Socks Suck

 

I don't know about you, but I am ALWAYS ripping my socks when I put them on-- this certainly happens frequently when I yank on old socks, but it also occasionally happens when I pull on brand-new, quality socks-- such as the sock pictured above (a new sock from the Columbia outlet, with a reinforced heel and toe) and so I consulted the internet, and-- as usual-- I did not like what I found: perhaps I have ill-fitting shoes and there's too much friction, or perhaps-- more likely-- I have rough skin on my feet and so I generate a lot of friction when I pull my socks on and so, according to the web, I should moisturize my feet . . . yuck, that will NOT be happening . . . I do not truck with moist feet-- I might also have jagged toenails, which can compromise the sock's stitching-- and that's certainly possible, while I do a good job keeping my toenails short (because I like to wear open-toed sandals in school) I can't always control jaggedness-- it's hard enough trim my nails at all and some of them are forever fucked up from when I ran that stupid mountainous marathon in Vermont-- and the last suggestion I read, before I gave up and determined that I'm just going to be a person who rips a great deal of socks, is that I could wash my socks separately and delicately, like cashmere or something, and I was like: fuck that . . . I'll just buy more socks.

Dave's Brain is Crushed with a Metaphorical Falling Goal

I endured seven hours of a soccer referee certification course today-- we viewed hundreds of slides, I took many pages of notes, we watched many videos of entertaining fouls, and now my head is swimming-- I am realizing it's really hard to make the correct call in real time (it's even fairly hard when you can replay a video several times) and one of the teachers -- a British fellow-- was a real stickler for using the proper terminology, which is tough because all kinds of Americanisms have crept into our parlance-- it's properly called the "penalty area" not the "penalty box" and it's a yellow card for "unsporting behavior" not "unsportsmanlike conduct"-- unsportsmanlike conduct is a fifteen year penalty in American football . . . and here's a situation the entire class got wrong:  if the goalie has possession of the ball and one of his own teammates punches him in the face, then because this is a striking foul during the course of play, the other team is awarded a Penalty Kick . . . so the moral here is don't punch your own goalie in the face when he has possession of the ball-- no matter what he said about your girlfriend (or whatever prompted this hypothetical insanity) and I also learned when to downgrade a DOGSO red card to a SPA yellow card (and a PK) and other such technical issues, such as the difference between SFP and VC . . . SFP is serious foul play and VC is Violent Conduct-- SFP occurs when there was some attempt to play the ball but the foul is excessive, VC occurs when there is no attempt to play the ball . . . both are red card/sending off fouls but VC is a worse suspension-- you also need to check the five S's-- shirt, shorts, shinguards, shoes and socks . . . and most importantly, make sure the goals are secured with sandbags or spikes, because occasionally players get crushed by falling goals . . . so that's priority number one-- and I'm sure this is a job like teaching, where you need a lot of experience and practice before you start to get things right-- I feel like I'm starting this path a bit late in life (there were lots of teenagers at the course!) but I think i'll get a better idea of what it takes tomorrow when I go to Newark for my field session.

Back to School: Not Great For My F$#king Back

For the first time in a long, long time, my lower back has seized up-- probably from playing basketball yesterday morning and then teaching three 83-minute periods and then going to happy hour at B2 Bistro and sitting on a barstool for several hours . . . who knows? . . . but I am unable to put socks on and will be lying on the couch all day (not the worst sentence for Dave) and I need to start going to acupuncture again.

THIS Is Where You Get a Break From the Smelly Teenagers?

Due to a damp and rainy week, the English Office-- the place where my colleagues eat, hang out, swap stories about the youth, and escape the pungent odors of teen spirit-- today our office smelled, as Hamlet might put it: "rank and gross in nature" or as I put it: like sweaty mildewed socks.

She's Back (and Fuggier Than Ever)

A couple of weather-related observations:

1) this year, many of my high school students have terrible allergies-- the worst I've seen in my many years teaching . . . even though the weather was beautiful all week, we couldn't really walk very far outside before kids started sneezing and itching and coughing and getting bright red eyes-- not sure if this is a new thing because this generation of kids never goes outside . . . right now it's purely anecdotal evidence;

2) after a prolonged absence, the star of New Jersey weather is back, your hostess with the dampness . . . Mrs. Moist Humidity has returned and taken center stage, as she always does-- and I always forget over the winter just what it's like when it gets soupy and clammy and my feet get so sticky that I won't even attempt to put socks on . . . yuck . . . but perhaps the humidity will impede all the pollen from floating around and my students won't be sneezing as much this week.

