In all seriousness...

What the fuck is Gary Lucy doing with his hair? Is he just at that awkward 'growing it out' stage? I hate that stage almost as much as I hate Gary Lucy!


There is no reason for a man with that hairstyle to look so smug.



Yet smug he is. It genuinely bothers me!

Having said that, this is no better:


Poor lamb can't really win. I'll want to punch him in the throat whatever his hair looks like.

What with this and spending an inordinate amount of energy getting annoyed with how much of a dick Charlie in Party of Five is (CBS Drama, Saturday's 6pm) I've barely got enough time to listen to Savage Garden and cross stitch!

I want to be part of that family. Or at least meet them.

Twister

I've sort of decided I need to chill the fuck out a bit. Which may sound utterly incomprehensible to your ears because of how, you know, all those people come up to me all the time just to comment 'Gurl, you is so chill!' (no they don't): so you're all 'Sazz? Chill out? Wha!?' (No, you're not). But, you know, even the chillingest of us need to take extra time to chill occasionally (no. You don't).

It's just, I've put all this pressure on myself to be happy and good and do stuff. Like make badges of dogs out of beads and wire (October craft project: check) without really considering about whether or not I enjoyed doing it at the time (in fact, the whole time I was thinking 'I must get this completed just so I can check off October craft project'). Just completing a task to tick the box rather than living for the moment and doing something I want to do because I want to do it. As a result I have not been feeling very present in the present. I'm living for the future version of my self that doesn't yet exist (and probs never will) rather than worrying about whether the me right now is having a good time.

It's such a difficult balance to strike though because eventually you MIGHT end up doing nothing as there is the distinct possibility that the natural impulse to create (whatever it might be: opera, novel, dog badge) never strikes so you end up stagnant and sitting and watching RuPauls Drag Race just to fill the slow hours before reaching your inevitable death. BUT! PARADOX! I've ended up doing that anyway because I've put so much pressure on myself to fill my time and be productive that it's caused me to flap my arms really really fast - rather than do whatever I was meant to do according to the list system - and fall into a deep dark hole of depression whenever I get to Wednesday (or whatever) and am still a week or so behind on everything I wanted to have got done. I thought by forcing myself to do all this weird shit I was giving myself what I needed but I think, on reflection, all I've done is set myself up to fail. I'm loathe to completely disband the list system though as it gives me a sense of structure and purpose that I find lacking within my being in the normal order of things. It's a quandary for sure: How do I keep one eye on the future, one eye on the past, and keep my feet in the present? It's like my soul is playing metaphorical Twister and is just as bad at it as my body is at the physical Twister.

Anyway, here's the dog badge that's caused this week's existential crisis. Look at him sparkle, look at him shine.

He does, at least, have a nice smile.

Unicorn-by-numbers

Someone bought me a paint-by-numbers unicorn to do as a 'joke' (that loosely translates as 'they knew I'd like it but we have to pretend it's ironic to keep up appearances of being hip*')

It took me 2 full days (roughly 7 hours or so on each of those days. Got through one and a half seasons of The OC at any rate. You will be pleased to know Sandy Cohen is still my fantasy tv husband). That is more time than I've spent on the last 3 paintings I did that were not paint by numbers. F'instance Ethel Merman portrait here took about 3 hours tops. (I know this as I started and completed whilst listening to Jon Richardson's 3 hour 6music show. Just a little fun fact for 'Sazz downtime' fans):

Anyway, totally worth it. I'm actually completely in love with this and it was very relaxing to have something to just follow and not have to think for myself. I guess that means I now understand better the ugg boot trend that threatened never to die. Thinking is hard.



*I'm bringing 'hip' back.

BTDubs

I'm totally into cross stitch now. Check this shit out:

HOLLA!

Next stop: Zac Efron's face (the logical progression in cross stitch goes; unicorn, geese in a field, Zac Efron's face. It's like, one of the first things they teach you in Cross Stitch 101 at the Cross Stitch Academy*. The very first thing they teach you is how kickass cross stitch is but that's covered in Basic Science 101 at the Duh Institute for Shit Yeah It Is which is a course that must be taken before one can do anything at all in life including breathing.)

*Y'all know how involved learning these craft projects can be.

Life achievements

I cross stitched the shit out of that unicorn.

Questions with no answers

I need to take a second here to ask a very serious, very important question and one that I seriously, seriously, need an answer to:

Scrapbooking:
what.
the.
fuck?

Honestly. I need a thorough and coherent explanation of firstly - what is it, and secondly - why the fuck would you do that?

Because here's what I know: people (and by 'people' I mean 'females') get together a load of pictures and whatnot and stick them in books in a jaunty fashion and use gel pens and jazzy bits of card to make it look nice and then there's classes? And the classes are like beginner, intermediate, and advanced? For scrapbooking? There's a gradiated level of skill for using a pritt stick? Really? (As you are reading this I would like you to imagine my voice getting an octave higher with every passing question mark - all of which are necessary because really? WHAT IS THIS?)

But, ok, fine I can see how some people might like to get together once in a while and pritt stick shit to other shit. I fucking love pritt sticking shit to other shit. I always have a pritt stick on me for any pritt sticking emergencies*, that's how much I love pritt sticking shit but this is more than just a love of pritt sticking shit when there's differentiated levels of skill attainable (beginner, intermediate, advance - WHAT DOES ADVANCED INVOLVE?!): this is way popular and no-one but the scrapbookers know about it. Basically, as far as I can tell it's like fight club for girls but instead of punching each other in the face they stick photos to glittery bits of card and then stick that into a fancy looking book of some kind.

I'm not sure how far down the rabbit hole I want to go cos, the more I learn about it, the more fascinated I am that this is a way people choose to spend their free time (there are surely more productive past times; watching downloaded american tv programs, cross stitching pictures of unicorns**, knitting rectangles, weaving, to name just a few) and I know that's one step away from me Hunter S Thompson-ing it and joining a class to see if that sheds any more light on the situation but, before you know it, I'll be scrapbooking about my scrapbooking classes and finding pictures of me laughing and joking with all my scrapbooking buddies whilst we scrapbook. I think? I don't know, is that what they do? I DON'T KNOW?

I think it hits me so hard because of the aforementioned love of pritt sticking. I guess I can see in some sort of 'Spock creating a black hole-slash-parallel universe' kind of way that that could be me. You start off getting a quiet thrill out of pritt sticking and before you know it you're on to the hard stuff; buying cardboard frames with owls on them or heading for the glitter section in WH Smiths, before long you're running an advanced class in scrapbooking and getting other people hooked. These guys know what I'm talking about. There's also an element of me not liking things I don't understand (which I take to be the racist gene all white middle-class people have (a.k.a 'The Daily Mail' gene) but I've channeled my genetic destiny into frothing over this and not immigration laws (which I couldn't give a toss about quite frankly - burn me down if you must Daily Mail)).

Anyway, yeah, ladies and gentlemen, witness my mind thoughts whilst at work - be aware: this is your tax dollarpounds in action.

*This is actually true.
** This is also actually true:

The grey shading is what I have managed to complete so far but you can't see that cos it' white cotten, just trust me on this: it's fucking AWESOME. (In the way that only a cross stitch unicorn can be. Which is very).