critical mass

So the stress has been building up over the past few months. I can't say that I'm any sort of special case, or that the bad stuff in my life is any worse than the bad stuff in your life. It's really not all that bad when I try to put it into perspective; my family loves me, my dog adores me, and all of my bills are paid with a little money left in the bank.

Here's a short rundown of the stuff that won't hurt anyones feelings that doesn't have it coming to them,...... and what it drove me to.

Within the past five or six weeks, three of the doctoral students in the economics program I'm in have dropped from the program. One will have to leave the country now, going back to China to tell here family. Another was lucky enough to obtain late acceptance from another program, and is waiting to see if his Fulbright Scholarship will be permitted to apply the other program. Otherwise, it's time to get on that big jet plane across the ocean for him too. The third has been a friend for years and is really just an all around nice guy. He'll be sticking around the U.S., but the professional future seems to be in limbo. This is kind of a big deal because the department admits from 3 to 8 people a year into the program, making this a relatively high attrition rate. They've spent their lives setting the curve, taking all of the advanced honors classes, being the stars of their high schools and universities. Now the devastation of feeling as if they don't have what it takes to cut the mustard. There's sadness for my former colleagues, but also stress for me because this makes me wonder if I'm going to make it to the end.

I'm seeing little to no aesthetic results from daily exercise and healthy diet. In most ways I feel better, but burning lungs and screaming knees will put a sour note into just about any workout.

I just found out that I'm diabetic a couple of weeks ago. Really thought that I was making health improvements by leaps and bounds too, up to that point. My blood pressure was really good and my physician has been stunned by how good all of my cholesterol levels looked in the past 7 or 8 months. I mean, I don't have to take medicine or anything like insulin, but refined sugar is definitely off the menu.

Here's the proverbial back breaking straw; passed the guy that my ex had an affair with and is now shacked up with while I was on my way to the gym this morning. What is he even doing up that early in the morning? Sneaking home from a different girls apartment? I've caught the guy sneaking in the back door of my ex's house back in those days and caught him with other women since the two of them became serious, but believe me when I say this, I do NOT ever want to see him again. Just creates stress in my life.

Okay, these things aren't pleasant to hear about, and they're not pleasant to write about either, but it is therapeutic for me.

To finally release some of the pressure I needed to do something, anything that would get rid of all the dang stress. This really called for something silly. Okay, judge me as you may, but I did it anyway. Here it is. I thought to myself what is something that I can do to other people that won't hurt them physically, financially, and I haven't really done before? It came to me. This is a major university and there are hundreds, maybe thousand of computers that are easy to access. I took some of my time and went around to different computers to see if anyone had neglected to log out of their Facebook or Netflix accounts. Bingo!!! It seems that many people leave that stuff wide open. Probably because they just don't think to log out. Sure, it's juvenile to falsely announce that someone is coming out of the closet on Facebook, and I know that I'm too old to order someone Carmen Electra's "Fit to Strip" workout video, but it made me feel better.

With caller ID, the days of annonymous prank phone calls are over. It's very sad, but this is what I came up with instead. I miss asking "Is your refrigerator running?" and "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?"

Sometimes I wish it was still the good old days when the little bit of steam I had to blow off could be relieved by sticking a sleeping friend's hand in warm water or putting Nair on the occasional eyebrow.

I'm dealing with it. I should be okay now for at least a few more months. Until then, I wonder what the guy who has recently watched a conservative Anne Coulter movie and had a "Left Behind" movie in line to arrive next from Netflix will think when instead he gets a copy of "Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild."