Why I absolutely must get back to doodling soon, dammit:

I don't know if you've noticed, but it's back-to-school time. Back-to-school time leads to back-to-school ads. Actually, it's sort of the other way around seeing that retail back-to-school season seems to start in June nowadays. Anyway, work with me here. Back-to-school ads give me an urge so strong that I very nearly have to stab myself repeatedly in the hand with a fork to keep myself form indulging in it.

Yes, it's really that bad.

Must. Have. Stationery.

Any of my two fans who've been around this place for a while already know this about me, but I love stationery. I really don't know why, but I get a kick out of it. I was one of those kids who absolutely loved shopping for new school supplies (except scissors, but that's the whole left-handed thing coming up again), and Whomever help my parents if they ever suggested that some of last year's items might still be usable. After all, one of the best parts about going back to school was new pens, binders, sharpeners... yeah, I bet I was a thrill to the pocketbook this time of year.

Things calmed down a fair bit when I went to university and actually had to budget, but I still looked forward to treating myself to one or two new things every term. And plenty of browsing, even if I wasn't going to buy. I don't know what it is about a stationery store, but whatever the it happens to be it makes me happy.

As a working adult, however, it's pretty hard to justify a stationery splurge just because it's back-to-school time. There are only so many pens that a one-room apartment needs, and most of the stuff I use at work is supplied by work. So what does a person do when the fork-stabbing urge hits every fall?

Go to the art store, of course.

Art supplies are definitely my adult stationery. That's been the fact for years. I don't buy much because it's far more expensive than buying loose-leaf, but just the purchase of a new something to play with gives me the ahhh factor.

I don't think that I can justify it this year, sadly.

All this mucking about with the screwed-up wrist (geez, there are a lot of hyphens in this post) has meant that I just plain haven't been drawing. I've been splotching around in the mess mixed media journal, true, but since none of that is likely to ever see the light of day it seems to be a pretty flimsy excuse to buy more stuff. Oh yeah, I could use a proper purple Inktense pencil rather than the magenta I've been faking things with and I'm almost out of my cheaper watercolour paper, but if I go to a proper art store with only that in mind I'll still end up being attracted to something new and novel and just spend more.

Yeah, I know that it doesn't make sense. It's the way my stationery brain works, though.

So... I need to draw. I need to draw for me, and frankly I need to do some work drawing too. I'm so short on art at the moment that I had to resort to putting this picture through the photoeditor's fake pencil sketch filter just to have something vaguely artsy for the blather.

I... erm... wasn't in the mood for a completely pointless photo today.



What do you think, then? Is it totally weird that I'm using back-to-school stationery longing to give myself a kick in the hindquarters to get back to something that I already like doing?

It probably is, a bit.

But if it works, does anyone really care?

Should I stop asking pointless questions and go find some lunch?