Matt Sweet

The Log Cabin Republicans (or "Auntie Tom," as they are affectionately known) were denied a table at a North Carolina GOP fundraiser. You can read more about it here, but basicaly the GOP said, "No, you're all freaks, and we don't want anything to do with you." The Auntie Toms responded with, "But, it's just not fair to exclude us! We believe in oppressing the poor, and building the economy on the backs of immigrants, and public torture for the heinous crime of failure to renew a dog license, just like you!"

If the Auntie Toms really want to flex their political muscles, they will run ads in swing states (like Michigan), that say something to the effect of: "Even loyal Republicans think that George W. Bush is bad for the country. Sponsered by the Log Cabin Republicans." The GOP won't know how to respond to that--if they point out that the LCR is just pissed at being excluded, they'll be throwing away their whole compassionate conservative image. If they do nothing, they people will begin to say, "Hey, it's OK to be Republican and not vote for Bush after all."

But, they won't do that. And don't believe that it's because they are strategically not alienating other Republicans--let's fact it, the other Republicans don't want them at the party anyway. It's because they are spineless assimilationists. If they weren't, they wouldn't be whining about not being admitted to a group that's predicated on excluding them.

There's my frothy rant for the week. The moral: The Log Cabin Republicans may be queer, but they're still Republicans.

Other news:

Check out the nation's Terror Level. I particularly like the Red Level: "Yeee-Haw! Jesus, I'm coming home!"

U of M feels ponders the decrease in minority enrollment after the Supreme Court's case regarding affirmative action. As a Michigan State Graduate, I think the count should have ruled that U of M be burned to the ground and that the earth be salted. But hey, what do I know?

This page isn't news, but it's mesmerizing.

I have Iris Envy. All the Irises in my neighborhood are blooming, except mine. I don’t know why… they seem perfectly healthy other than their complete lack of blooms. In fact, not only are they not blooming, they aren’t even putting up buds. I think my Irises are developmentally delayed. This actually causes me to lose sleep at night. I need a life.

In other Matt-related news: I regularly run advertisements for my private practice in a local newspaper, which will go unnamed. I have always had a suspicion that they have been double-billing me. So I began to keep closer watch, and to save my canceled checks. And lo and behold… They sent me a duplicate bill last week. I paid this particular invoice the first time around on April 3, so it’s no wonder that I hadn’t noticed any double-billing in the past. I don’t know if this is intentional, and I don’t really care. I plan on sending them a firm letter, including a copy of the two identical invoices and a copy of my canceled check. I also plan on telling all of my colleagues, many of whom advertise in this particular publication and have also expressed concerns that they are being over-charged. I love to be persnickety.

The world:

The New York Times does a little piece on the live of Nicholas Berg. It’s worth reading.

Again with the Germans and the cars and the sex! Porsche drivers are more likely to be unfaithful. In related news, drivers with little "Peeing Calvin" stickers on their cars never get laid at all.

Continuing yesterday's blasphemy, I give you: The Jesus Monster Truck. Two great tastes that taste great together.

If I haven't mentioned it yet in this blog, I was once cursed by a Voodoo Priest. Now, every time I drive anywhere, I am always in the slowest lane of cars on the road. I just sit there with my foot on the break, while other cars rush by, looking happy and satisfied and punctual.

To cope with this curse, I have developed a game: Rush Hour Hot or Not. I rank the people in the other cars on a hotness scale of 1 to 10 as they drive by me. I have become quite adept at determining hotness from a profile.

What I have learned from this:

1. Men driving Jeep Wranglers are almost always hot.
2. Women driving Jeep Wranglers are almost always not.
3. People look stupid with a cell phone headset on. Minus 2 hot points!
4. Guys look hot on motorcycles. In fact, since I can't see their faces through their helmets, I give them the benefit of the doubt--just for being on a motorcycle. Plus 4 hot points for a Harley Davidson-style motorcycle; plus 2 hot points for a crotch rocket.
5. Some cars really are "Girl Cars." (For example: The Hyndai Accent, the Mazda Miata, the Fiero, the Camero, and anything made by Kia.)
6. Almost everyone looks hot in the following cars: Jaguars; tricked-out imports; the PT Cruiser; the Dodge Viper; the Corvette.
6. No one looks hot in the following cars: Huge diesel-engine powered trucks; the Ford Festiva; the Ford Focus; the Lincoln Navigator; the Plymouth Prowler; anything yellow.

Look:

The Homeland Security Department (which still sounds like something that would have existed in Nazi Germany to me) has issued a non-specific warning. Tom Ridge is quoted as saying, "Be afraid. Be very afraid."

We have been telling people this for years. I'm glad medical science is finally catching up.

Some random stuff about beer. Mmmm.... foamy....

Jesus takes time from his busy day to visit the vending maching. "I like to enjoy a Snicker's 'round about the second millennium, when the hunger's poking-at-ya, poking-at-ya."

