Picture Perfect

There's no other way to explain it. The socks go in to the washer and by the time they’re out, dry and all balled up, there are always those loose socks, hanging about, with no other sock to be balled up with. What happened to that sock’s partner? It obviously exists otherwise someone was wandering around with only one sock.

I once bought 20 pairs of socks (two years ago) and by the end of the year, I had a few socks missing. Where did they go? No one knows. But even more interestingly, *where are those 20 pairs of socks now?* I don’t actually own 20 pairs of socks anymore. I think the collective amount of socks in my household is about 40 pairs. This is excluding the ones at the back of the draw which haven’t seen a foot for years. I’m sure you know the one’s I’m referring to. Anyway, I could be wrong. I could have more socks and not know it.

In order to get to the bottom of this, I include a brief analysis of the sock structure in my household, which works as follows:

You buy a pair of socks. You wear the pair of socks. You put the pair of socks – hopefully by the end of the day – into ye smelly ol’ washing up basket (knowing you’ll never see that exact pair ever again). At some point – when no one has anymore clothes to wear – I then get lumbered with the responsibility of emptying said smelly ol’ washing up basket into washing machine thing (lovely device!). I put stuff in. I turn machine on. I go away.

When the machine stops, the sibling battles ensue of who should empty it. “I always empty it!” says youngest child “DJ will do it!” “I always empty it” says eldest child, “DJ will do it!” Thus, yours truly, currently the middle child in the household, gets lumbered with the chore once again. Out comes the stuff. Because we don’t own a dryer (I had one in college, amazing machines! I was, of course, too poor to actually use it, so I just hung the stuff to dry in the sun. I was in the Middle East after all, and if there’s one thing I had plenty of in the Middle East which didn’t require monies, it was sun – and by Jove, I was going to use every ounce of it. What a long bracket!)...because we don’t own a dryer, we hang the clothes up to dry. Not in the sun, because there isn’t any. And if there is, it’s likely to rain later that day. Thus, radiators become the dryer. The banisters in the summer. Up the clothes go!

When everything’s dry – for now we shall follow the life of a sock in the DJ household – the socks are put somewhere, where they’re eventually balled up and put in the draws of those who use them (maybe). Up until recently, I did my own sock balling. It is essential to have socks rolled up into balls, by the way, otherwise blurry-eyed in the morning, you’ll be wearing two different coloured socks and it’ll be mid-afternoon by the time you notice and Moore’s rule states, of course, you’ll be far, far away from your nearest sock draw, thus open to the ridicule of every passing sockist! And people are terribly racist when it comes to socks. “OOhh, look! Your socks are different colours!” – “Umm. Why, yes. They are.” – “Haha! His socks are different colours! Look everyone!”

But that’s a story for another time.

Meanwhile, the socks are all balled up. The possibilities for things to go wrong at this point are enormous. What if a sock is balled up with a sock which doesn’t belong to it? The whole system is ruined, and everything comes crashing to the ground. Whilst there shouldn’t actually be any socks missing, you’ll probably end up with that bright red and dark purple sock you’re not quite sure what to do with, and for the life of you can’t find the other red or purple coloured sock.

When this happens, the sock gets put into the sock-misfit bundle. This is simply a bundle of socks we couldn’t pair up with anything else, and they’re all bundled up nicely. There exists a disturbing amount of socks in this bundle. Really, nursery kids could match the socks up better. So why can’t fully grown adults?

I’m guessing socks don’t have a complicated social life which means they end things when they get upset, or find new partners when they want to. Whilst the latter is true – that socks end up with other socks besides the one they came in the pack with – I put that down more to human error, rather than any complex, hidden and magical social life socks have.

So where do those missing socks go? To the sock’s graveyard (a kind of elephant’s graveyard, but for socks)?

Of course not.

There’s a perfectly logical explanation for the missing sock.

The sock monster.

I know not whom this sock monster is and I know not when it strikes. I do know its tyranny is far reaching and its plans extensive. I also know the sock monster never sleeps, is never seen or heard, but all are affected by its cunning ways...

This post is dedicated to Matt. Yeah, Arty's fiancee. Thaaaat's right arty, watch out, you have competition now!

