All we ever have is too much time.

It's the first school day of not being at college anymore and I'm feeling a little lost.

All weekend I have had the strange panic/guilt hitting me every few hours because I'm not doing any work but I haven't got anything to do just now. Yet my head obviously thinks that after a whole year of constant work, I should definitely have something to do. Puzzling stuff.

Today I'm going to tidy my bedroom, I can finally get rid of all the pieces of paper chopped onto my floor without knowing it's a waste of time because they'll be there again in a few days.
I am also maybe going to take a little trip into town and then I think I was going to the cinema with Jemma. Is tonight lobster night? I do not know.

Last night I saw Built to Spill and Dinosaur Jr. and they were very, very good, I liked them so much.

Soon, maybe this week I'm going to begin work on a kind of commission, but I'm scared to start it in case it takes over my life. I also need to find out some things about the American postal system before I can start, otherwise it might all be a big mess.

I must also get a hold of Jamie and find out about the train and meeting time and general plan for our trip to London, I am excited for this.

ARRGH!

I do not like this project one bit. I do not like A3 paper. I do not like sketchbooks....
I do not like them here or there, I do not like them anywhere, I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them, Sam I am!

Big fun, no sleep...

It's always a sign that I'm very tired when it takes me 20 seconds to work out whether the noise I can hear is rhythmic clapping coming from my speakers or my rats eating something. Therefore I am going to go to sleep.

Not before I quickly update my whereabouts on this project. I aimed to finish it all today but didn't. Sad face. But I have come very close. Happy face.

I've pretty much finished the contents of the book, there is a little bit of finishing off to do but because this will only take a hour at most, it is essentially complete.
I forgot, once again, how long it takes to construct cherry bakewells and the last two pages I've put together have carried around 35 of them between them, so I spent hours on those today. I think it looks quite nice.

I'm hoping to finish the finishing off parts tomorrow night after work, which is easily done. Then the front cover I will try to do on Sunday. Then I'll be finished.

The main question is, am I allowed to put type on the front cover, or does it have to be on transparencies like everything else? If I can't put type on it.....it's pretty much going to be a blank page with a cat?

Anyway, I'm going to sleep. In case you were wondering, it was coming from my speakers.

Macmillan, Macmillan, Macmillan....

Once again, I've neglected my blog, but for good reason. A quick update is what this post will become.

My Macmillan work is multiplying at an alarming rate. It's my first official day of the Easter break and I have been hard at work all day.

I've made 3.2 double page spreads in one day, I think I've got this new problem called Scalpel Hand, which causes the sufferer to be uncomfortable around pressure points of the scalpelling hand and unable to stretch out the hand for up to 2 minutes after cutting something out. This could cause problems tomorrow if the pain doesn't go away overnight.

Now that I've started, as predicted, I don't want to stop and there is a strong chance I could have the whole book finished in time to enter it. I'm very scared of the three factory images, how the hell do I do those?!

I also have a little problem in that I haven't got enough paper and the Paperchase in York doesn't stock paper. So there is a chance I'll have to make a mission to Manchester. Unless a phone call to the Manchester store tomorrow morning can result in a mail order. Hmm.

"LET THE WILD RUMPUS START!"

I cannot articulate how excited I am for the release of 'Where the Wild Things Are.'
I've been putting off blogging about it, but having watched the trailer yet again, it's become too hard to resist.

It's going to be incredible, Spike Jonze directing, one of the prettiest sounding soundtracks ever, Jim Henson Company on puppet duty and Maurice Sendak's overviewing.
I aim to see it at least 4 times, I actually can't wait.

The only other thing I can say about it is that if I was fortunate enough to own a wolf-suit like Max's I would be the happiest person in the world. If I had the crown as well.....I don't know what would happen.

Soup.