Dave is Declared a Hero (of a particular sort)

I think for future generations-- so they understand what is happening around here-- I should describe just how much pickleball is being played . . . normally on a Friday afternoon, I would have already ingested several beers and be getting logy, but instead, I took a nap and I'm about to don my compression socks, visor, and knee-brace and head out with my buddy to the 7 -10 PM open play at Pickleball HQ . . . and then on Sunday, instead of playing in my normal indoor soccer game, I agreed to drive down to the Mercer Bucks Pickleball Club and was declared a "hero" for doing so-- it's a 35-minute drive-- because my brother desperately needs an eighth player in his game-- he plays with an elite bunch and most of them are playing in a tournament, so they needed an extra body . . . I was really trying to avoid getting involved in indoor pickleball, but they keep building places and my friends (and brother) keep getting involved in various games and it's honestly not the worst way to spend the winter because the weather is fucking awful.

Got To Be the Calf Sleeves

I played indoor soccer for 90 minutes yesterday and then I played pickleball for two hours this evening-- and while I think I looked fairly athletic playing both sports, if you could see the awkward and ugly effort required for me to pry off my shoes, socks, calf-sleeves, and knee sleeve/braces after I finished playing, you'd wonder if I was capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time, let alone actually doing something athletic, graceful, and coordinated.

The Most Malodorous Game

Before I left to play pickleball yesterday afternoon, I got a whiff of something stale and sweaty and I had to play a most malodorous game: what on my person was exuding a bad smell? my socks? nope, the knee brace on my right knee? nope, the knee brace on my left knee? nope, how about my shirt or my shorts?-- sometimes the laundry smells weird because it didn't fully dry . . . nope, my breath? nope, my pullover, which gets several wears before I wash it because I always take it off after three points of play? nope, my shoes? nope . . . with most of the sports I play-- basketball, soccer, and tennis-- I'm so old that I can't play them two days in a row, so most of my stuff is clean before I play again, but I can play pickleball two or three days in a row before my knees and feet give out, so sometimes my stuff starts to smell-- but I went through everything and couldn't find the odor . . . except . . . the brim of my hat? the call is coming from inside the hat! yuck . . . so I switched hats and washed the offender and next time I will check my hat first, as it is the closest thing to my nose and so if it smells, then it's going to seem like everything smells.

I am Throwing Out These Tevas!

Yesterday, I found a pair of black Tevas in my chest full of random boots and shoes and figured they were perfect for the afternoon adventure my wife and I were about to embark upon-- it was sweltering hot and extraordinarily humid, plus there was a slight possibility of rain, so I wanted to let my feet breathe (plus I had played over two-and-a-half hours of pickleball with my brother his group of expert players down at Veteran's Park in Hamilton, so my feet were tired and my toes needed to spread out, encumbered by shoes and socks) and I didn't want to be traipsing around in wet shoes-and-socks; our plan was to take the train to Princeton Junction; then ride the "dinky" into Princeton proper; head to a bar and watch Coco Gauff play Aryna Sabalenka in U.S. Open finals, then meet our friends Melanie and Ed for dinner at The Dinky Bar & Kitchen . . . but it started to rain a bit as we were leaving to catch the train, so instead of walking all the way to the train station in New Brunswick, we drove to the edge of Highland Park and we got out of the car, holding these tiny umbrellas, and started to walk but we were immediately soaked by sideways rain, so we decided to beat a hasty retreat, get our fancy rain jackets (which we didn't bring because it was so fucking hot and humid, and it wasn't really supposed to rain) but when we got back to our house, we heard some odd thumping on the roof of the car and then we noticed dime and quarter sized hail hitting the windows and or neighbor's driveway (it was so epic, I took some video) so now we were stuck in the car, but I figured our dog Lola was very upset, so I bolted through the hail and got into the house, where she was duly freaking out-- and we checked Uber to see if we could get to the train station that way but there were massive surge charges, so we were going to put on our rain jackets an dbrave the storm, but then Connell heroically offered to drive us, so we made our way into New Brunswick, through a couple of deep channels of water, and caught the 3:49 train; once we got to Princeton, the rain had subsided, and we made our way to the Ivy Inn, a dive bar with TVs on the other side of town-- except that I clicked on "The Ivy Club" instead of "The Ivy Inn" on my phone, so we started walking a circuitous route through campus because we were walking towards Princeton's first eating club, not the bar-- but we figured out the mistake and we didn't walk that far out of our way and we got to see a bunch of drunken shirtless fraternity guys playing an outdoor version of "beer die," which was enteraining-- and then we drank some beers and watched some tennis at the Ivy Inn-- very fun, but cash only-- and Melanie and Ed and Lynn and Connell joined us for the end of the match, and then we stuffed ourselves at The Dinky Bar & Kitchen, got some very expensive artisanal ice cream at the Bent Spoon, and caught a ride home with Lynn and Connell-- and once we got home, I took off my Tevas and both of my feet had areas the straps had rubbed raw and I remembered why I had stuffed these Tevas in that boot-and-shoe-chest . . . because they suck and ruin my feet and I think I've done this three times now with them, so I am throwing them out and sticking with Chacos.