I was slaving away for a few hours last night, attempting to get a bit of code to work. More specifically, two bits of code to interact properly with each other. I say "bits of code," really they were "chunks of code" and in one case, "large paragraphs of code which were so big had their own files to themselves."

Needless to say, they weren't behaving themselves. They only half worked and I really didn't know what to do. At the best of times, everything did what I told it to do, except it all happened in the wrong place - which is no good at all. If I'm being rather vague, then what sums up the problem as I see it was: "for some reason, the second script wasn't read by the browser when a call function was placed in the first script (possibly because my call function was whacked, but I don't believe so. Who knows? Maybe I left out a bracket somewhere...)" According to Matt, the problem was "your CSS sucks!"

Which is true enough (notice how that sounds like Arty?).

Anyhow, Matt saved the day by creating an entirely new bit of code to use. With a bit of tinkering, it worked perfectly. Well, it worked perfectly without my tinkering, I just needed it to do something slightly different, and it diiiiidddd.

I just had to change bgcolor to none and insert the the code ID inside the class for the tabs. From there, it's a question of sticking in my own backgrounds, and in short, it worked a charm.

So, if you please, a round of applause for Matt and much thank-yous directed his way.

Ironically, with the time it took to write this post, I probably didn't save any time at all.
Actually, I'd probably still be slotting in document.body.background to each individual tab...

Thank you Matt. Your help was much appreciated.

What could possibly warrant three whole posts in a row?
That's right. AG!

So, she got back to me! Now, because I like to play with your minds, I shall poll you on what you thought the outcome was.

Adios, folks!

Oh, one more thing. I had such a strange dream. I was dreaming someone died, and people were mourning for them. But that they were still around, ghost like, standing with the mourners. I was just passing by, and asked the mourners what was happening. They replied they were mourning for someone who passed away recently. At that point, the daughter of the person who died (who was about 40 or so) said "they're still with us. I can see them in the mirror. If you stand here and look at it from that angle, you can see her too." People generally nodded their assent at this, though I did detect a few non-believers there too - especially as it transpired that this daughter (who I always thought of as being a mother, for some reason - the daughter part is post-dream interpretation by me) was the only person who could see them through the mirror (in dreams, you just know these things and dont have to ask).

I thought "haaa. Yeah, right" but still, moved to the position she ushered me to and looked into the mirror...And saw... reflections. Just what a mirror would do. No whispy smoke-looking creature looking back at me. Nothing. A few times, I thought I could see something, but I responded "No...I can't see her." The mother/daughter insisted the ghostly remains were here. This all took place outside.

So, for some reason, I remained with the mourners who I didn't know. The time came to eat. Everyone was having bread. The daughter/mother said "now you will see she is here" to me. Everyone nodded in assent. Oddly enough, everything magically moved indoors and there was a bust of the dead woman on a counter. The daughter/mother, for some odd reason - some sort of ceremony - had to take an egg and put it in the mouth of the bust. As she approached with a hardboiled egg, shell and all, she asked "with the shell on?" and there was a sudden gasp. People had seen the bust move. I did not, but I suspected it did move and at this point turned my attention to the bust. The mother asked again "are you sure?" then, in full sight of me, the bust nodded looked at me by moving it's eyes and had a freaky smile on it's face. The bust was white, and was oddly good looking for the daughter of a deceased grandma...then again, it would make sense that it was a mother mourning for her daughter...not the other way around...yes. That must be it. Anyway...

The pure white bust looked at me pointedly through the corner of it's eyes, smiled a thin, nice smile, which nontheless freaked me out completely - well, a bust was smiling at me - then suddenly, it sort of lunged forward at the egg. All I saw was a quick lunge, and half the egg coming out of it's mouth, but on closer inspection (that's right, I inspected closer in my own dream) the bits coming out of its mouth were just egg shell it was spitting out. Meaning, it had eaten the egg so quickly the naked eye only had time to observe the eggshell being spat out. My dream led me to believe that this was of not much significance, however. When the lunge was made, there were gasps, and even I was taken aback.

 Then, I agreed to stay for lunch. Things started to go wrong. Terribly wrong. I don't remember what, but I do remember wanting to leave...only the ghost wouldn't let me. I was trapped - with the doors being locked shut by some unknown force, which I seemed to know was the ghost. There was shouting - everyone wanted to leave - and food flying all over the place. For some reason, I thought the ghost would want to harm me and other people who seemed to be with me (magically, my family was transported to the scene, though they hadn't been there before) - so the need to do something was acute indeed. I stood up and forbade the ghost from throwing things about. It didn't listen to me (a great shock there!) and the mayhem continued. Then I commanded the ghost to release the doors. For some reason, the mother was blocking my way out.