The main subject of this post is soup. Last night my soup tasted like tea and I had to throw it away because I really don't like tea. I don't not like the taste, what I hate about tea is that it tastes kind of ok but it smells fantastic, I don't like tea because it is deceptive. Anyway, regardless of my liking for tea, soup should not taste like tea, unless it is tea soup, which this was not.
Tonight I made a different soup, by made I mean heated up, and it was supposed to be Winter Vegetable, or that's what the carton said. I have no problems with the soup as a whole, it was quite good, a little too thick but quite good. The only issue I have is that it had sweetcorn in it. I don't like sweetcorn in food. When people put it in sandwiches it's ruining a good sandwich. Sweetcorn with gravy, why do people do that? And sweetcorn in Winter Vegetable soup completely confused me. In my mind, sweetcorn is a Summer vegetable. I guess it is probably grown in Winter or something similar, to explain it being in a Winter soup but I have always and will always associate sweetcorn with Summer. So there are two reasons why today's soup is bad, it has sweetcorn in it and it has confused me about the seasonal appearances of said sweetcorn.

In other news, addressed as other news as it is other news when under that main heading of "Soup" as it has nothing to do with soup, yet if the heading wasn't "Soup," I would have started this sentence with "More equally important news..."
In other news, I'm going home tomorrow! I've become quite bored of having the flat to myself and I've watched too many films in the past 2 and a half days, I could actually be the IMDB now.

Screen Printing.

Why is it so confusing?!

It's actually quite simple, which is what really annoys me, I know exactly what I need to do and how to do it, but there seems to be a mental blockage somewhere. I think the difficulty lies in photoshop, digitally laying out my print is becoming virtually impossible, I think I'm going to go old skool and do it all on the photocopier today because I've had enough of technology.

I also need wallpaper. I will maybe obtain that this evening.

Weekend.

This weekend has been immense. Trevor made it a calculated 143 miles, which is an incredible achievment, considering that 25% hill we hit by surprise, not only did he achieve those things, but he overtook 2 whole cars on the ride home along the dual carriageway...good stuff.
I've touched many an animal this weekend and eaten many a non-nutritious item, but all in the name of a day off work, so it was well worth it.

I've also decided that I want it to be the summer holidays now. Right now. I don't want to go back to Manchester, I want to stay in York for the time being because it's nicer here.

This is probably my favourite of the pictures I took this weekend.

Mood: Accomplished.

I've just finished making LauraKirk's boxset of musical goodness and I must say, I'm more proud of this than I am of any of my work I've done this year, so much so that I want to keep it for myself, it's beautiful.

If LauraKirk reads this, I must banish her from returning to this page until she receives the package because there are pictures soon to go up documenting the spectacle that is this parcel. I've got to go and buy a box to put it in for postage purposes because I'm fearing a jify bag will lead to the destruction of a work of art.

Pictures soon.

I just remembered...

How good is this cat?! I took this picture in Waterstones a few weeks ago because I think it's the same cat that didn't exist but actually did exist but nobody would believe me when I said it did. I think it is. It's actually pretty terrifying, I can't decide if I'm more scared of it's whiskers or it's eyes or just it's general aura.

Jimmy Eat World...

..Are one of the most beautiful bands to ever grace the planet. FACT!

Recently I've been listening to them a lot, I've had lots of their music for a long, long time but haven't listened to it for a few years and then over the past 3 weeks it has found it's way to my ears.

There's something about the music that makes me feel like my heart is actually on fire and that I can do anything. It's inspiring, energising and somewhat hypnotising. There's also the songs that I can relate to, the ones that mean different things for everyone, but when a room full of people hear them, they all feel something and hold thousands of tiny connective currents.

I don't know my exact reason for writing this about the band, but I guess it's because right now, listening to them, I feel like I could run to America, without stopping, they're like a fuel. A very beautiful, heart-combusting fuel.

A day of produce.

Today wood was bought for shelves. Three small shelves were built. By Sunday I should have 7 or 8 shelves up in my room and it will officially be finished. Nice nice nice.

My super productive day did not only consist of shelves. I rectified the big mess I'd made of my project. It took me all afternoon and cost me £5 in coloured card but it looks very pleasing, I'm impressed with it. I now just have to add the text and then that picture is complete. Then there's a sketchbook to be made and 4 more drawings to do but we don't talk about those.

My left hand feels mildly arthritic from holding a pen very tightly for the most part of the past 2 days.

Speaking of bodily concerns, I'm also concerned about the peeling of my trucker tan. My entire right arm seems to be wilting, it's horrendous. Maybe I'll get some moisturising stuff. Or a loofah.