Enjoy your day.

Inspired by Gwyneth Paltrow's decision to name her baby "Apple," Jay and I began reminiscing about poor names on Saturday. (We would do almost anything to get out of doing real work.) Gwyneth's baby is not the first "Bad Apple" in the world, though. I remember going to a friend's confirmation when I was about 14, and one of the other people being confirmed was cursed with the moniker "Apple Synder." I am not making this up.

Anyway, Jay and I came up with this, our list of bad names. Random celebrities: Feel free to use these creations as your own.

For girls:
Hettice
Deitrude
Hilma
Thusullia
Dawn
Slothika
Gwyndilla

For boys:
Thumbert
Fomme
Seighund
Taylor
Fartrick
Leipzert

On to bigger and better things:

Finally. A doll that Sierra club moms can give their proto-lesbian daughters."Proto-lesbian"... there's a word that isn't used very often.

Here is the story of a man who sold his kidney on the black market. Thank you, New York Times!

Tom Tomorrow's cartoon is funny. Read it, or die without humor in your life. Your choice.

Tune it tomorrow. Same Matt time, same Matt channel.

The following sentence, which was found on a progress note of mine, illustrates incorrect placement of a prepositional phrase:

The client and his male life partner agreed to have safe sex with this therapist.

And here are 2 funny things:

1.My Milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.
2. New sandwich introduced by Pfizer.

This weekend Jay and I are planning on packing up our place in anticipation of moving next weekend. That should be a lot of work. I'll let you know how it works out.

News:

A few months ago That Man's White House released propaganda videos about the new Medicare perscription drug benefit, disguised as news reports. They got caught.

The FDA prohibits gay men from donating sperm at sperm banks. This is just stupid. This isn't about HIV, it's about homophobia.

I got an interesting phone call today, from a friend and colleague. Names and locations have been changed or edited, except mine (Duh).

Sue: Hey Matt.
Matt: Hey Sue. How you been?
Sue: Good. Hey, listen. There's an opening in (Random City) for a clinical superviser of a mental health program. Do you want it?

Now, it's not everyday that someone asks me if I want a new job so casually. Plus, I'm pretty happy with my agency and in private practice.

Matt: I don't know. What's it like out there?
Sue: We just got a sweet new contract from the state, funded for one year with a likely renewal. We need someone good. Do you think you can do it?

I'm flattered.

Matt: I don't know... probably not. I like what I'm doing, and I like working with clients, so I'd rather stay here than move into supervision.
Sue: Well, we need someone good. Can you recommend anyone?

Oh, and I did recommend a friend of mine for the position. I'm waiting to receive a Thank You card. (Just a subtle hint in case she's reading this.)

News:

One-third of German motorists fantasize about sex while stuck in traffic. This is the second study that I've seen in about three months done about Germans, sex, and cars. Hmmmm....

The Detroit Zoo decides against keeping elephants. When I was young (until I was 6) my family lived about two blocks away from the Zoo. We could hear the elephants every Monday, because on Mondays the keepers let them out of their enclosure and walk them throughout the park. They would trumpet and bellow, and scare the crap out of our cats. It's kind of sad to think that they won't be there anymore. And yes, they are the same elephants that were there when I was a kid.

French news is different than American news. For example, This story about prisoner abuse did not make the news here in the states. Translate it using Google translator, if you want.

Two things:

First, a quote from my wacky friend Carrie, about a baby shower she attended.

Carrie: I didn't know anyone there except Katie, so I went up to one woman and introduced myself: "Hi, I'm Carrie. So, how do you know Katie?" She responded, "Well, I never had no baby shower. Just because I was 16 and didn't know who the father was, does that mean I'm not good enough for a baby shower? Just because the baby was born crack-addicted, does that mean my baby's not good enough?" At this point I just backed away quietly.

Nichole: I wouldn't change a thing about the show or my experience in the MAd Mad House...even the hard times. Because what doesn't kill you makes you stronger...
Nichole: A wise Wiccan told me that!
Eric: Was it your sister?
Nichole: No...Fiona you tard!
Nichole: ANyhow, I want to say thanks to everyone who wrote in to the message boards to support me
Nichole: Thanks to Fran at Raw4Ever for making the lovely Nichole website
Eric: I would like to thank everyone that hated me.
Nichole: Also thank you to everyone that hated Eric
Eric: Raw4ever sucks

The New York Times weighs in on abstinence-only HIV prevention. About fucking time (no pun intended). Abstinence is the least effective means of STI prevention, because it fails the most often. Millions of people who say, "I'm going to be abstinent" end up having sex. Personally, I think that this is a shift towards blaming people for getting HIV and other STIs.

