out Chosen Couture, for all your trendy Judaica needs. A T-shirt that says "I love Mah-Jongg" you'd like, maybe?

Warming up before gardening can prevent injuries. Interesting.

This cartoon is cute.

9:29 am

---

I was reading Practical Demonkeeping, by Christopher Moore. I enjoy him.

I was also reading I Hate You, Don't Leave Me by Jerold J. Kreisman and Hal Straus. It's about working with Boderline Personality Disorder, which I do quite a bit in my practice.

Music:

I was listening to:

Lady in Satin, by Billy Holiday. Her voice just says "Summer" to me.

Tracy Chapman's self-titled album. Oh Tracy... I love you.

Links I visited often:

Amazon

Ask Oxford

Le Monde

NPR

The New York Times

WDET

Yahoo! News