The Attitudes About Toes, They Are a Changin'

On the mornings when I play sports before school, I often wear sandals while I teach; it's faster and easier for me to put on sandals when I'm soaking wet-- just out of the shower-- trying to dry off and change into school clothes in the crowded coach's room and rush to first period . . . so yesterday after basketball, I wore my gray Chaco sandals with a pair of gray cargo pants and a black UnderArmour golf shirt-- pretty sharp, I thought-- and I apologized to my first-period class about my exposed toes and explained the situation-- very little time to shower, the difficulty of putting socks on when it's humid, time constraints, the desire to shed heat through my feet-- but to their credit, the students were oddly unfazed: usually the first time I wear sandals in class the kids give me some flak, but this time a girl simply said, "You English teachers always have your toes out," which struck me as peculiar, so I did some further investigation-- both around the school and on the internet-- and it turns out that high school kids think it's weird to reveal their toes in school-- they don't wear strappy sandals or heels or athletic slides or Jesus sandals or flip-flops-- in fact, they're so self-conscious about their feet and toes that they even wear socks even when they are sporting Crocs-- which I find nuts-- and at this point the student body seems to be used to the English department baring it all (below the ankle) as a matter of course (and I think they categorize us as "a bunch of hippies").

Wild Times

I was going to run over to T.J. Maxx today and buy some athletic socks, but instead I ordered them on Amazon.

Socks Suck

 Enough said.

Two Profound Questions

Here they are:

1. Why is it so hard for me to get a pair of socks on without ripping them?

2. Why have I gotten so into listening to The Brian Jonestown Massacre lately?

Some Deets

Yesterday's sentence was vague, Yoda-esque, and boring-- so here's a bit more detail: yesterday, Ian and I took off for Hamilton, New Jersey at 6:50 AM so he could take the SAT at Trenton Catholic because there were no seats available for the test near us; I dropped him off at 7:35 AM and they admitted him into the testing facility; I then when and played pickleball with my brother at Veteran's Park-- which was only a few miles away-- and this was elite pickleball competition, in fact, they wanted me to "try-out" to play with them, but my brother vouched for me-- and then my brother and I beat nearly everyone there so there were no longer concerns about my skill level-- then I went to my brother's place and Amy made me a sandwich and gave me some watermelon- and then I headed over to the school to pick Ian up, and I parked in the lot, got out of the car, and wandered and stretched . . . and I put my tennis shoes and socks on the hood so they could dry out and not stink up the car . . . and there was no sign of the test ending, though it was supposed to be a 3 hour test with one fifteen minute break-- but now we were going on noon and they were supposed to start at eight AM so it should have been over but it went on and on . . . I reparked the car on the road in a shady spot, I got really annoyed with all the people sitting in their cars, idling, making me breathe all kinds of fumes while I wandered around, but they sat on their phones in the AC, burning fossil fuels, and the kids didn't get out until nearly 1 PM and Ian was starving, so we stopped at Wendy's and he got some ridiculous chicken sandwich with fried pickles and honey habanero and bacon and then I went over Stacey's house for Ed's birthday, ate BBQ, played cornhole and lawn darts-- lawn darts made for a very long and boring game to 7-- and I just think the SAT is not equitable, normal, or useful-- there should be some hour long test that every kid takes in school and that should be enough.