Here is an Intriguing article about rats trained to sniff out land mines. Rats are more accurate at sniffing than dogs, and because they are so light, they don't detonate the mines accidentally. Plus, after that whole Black Death thing, rats owe us big time.

As you know, I'm a sex therapist, and so I work with individuals and couples who are in love, in lust, having babies, having abortions, getting married, getting divorced, coming out or just exploring good old bestiality. (Yes, I have actually had clients who came to me to learn to control their desires to have sex with animals.) One thing that constantly amazes me is the human need to experience love. People will go to the ends of the earth to experience love and sex: They will endure abuse, alienate their famlies and friends, change life-long habits, you name it. Love and sex are as fundimental to our existence as breathing or eating.

Fundimental, but also very complicated. Maybe it's the whole Gay Marriage in Massachusetts thing, or maybe it's just the arrival of warmer weather here in Michigan, but lately I've begun to consider the way that views of love and sex intersect with political beliefs.

For example, Conservatives are still pushing abstinence only messages for STI prevention and birth control in adolescents. Liberals counter that it is unrealistic to expect that someone who becomes sexually mature at age 14 will wait a decade or more until marriage to have sex. And Conservatives say that gay marriage will undermine the foundations of society; Liberals say that it is unfair to define the terms under which love is experienced between consenting adults. I could go on, with examples about abortion, sex/violence in the media, and even prisoner abuse in Iraq (It was sexual assault, people).

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm begining to conceptualize the divide between Right and Left in our country as a divide about the human experiences of love and sex. Of course, you know where I am going to stand on this debate... Love and Sex for Everyone!

Is that too reductionist?

Today I’m at home, sick. I hate taking time off work to be sick. In fact, I usually hate taking time off work at all. About four years ago, before I went to graduate school, I was unemployed for about 8 or 9 months. Jay and I had just moved to the Detroit area, and I was having a hard time finding work. The lack of something productive to do during the day triggered some serious depression. I sent out resume after resume, all to no avail. I got fed up with begging for work, so then I spent most of my days sleeping for couple of months. But after a while I began to feel that there had to be something more to life than just sleeping, so I started filling my day with other activities. I developed a routine: Wake up around 9:00, then breakfast, then Martha Stewart at 10:00, then housework until lunch, then take the cat for a walk outside, then take a nap, then make dinner and wait for Jay to arrive home from work. All the while I was doing this, I was struck by the complete lack of significance of anything that I was doing. I was doing something, but at the same time I really wasn’t doing anything.

Of course, lack of significance is a matter of perspective. The cat (at that time we had only one cat) thought that what I was doing was very significant. But I really couldn’t look myself in the mirror and think that I was proud of what I saw. Deep breath.

In the plus column, our living room and our dining room are now painted. Yay! The bedroom, however, needs some more work. Jay and I decided to move into the house “as is” and work to repaint some future weekend.

I finished hypnotherapist training last week. I wrote about the training as it was going on, using my Axim. Here are the belated blog entries:

May 12, 2004

Today is the first day of the hypnosis training. So far, all I've gotten is a migraine. The question I'm asking myself is: How do I get this gig, where I go around from place to place and teach therapists shit? That would be the ideal job, let me tell you.

So, what does it say about the training that I’m mostly thinking about how much money the presenter is making?

Jay wants me to help him work on the house (specifically the garden) after work today, even though today is my Day of Sloth. However, I enjoy working on the garden, so I think I'll forgo the sloth tonight in favor of badly needed weeding and transplanting.

I was thinking that I need a digital camera, so I can post pictures of our house and garden on my blog, and share the progress with all my Droogies. Maybe I'll look into actualizing that idea later this weekend.

I'm currently typing this on my Pocket PC (a Dell Axim, thank you very much), which I love. However, I think it's time that I made my way back to the conference. Later.

May 13, 2004

Yesterday afternoon Jay and I did some work in the garden. Basically, we weeded the front yard and planted some snapdragons. I enjoy working in the front yard, because we live on the corner of an intersection that is fairly busy, both with cars and with pedestrians. Yesterday, as usual, there were about a dozen totally hot guys who went jogging or rollerblading by. I love summer, and I love living in a gay ghetto.

Also, we went to Home Depot and bought paint. All the paint for the living room, the dining room, and the bed room came in under budget--I do enjoy it when that happens. We start painting this weekend. I'll keep you posted.

May 14, 2004

You know, when I go to conferences, l mingle with other business people in the lobby, or the restroom, or wherever--that is, I mingle with sales people, marketing people, banking people, and so on. Nothing makes me more glad that I am in the field that I'm in than that. No offense to the people who are in those fields, of course. But something about middle-aged white men in "corporate casaul" (read: ugly polo shirt and Dockers) named "Dick" joking about their children going to prom makes me feel nauseous.

Also, all the different conferences take breaks at about the same time, so I often found myself in the bathroom or a restaurant with about a dozen of these business drones.

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