I'm unclear what happened then, because I woke up what felt like shortly after.

Weird, no? I'm glad to see my investigative skills and courage to stand up to the unknown and dangerous are not dulled when i'm unconscious, though! lol. Beware, all those who would do wrong! I'm just as dangerous to you asleep as I am awake...Muahahahaha.
------------

So I just got off the phone with AG's mum.
"What?!" I hear you all chime "how scary!" - I know! I had to answer the phone!

As soon as I heard that accent I almost wet myself. "My God!" I thought, "I'm done for! I can't believe she TOLD on me!" My heart's still pounding from the experience. Though mummy dearest was giving details of flights she had booked for her daughter, had she asked me "do you know what I'm calling about?" or started anything with "my daughter tells me..." I think I would have just fainted then and there.

Talk about coincidence of coincidences, I just thank God she's thousands of miles away from me at the moment and if/when she finds out, I do hope she won't come over and beat me up or anything.

And no, AG did not ask her mum to "speak" to me or anything. But in case she does, I'm going into hiding. I'm not answering anymore phones, ever.

Still no reply from AG, but then, it's a bit early in the day, let alone the week.

It's almost not worth the stress. Over that one phone call, I think several of my hairs turned white, and I'm starting to develop a headache....Of course, if AG turns out to want to date me properly, then it's all ok. Vindy put it a little like this and with her words shall I leave you, so I can go vomit:

"It's like running into a wall. You know it's going to hurt. What's worse, is that you know you can stop yourself from doing it, but you don't. It's a bit like platform 9 and 3/4 - if they say "yes" a magical world awaits on the other side. If they say no, you're just an idiot running into a wall, humiliating yourself because you believed you could do it. Because you believed in magic."

I see Ant has left me to fight what started as a joint-battle on cybernations.net (perhaps the best online nation building game ever!) all by myself. This isn't a problem, as the nation in question is begging me for peace, though I'm demanding a package of $80,000 (about two and a half days taxes for him - and just over a days taxes for myself). It wasn't always that unreasonable. It started as 50k, but it since has raised to 80k. I shall only stop attacking when the ransom is paid. Every day, I inflict between 25-32 infrastructure damage, which translates into around $65,000-$90,000 of damage (and that's a conservative figure. I'm guessing every 10 infra costs him about $30k). All the guy has to do is bend over and give me the cash. That's all I'm asking. It's for the betterment of his nation. I told him I may even give all of it back, and help him rebuild his nation, but no. He doesn't care for that. He has to case soon though, I killed around 400 of his soldiers in one day.

On to other things, you may all know I've been kicked off the UN and probably won't be able to rejoin in nationstates.net, the inferior but funnier game of nation building. Unfortunately - and here's something I did not forsee - the Dominion of Artykins is now in control of regional delegate position. A travesty, yes :p

On to yet more things, I find my finances, being a student, is a complete joke. For that reason, I must cut back on certain activities. Going to France for a week with friends and going to Israel for a month is still on, however. These trips are going to bankrupt me, yes, but you only live once. On the other hand, I would have just enough cash to elope with AG should I feel so inclined (funnily enough, she's already told me she'd elope, so I know she's all in favour of that. I just hope she's in favour of doing it with ME...).

Which brings us nicely onto the subject of AG. She's such a cutie. I really do like her. Lots. I'm not sure if sending an email solely with the words "I luv u do u luv me? please?" was the wisest thing to do, but there we go.

Just so you know, I was kidding about the words sent. I was also (half) kidding about eloping. Where would we go? I don't know. Maybe we'd crash out at Arty's place for a while. Say, a day or 6 months or so. heh heh heh. Oh, or maybe at Cat's house. She's always said AG was hot, maybe she won't mind if we visit her. Forever.

Ok, I'm kidding there too. I bet you're both relieved, and if you're not, you should be and if you're still not, you better be and if you're STILL not, hell, I'll actually come down there and make myself at home, thereby making you wish you were. Ahh. Social conventions.

