Indefensible Moronic Behavior

About a year ago one of my friends made an astute observation about me: when I feel stressed about something I have no control over I begin to complain, loudly, about any and all types of what I am going to term indefensible moronic behavior.

What, you might ask, qualifies as indefensible moronic behavior? Well, when I'm under the thumb of uncontrollable stress (as I appear to be now) my answer is, "Take a look in the mirror and get back to me."

I know . . . as my good friend Stacy would admonishingly say, I need to be about 50 percent nicer.

Actually, I don't tend to lash out at people, per se. (At least not to their face; although I have been known to have some seriously catty moments. Sherri, you know what I'm talking about!) But I become hypercritical and seriously vocal about things I have no control over or, seemingly, no stake in.

For example, the other day I read a short blog post about a study done with longitudinal data which found, in part, that boys who attend a four-year college right out of high school are more likely to take risks and commit non-violent crimes (e.g., vandalism). People left comments about how asinine the research was and how they couldn't believe that these sociologists had to do research to actually figure that out. Well, I won't go into how I feel about those comments, but suffice it to say Big J got an earful and commented that I seemed to be taking the comments personally. Perhaps I shouldn't have gone on for 20 plus minutes about how vital longitudinal research was and how this was just a small piece of a much larger study (see, there I go).

But now I can see where the behavior originated from. And here it is: I don't have a job. I've applied for a job. I've interviewed for a job. I was told I would hear about the job before the end of July. Everyone that I've talked to about the job is pretty sure that I am going to get the job. The person that interviewed me has now been on vacation for nearly two weeks. I'm not mad or even slightly irritated with this person, I understand how academic positions work. But I feel stressed and it isn't from something I can control.

My only recourse is to rail against indefensible moronic behavior. So while I'm at it let me just say that anyone who chooses to wear white athletic socks with dress shoes, and Mary Jane's in particular, should not be offended if someone is chasing them with a machete and threatening to cut their feet off at the ankles. Whew . . . I feel better.