Summer project.

My Summer project just went very wrong. It was going so very well. I spent 5 hours drawing the sea onto the paper with a biro and my hand currently feels crippled. However, tiredness got the better of me and I attempted to add the tennis ball into the image using biro and it is now very horrible.

Tomorrow I intend to go the paper shop and buy lots of paper and collage the bits where I've gone wrong. I hope it works.

Tomorrow is also the day that, in theory shelving might finally happen. It most probably won't. By the end of the weekend were the words offered to me today. Nice words.

Today I got a chair. So I can sit at my desk. A manager's chair. This title makes me want pie charts and a pointing stick. Unfortunately I have neither. But I DO have my documents box, which is a surefire sign that I'm due to receive a pie-chart pretty soon, I'd say.

I has a room.

YEAH! I finally have my own bedroom. And it's almost completed. The paint is very much on the walls and also very much green, almost like sitting in a plant. By chance, my bed is just the right height to sit underneath, so despite my room being the smallest room ever, it's also the coolest because I can hide under my bed! It also has an airvent which can be used as a fridge!

Today I acquired weird stuff.

I went to Travelling Man today and bought more stuff. While I was walking about the place gathering up things to buy while arguing with myself.."...if Tin was here, he would not allow you to spend this much.." but alas, Tin is unfortunately no longer with me so I spent an ungodly amount on books and comics and a keyring.

Among my items was a comic I plucked from the back issues box for 50p. I thought the cover looked nice and so I bought it. It was David Lapham's "Young Liars", issue 2, "Suicide Dreams".

It turns out it was weird.

When I got home and read it, it kind of made sense. Until the last few pages struck and I read them over and over but it made no sense. Why were they dead? Who killed them?
I was also unsuitably disturbed by the subtext. WHAT IS THAT?! WHY?!

Everyone should go read this comic. It's WEIRD!




Today's dose of Weird.

Yoghurt: Moist or Wet?

In a bizarre turn of events it would seem I am heading off to London tomorrow. Or at least it did a few hours ago, now it seems I have received no further information on this trip so....maybe I'm not?

Now for an argument and explanation. I was watching Loose Women today. That in itself is a fine thing to say. Normally if I watch this I quite enjoy it, it's a group of middle aged women ranting about life, it's somewhat entertaining.

However, today, they went too far. Basically they said that the youth of today who spend hours on the internet "doing social networking" have no social life and are unable to talk to real people because the people they speak to online are "faceless." My "I disagree" face came out of hiding and remained upon my head for the next 15 minutes as they went on and on about how socially void teenagers today are, in a more polite way of saying it.

I very much disagree with this and come Thursday there may be a letter on it's way to the Loose Women explaining the why I disagree with it. But probably not. Confrontation SUCKS!

But for now, a problem that came to me as I ate a yoghurt earlier. Whilst swallowing I noticed that although the yoghurt was wet, it left my mouth feeling quite dry. This is not what troubled me. The trouble came in the form of is yoghurt really wet? Or is it just moist? Or just cold? It's definitely not wet, you don't get the same feeling when you spill yoghurt on you that you get when you spill water. So what is it? More to the point is it solid or liquid? If it has lumps of fruit in, they are a solid and thus the yoghurt cannot be described as solid as compared to the lumps, it really isn't.

To end: What is a yoghurt?

The Moon is Down.

Last night I saw the best thing ever. As myself and Nawor were driving home, we looked out of the car window and saw the moon. It was exactly as it is in a child's mind. Huge, yellow, smiling and mesmerising. It was possibly the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. It wasn't full, it was a crescent, leaning back as though it was resting, poking out from around a cloud. I'm quite certain it had a nose and eyes as well.

The thing that struck me about the moon was the size of it. It was huge, incredibly low in the sky and glowing like a glow in the dark yoyo. As well as being quite awestruck by the moon, I was also quite scared. It was so big and seemed slightly threatening in the way it was hanging over us, but then the fear melted away when I reminded myself that the moon is actually a very friendly celestial body.

In conclusion, the past month has been quite full of fear but now all the fear is outweighed by my love of the moon and my need to visit it, I hope I can before I die.