Socks: Are They Conscious?

After some mild trepidation and complaint, the boys and I agreed to my wife's project: we poured out all three sock drawers onto the floor and while we watched Friday Night Lights, we paired up socks; disposed of threadbare socks, and traded socks . . . and-- for now-- all the socks are in their proper places . . . for now.

No One Ever Told Me This Shit

Our washing machine stopped spinning last week and we couldn't figure out why, but a jovial Hispanic appliance wizard solved the problem in 10 minutes-- for $150 . . . so that's $900 an hour, no wonder he was so sanguine-- after calling our machine "a piece of junk," he used a screwdriver to pry open the front panel and my wife and I actually screamed "ahhhgh!" in unison-- and we meant: holy shit! this is where all the socks went!-- so apparently if you wash socks and underwear in a mixed load with a lot of water, they float to the top and spill out over the tub and impede the motor-- to her embarrassment and chagrin, Catherine's thong was wrapped around the tub and a drive belt-- so once we removed all the socks and underwear, the washer could spin again-- and easy fix-- and the jovial appliance wizard told us something I never heard: we should wash socks and underwear separately, with very little water-- how did I make it 51 years without learning that?

Ahh . . . Denim Days

My buddy sent me this picture yesterday . . . I think it's circa 1990 but we are celebrating some romanticized version of the 70's that we cooked up at Pi Lam-- but now this photo just evokes nostalgia for getting together with a bunch of people in a poorly ventilated space (although we were sick in college all the time) especially because I got so bored this afternoon that I actually sorted out my sock drawer and searched for mates for all my single socks . . . mainly to no avail.

Nostalgia For Aneurysms Past

It's nice to know that though my kids are getting older-- they're fifteen and sixteen now-- they can still bring me back to when they were little tots: it was time for me to drive them to tennis last night and-- just like when they were young-- they weren't a bit prepared; Alex hadn't put his shoes on yet, Ian hadn't filled his water bottle, they had no idea where the rackets were . . . and-- just like back when they were toddling tykes-- I lost my shit, nearly burst a blood vessel in my skull, ranted and raved, and told them that they were spoiled ingrates with no appreciation for the fine things-- such as a ride to go play indoor tennis-- that they are provided on a daily basis . . . it's good to know we can all get back to that reminiscent place from years past (how do you sit there on the couch, playing on your phone when it's nearly time to go, wearing socks?)

Schrödinger's Sock: A Quantum Laundry Room Game for the Whole Family

I'm sure you've been in this situation: there's a sock on the laundry-room floor and there are two possibilities:

1) The sock fell out of the dryer when you were unloading.

2) The sock fell out of the laundry basket as you were putting dirty clothes into the washer.

If it fell from the dryer, it's clean. If it fell from the laundry basket, it's dirty. If you've got kids who play sports, it's filthy reeking dirty.

The sock is lying there, prone and lifeless, in one state or the other.

You may have heard of the infamous Schrödinger's cat thought experiment. If you haven't, you can read Wikipedia's short summary. I included it below.

The basic idea is that you can set up a quantum scenario where something is in a superposition-- in two states at once-- until an observer breaks the spell and reality collapses into one possibility or the other.

Schrödinger's Cat Thought Experiment

Schrödinger's cat: a cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor (e.g. Geiger counter) detects radioactivity (i.e. a single atom decaying), the flask is shattered, releasing the poison, which kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when one looks in the box, one sees the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead. 

Schrödinger's Sock Experiment (This Shit is Real)

The only way to collapse the superposition of the sock is to pick it up and smell it. The problem is that fifty percent of the time, it's going to smell really bad. But that's the cost of living in a universe dictated by quantum probability.

I've reenacted yesterday's version of the sock experiment.  I got my son to take the photos--though at first, he balked, calling this "the stupidest idea of all time." He then saw the title of the post, "Schrödinger's Sock," and remarked, "That's so cliché . . . everyone knows about "Schrödinger's Cat. It's not that funny."

