The art of poking

Shame on you and your dirty mind!

Of course, I'm talking about the Facebook variety of prodding someone you may or may not know. Lately, this seems to be more the latter in my case, as half of Turkey somehow deems it socially acceptable to prod me at all hours of the day and night.

It goes without saying that these rather uncomfortable nudges don't generally come from females.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind the occasional friendly poke, especially from my friends; it's more of a "remember me" kind of thing, or just a "hello". However, this week things have taken on a more slightly dodgy air.

Friends of friends now think I'm fair game to prod to the point of bruises, and do I know these people? Do I hell as like. Do my friends know these people? Well they're on their lists, but hell, I've got people on my list that I've only met once.

For all I know, a mass murderer could be inflicting these nocturnal nudgings on me.

It's for this reason, I don't retaliate. In fact, I'm not being old-fashioned when I say this, but who the hell wants to be poked?! It's not very romantic, is it? You wouldn't randomly walk up to someone in the street and start poking them in the arm going 'oi, look at me!' would you?

Well maybe you would, but I wouldn't, not where I'm from anyway, you'd get slapped for your efforts. I wouldn't recommend it.

I was "reliably" informed by my friend that Facebook poking has become a bit of a male dating ritual, to get the attention of any girl they like the look of. He also went on to tell me that during a decent poking session, this can generally involve anything up to 20 victims. Talk about spreading your net wide.

I'm not sure I'd be that flattered by it to be honest.

In fact, I'm not.

I'm ashamed to say I did actually involve myself in a poking war a few months ago, purely becuase I had nothing better to do, but I got bored after five minutes - what exactly is the point? And who wins? And what's the prize?

Bugger all, basically.

I'm off to tend my metaphorical bruises, I'm black and blue.

In sickness and in health

I'm writing this from my sick bed, purely because I'm bored out of my tree, and can feel the sudden onset of cabin fever looming. I feel I need to communciate with the outside world before I start knawing my own arm or something, whatever crazy people locked in rooms do.

Not that I'm locked in a room specifically.

I do not cope well with being ill, and as much as I love my sleep, the sudden need to drop off every five seconds has become, well, a bit tiring as it happens. I know this is how the body heals, but my god, how boring?!

So I'm incapacitated, with little else to do but stare at Facebook, fall asleep, read, fall asleep, try and write, decide it's crap, sleep, shiver, sleep, have veeeerrry random webcam conversations, sleep, and oh yeah, sleep some more, with a further bit of shivering thrown in for good measure.

All in all, it's been a pretty uneventful few days.

I've also decided that I definitely couldn't work from home all the time, I'd be far too easily distracted, what with crap daytime TV, the lure of Dairy Milk in the fridge (even though right now, I seriously couldn't stomach it - I must be ill), and the temptation of online shopping. That's pretty much what I've been doing, but instead of actually shopping, I've found I get the same hit from browsing, adding stuff to my cart, and then clicking off it and deciding I don't need it. Cheaper and hits the same spot.

Win-win all round.

I tried to write a bit of my book, but I think I've lost my way a bit, in fact to be honest, I think my way with that book's got up and done a runner, because can I hell as like start writing it again in the same way. I tried, I wrote a whole paragraph, read it back and thought 'nah', deleted it and went back to browsing Top Shop's website.

I've been watching the Olympics though, so at least I've done something constructive - been patriotic. I got quite excited when Jess Ennis won gold. She's a local girl and all that, it's the contract to get marginally excited. Well, I tried, then my headache won over and I fell asleep again.

I hope I haven't caught some rare tropical disease, I mean I've not been anywhere particularly tropical lately, other than Sheffield but I don't think you could really count that as a malaria hotspot .... well, unless you count Manor Top, but I seriously doubt it'd be classed as tropical either. Delayed Turkish reaction? Who knows, maybe this is a reaction to coming home and it should be prescribed for me to go back sharpish - for the good of my health of course. I might try that one out, see how far it gets me .... probably as far as the doctors and back again, and no further.