Which brings us on to another subject.
I don't care for social conventions, really. They box you in. Also, the fact that they're called "conventions" and not "rules" indicate they're not compulsory. They're also mainly rubbish, based on nothing concrete, but brought upon us by little more than a certain predisposition which could have just as easily turned us the opposite way. But I have been thoroughly derailed from the AG discussion.

I'm still hanging in the balance, by the way, waiting for a response of some sort.

Oh, also, vindy is doing some artwork for me. Lovely. I'm making a leaflet on stuff for university students (in my new role as political officer). If the pamphlet where the artwork features proves to be good, it shall published (for as cheaply as possible) and be distributed to a student population of a few thousand. Across the country. It'll also have vindy's name on it, and I shall give her a copy too.

And that's all, really.
I continue to dabble in journalism, and am creating a website. I have my first commercial order of the summer, and it needs to be completed by the end of the month. Which means I have lots of work to do, and should NOT be here. So, take care, all! Thanks for wasting your time with me =)

So I sent an e-mail to AG today. I was wondering whether or not I should save the contents of it for when we're meeting next (when she finishes term, there's a little more to go) so I could say it face to face, but I decided that that didn't work out last time. Besides, this time we may never get to be alone together. This way, she gets to reject me in her own time and has actual evidence of my begging...

*cough*

Regardless of what she'll do or say, it does feel good to get that all off my chest (finally). Part of me feels like a complete fool, for not just e-mailing this ...thing... but for expressing it, in whatever form. The other part of me which says "I don't give a rats ass, I did it, I've said it and it's out of my hands now" is winning though, so I'm pretty relaxed about it. Honestly, if I'm rejected, I shan't suck the bitter lemons life throws my way - I'll simply make lemonade, package it, market it and sell it. I'll brand it "Fruits of Depression" - other flavours in the range will include 'sour grapes' and 'no-passion' fruit.

Ok, I'm just kidding, but those would be cool names and in my opinion a nice edit to the cliched adage.

Anyway. I feel more at ease. Like I can enjoy my weekend, which I fully intend to do.

By the way, Brie cheese is perhaps the most lovely of all cheeses. I love it lots.

I know I said I wouldn't write another post like this, I'm sorry. But apparantly I can't seem to shake off American Girl. Despite saying I'd ignore her (when, last week?) I nevertheless managed to e-mail her between 2:00pm and 6:00pm everyday except friday of that week. I didn't even start it, it's not fair!

As if that wasn't enough, the phone I leant her has come in handy in breaking my resolve not to speak to her as much, causing both of us to spend £2.20 (that's 22 messages) in one night (9:00pm-1:00am) of SMS. Most unfortunately, my 300 free texts per month were finished (and she doesnt have such an offer) so we really did spend that amount in just 4 hours. 

The SMS conversation turned from small talk to quite heavy conversation for mere text messaging. Eventually it turned towards the idea of marriage (of course, whilst we're both terribly young, I'm mindful that my parents were younger than we are [and her parents too] when they got married) - and so it's on the table, just like that.

By that, I don't mean it's an option, I mean it's a thing we're both thinking about. At least, I am, and I do heavily suspect she is... In essence, it has the option to become an option, if you will. The pre-option point. That kinda thing.

Anyway, whilst these SMS's were fluttering about, I asked Cat and Ovy for advice on what to say. Those two were entirely comical; it was like watching something out of a slightly corny 1970's American sit-com. My exact (and in itself, somewhat comical) request was, "how does one profess their undying love for a most brilliant woman?" Overture simply asked about various parts of my history with her, prompting me to question whether or not he was writing a soft-core porn novel, and Cat merely opined - constantly - how useless Ovy was being. Between the two of them, I eventually got sent to bed by AG; but I did notice a certain change - a tenderness - in her messages. Or is that all just the over active imagination of moi? I guess we shall know soon enough, when I finally say something to her about all this.

Why the change of heart? Well, new evidence has come to light, I suppose. But also, this is really the last chance I get to tell her, she'll be leaving on a jet plane, and when she does, I don't think she'll really ever be coming back again...

In line with my "won't say nufink" policy, I have nothing to say.

