Thinking of You

Welcome, Jazz Pickles. Thanks for the visit.

Have you ever wanted to be able to read people’s minds? I’m sure it could be super handy at times, like when you’re buying a used car, but I suspect it would mostly be a depressing burden. Surely numerous stories and scripts have been written about this concept, but—as you clairvoyant readers already know—I can’t think of any at the moment. 

While mind-reading could be handy at a singles bar, it would make long-term romantic relationships nearly impossible. There’s no way to spend years under the same roof with another human being without occasionally thinking something murderous, or at least insulting, about them. I’ve no doubt that if I could read my wife’s mind, my self-esteem would suffer. (I’d probably also have a more accurate self-image, but who wants that?)

That’s not to imply that Olive Oyl and I have a bad marriage; far from it. In fact, up to this point, it’s been by far my favorite marriage. Sure, we occasionally get on each other’s nerves, but she mostly thinks she’s incredibly fortunate to have landed such an awesome stud as me. At least, that’s my non-clairvoyant impression. If you’ve heard differently, keep it to yourself.

If you’re on my Peyote Cowboy mailing list, a few days ago, you received an email saying I am pausing donations on my Patreon page and taking a break from illustrating my graphic novel. Patreon is a site where people can donate money to creators of all sorts to support their projects, and a handful of generous PeyCow fans send me a few bucks each month through that site. (It’s similar but different from the donations some of you make to my Bizarro tip jar.)  

PeyCow is free to read as I illustrate it and post new episodes, but I’ve asked for donations to help pay for my time along the way. 

More to the point, I made two mistakes in sending that email. The first was that I worded it in such a way that it sounded like I was taking a break because I was having personal problems. That’s not really true. I just barfed out some words and hit “send” without thinking too hard about it, and many readers were worried about me. No need. I’ve just been working on that story too hard for too long, and need some time off, and I wanted to let donors know they won’t be charged while I’m doing that.

The second mistake I made was that I meant to send it only to people who are donating, not to everyone who has signed up to receive notifications when I post a new episode. That’s fairly inconsequential, but it was another result of my hurrying through the process. 

My wife probably thinks I’m an idiot for not taking my time and thinking it through, and she’d be right, but she loves me too much to tell me that. And, since I’m not clairvoyant, I’ll never know. Thanks, sweetie!