Being bed-ridden does have its advantages though, other than no need for make up or extreme hair styling - plenty of time for day-dreaming, one of my favourite pastimes. I have been indulging in past memories (not always so great for me), and future hopefuls, which pretty much consist of happy, happy days. It's a bit like cosmic ordering, and I'm hoping it works along the same lines, worth a try anyway.

So now I will go back to my sick bed, sniffle, sniffle, cough, cough, before I fall asleep again .....

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

A case of stolen identity

Is that the sun??!

Oh my days, what a week!

I'm not quite sure where to start, well I am actually - cue rant.

This week, I discovered I have an evil twin. I didn't know about her, in fact had a friend not told me, I'd still be none the wiser, and she'd be off causing all manner of chaos, parading as little old me.

I shall explain.

There I am, chatting to a friend on Facebook, and I'm asked why I have two profiles. Er, I don't, why would I? So in all innocence I say exactly that. Yet no, he tells me he is friends with me twice. Thinking this is all very odd, I go off to investigate. Well I ain't no Poirot but it wasn't difficult, and yes, he was right, he was indeed friends with "me" twice. Some weirdo had decided to create a fake profile and pretend to be me. I should be pleased really - immitation is the greatest form of flattery, after all.

I don't know if this has ever happened to any of you, but seeing yourself staring back with an almost right date of birth (although they'd made me a year younger, so thanks for that), and a single relationship status that all manner of random Turks had 'liked', is a bit creepy. I couldn't see the rest, which is probably a blessing.

Now, as I said before, Poirot I ain't (for those of you that don't know, he's some weird looking, mustached, TV private investigator, circa 1990) but I didn't really burst many brain cells figuring out who could be the culprit.

I highly doubt they're reading, but if they are (and I say "they" in the plural sense) - grow the hell up.

Why the silly games? Lord only bloody well knows, when I start to understand the workings of this, then I'll know I've stooped hideiously low, so good thing I don't understand. For a short while there I thought I'd been transported back in time to primary school.

So anyway, normal service has been resumed, Facebook have been informed, fake profile removed, and thanks to my friend, it's sorted.

So imposters discussed and over with, let's move onto the positive.

I got another writing assignment! Happy days.

All this writing about summery, beachy places is giving me majorly itchy feet though. I can't wait for summer. Actually, when I woke up Monday morning and saw this strange circular, bright light in the sky, I wondered what it was. Turns out it was the sun, and it's been shining quite a lot this week. It's stopped now, of course, we only get a few days at a time, and that's probably English summer over with now. I got my legs out though, I blinded the masses. Actually, that's probably why the sun's gone in .....

It's true what they say though, the sun shining really does make you feel better, I've felt like i've had a spring in my step this week, and I don't actually know why. Nice feeling though.

You're waiting for the weekly disasterous love life update aren't you?

Well obviously imposter me has a better time of it in that department, people "like" her status. Mind you, she's probably been off slapping about with all manner of randoms, and I, on the other hand, have not. Thankfully.

So the stalker - still stalking. I shouldn't call him that really, he's not a stalker in the figurative sense, he doesn't turn up at my house and hide in the bushes or anything. But yeah, still not giving up. Still trying to convince me to give it a go. I'm still telling him the same as I have done all the other fifty thousand times - No. I'm beginning to wonder if he comes from some planet where 'no' actually means 'yes'. I'm not going to try saying the opposite though, things might get a bit confusing.

I did have a little progress though, not in the sense of anything actually happening, but in that for the first time since I met the boy (remember him? Turkish dude, questionable motives), well I actually saw someone and thought 'yeah I actually could really like him', amongst other things. So that's got to be positive. Of course said dude is coupled up, so no chance there. I really do have bad taste in men.

So anyway, the real me is signing off now, not the fake me. The real me has articles to write.

Ciao for now!