After spending 3 hours exchanging e-mails with AG, I have decided it would be better for my mental stability to stop being in contact with her [so much]. What for, anyway? Ok, so I didn't hit the wall at 100mph this time, more like at 10mph, but walls are still hard when you hit them...

There shall be no aww's. There shall be no "I'm sorry for you DJ"s - this is a good thing. I'll try to avoid her this summer as much as possible (it's ok, this time she's coming with a bunch of her friends, so yes, it's acceptable for me to neglect her) and therefore not fall prey to her charms.

It's a parting of the ways. I know she'll do well and I hope I do.

Ever since Ant expressed a desire to know more about my "love-interests" (no love life to speak of!) I've been focusing mainly on that. This post marks a change: I now have no "love-interests" to speak of (excluding ag's friend, but I don't think that's going to work out either) and thus shan't talk about nothing.

More stuff I plan to do:
1) Jog. Maybe.
2) Apply for a work permit in Israel.
3) Find job before I leave.
4) Finish renting apartment there.
5) Finish a few articles for the media firm I'm with.
6) Write a few articles for a few other political websites I've become/want to become affiliated with.
7) Enjoy the summer! I'm doing studenty-stuff with friends.

Congratulations!
It appears you know me and thus are allowed access to mine bloggum.

You'll forgive the precautions taken, it's just that I haven't really been able to speak my mind on my blog (my own blog!) recently, due to my association with certain people from North America. They have a tendancy to google stuff on themselves, and thus turn up anything remotely connected to themselves. Just typing that last sentence, for example, would be silly of me without a password on my blog. Yes. They get bored. Very bored.

Anyway! The self-authorising code is in place, and this particular person doesn't know what it is. So I'm safe! *glances around blog happily*

The events of the great meet up between helen, arty and myself?
Don't listen to arty. That's all i'm saying. She seems to have written up the stuff though, and because im tired and lazy, im not going to replicate it here. It was a nice day, though helen was quite quiet and matt and arty kept holding hands (eurgh!).

So today was the last day I saw AG (American Girl). I love being around her, it kills me when she has to go. Last time she missed 3 busses to extend her time here, this time we ran across london to get her on the train. We were at Kings X with minutes to spare, literally. I was still on the train when they told us it was about to close its doors, and she panicked, worried i'd be on the train after it left...

As you can see, i'm pretty much smitten; I acknowledge this. Oh well. I think she likes me. She told me she cried last night, after spending the day with me (I can have that effect...) though she "didn't know why." Eventually she decided it was because she knew she had to leave soon and would probably never, ever see me again....dun dun dunnnn (except in 4 weeks time! She hates england and wants to leave ASAP, but speaks of coming back to visit. she has this idea that she'll come back for a month at a time, which i'd love...). She's really sweet, even for an American, I have to say.

Unfortunately, she still keeps trying to get me to go out with her friend. Really, I should come clean and tell her, something i've tried to find the right moment to do, but whenever i do, i feel the atmosphere suddenly change, become heavier and slightly more tense, as if she was uncomfortable. Not as heavy or tense as other social situations i've been in, but enough for me to feel it...and so I never really pursue it...

But enough of this talk!
It's sickening. There are other things going on in my life, but I can't be bothered to tell you about it. Sorry! I'm just really tired, it's been a really full day. Oh yeah, that reminds me: everyone in my family makes fun of me because they know i'm smitten, and they know i'd never "do anything" due to my religious beliefs. They think i'm a silly boy being silly, and I have to say, it sounds like they're right. This can't really go anywhere and I dont know why I got so attached in the first place. Though her parents were originally the people I "hung out with" (if one can do that) that has moved into the background (I see them (figuratively) watching us dissaprovingly in the background). I know it sounds like i'm just delaying things, and that i just need to pluck up the courage, but i don't. If I knew she would take me, i'd go for it right away. But i have no idea how she'd react. Yeah, so she cried yesterday. I knew a girl who thought I was sweet as sugar and would tell me so, very often. When I asked her out, it was like I hit a concrete wall at 100 mph. I just don't want the same thing to happen with her, and if it does, i'll be shattered.

For the moment, she's as close as my hand, yet as remote as a star. She means much to me, but at the same time, little. I hate the fact that women get to say two letters and break men down into little pieces. I love the fact they get to say three, and lift men high into a very happy state. But the possibility of the latter isn't real enough to risk the former.

Until next time.