I think my title is genius, but he's about to turn 16 and doesn't understand how awesome I am. And if you search up "Schrödinger's Sock" on Google, you get absolute crap. Stupid shit about disappearing socks and even stupider shit about Christmas presents. This is the only Schrödinger's Sock post that contains an accurate parallel analogy to Schrödinger's thought experiment. Someday soon my son will appreciate this. Or not.

Anyway, I rolled the quantum dice. I smelled the sock. Unfortunately, I crapped out. It was a dirty sweaty sock full of teen spirit.

Into the wash with it.

A lesser man wouldn't bother to collapse the superposition of the sock. A lesser man would just toss it into the wash without smelling. "Better safe than sorry," this lesser man would say. But the universe would be a less interesting place for it. It's more interesting to collapse the superposition and ascertain the truth, even if it means smelling a gross sock or seeing a dead cat. It's all part of dealing existentially with a universe built from chaos, probability, and reality TV.

Dishes: To Soak or Not To Soak?

Before you wash the dishes-- or load them into the dishwasher-- do you give them a good soak? Before you take arms against a set of filthy pots and pans, do you let them marinate for a while? Or do you jump right in and clean them immediately?

To soak or not to soak?

While I'm well aware of the issue with dividing people into exactly two categories, there are occasions when it's necessary to boil things down to black and white.

Some people fill their gas tank when it gets a bit low, other folks love to drive around on fumes.

And some people are "soakers" while others are "immediate washers." There is no in-between.

Giving the dishes a purposeful (and artful) soak

After a heated discussion at a holiday party, it seems that most men are soakers. If I were going to be sexist, I would say this has to do with the fact that men have a better knowledge of chemistry and thus understand that water is "the universal solvent." Water dissolves more substances that any other liquid on earth. It is the enemy of many part of your abode-- your roof, foundation, wiring, sheetrock, carpet and wood flooring . . . but water is the friend of clean dishes.

Women are pursuing STEM fields more than ever, so I'm going to assume that they know the chemical potential of letting things soak in water. So it must be something else.

I am a soaker, of course. Dirty dishes? Science to the rescue!

Time + water = cleaner dishes

My wife is not a "soaker." She scoffs at soaking and considers it lazy. When the dishwasher is empty and I plop a dish in the sink and fill it with water, this irritates her to no end. Perhaps this is the root of the dilemma. Non-soakers like to get right to the task. Get 'er done! My friend Terry, one of the few males who is not a soaker, said that instead of soaking he just "applies a bunch of force with a sponge." To me, it seems silly to use force when you don't need to . . . if he just let those pans soak for a few days, he wouldn't need to use any force at all. I should also point out that Terry puts cream and sugar in his coffee, so he barely represents the typical male.

One particularly masculine dude said that one of the reasons he needed to soak the dishes was that when he was done with dinner, he needed to "have a lie down." I think this is reasonable; after a hearty meal, who wants to stick their hands into a wet stack of dishes when they could repose on the couch?

So with some skillful balancing, some artful arrangement of the pots, pans, dishes, and utensils, you can make the water work for you, while you have your digestive "lie down." Then you're doing your work while you're supine! Isn't that the goal?

The dishwasher isn't going to get peanut butter off a spoon, or yogurt and peanut butter out of a bowl. It's not going to clean a pan with charred food remnants. So you can either dig in, apply some force, and get your hands moist and dirty . . . or you could pour a bit of water in there and give everything a good soak. Then, while you are going about your business, the miracle of the universal solvent is happening right in your kitchen. And you don't need to supervise.

Soakers aren't lazy, they're smart, but the most commonly posed rebuttal to soaking posed by non-soakers is that soakers are just procrastinating in the hopes that someone else-- most likely a woman . . . or Terry-- will come along and do the dishes. While this is certainly a possibility, it's not the primary reason for soaking. This is just an (unfortunate) side effect. I really want to do the dishes . . . after they soak for a bit, so it's not so much of a chore. I think most soakers feel the same way. If non-soakers are so wound up to do a chore, instead of heroically swooping in and doing the dishes that are soaking, they should organize the tupperware or match socks or some other task that doesn't interrupt the scientific process happening in the sink. But this won't happen, because in this case, there really are two kinds of people:

1) people who can let the dishes soak, let the food decay, let the universal solvent work while you sleep, and

2) people who just have to get it done, no matter how much physical exertion the task requires.