Driving past a new subdivision in Lehi today, I saw a billboard with a short list of people with money problems who could be helped, presumably, by this developer and his generous lenders.

Bad Credit O.K.
Me: hey, that’s nice of them.

Bankruptcy O.K.
Me: Wow… that’s REALLY nice. And maybe fiscally irresponsible.

Self-Employed O.K.
Me: Hang on… *I* am self-employed. How is that possibly worse than BANKRUPTCY!?!?

And now, every time I drive past that billboard, I realize that I’m being subtly insulted. Rest assured, even if I were in the market for a new home, I’d not be considering one in that development. It’s going to be full of bad-credit, bankrupt, self-employed low-lifes.

–Howard

I got this note yesterday in a Paypal donation:

Your Schlock helped keep me sane through my long stay at the South Pole Station. Thanx.

I emailed the donor back to ask, in essence, “are you serious?” I got this reply this morning.

Yup, a year and a day at Amunsun-Scott South Pole Station. Most of time there were no flights in or out. But for a little bit each day we had a satellite connection for web and phone access. Kinda nice to have something to look forward to each day on the web.

So, add an extra continent to the tally of where Schlock is read. Keep up the great work. And stay cool.

He tells ME to stay cool!? This guy was reading my comic IN ANTARCTICA. Incidentally, according to the survey, that puts Schlock readers on all seven continents.

–Howard

I got that nap I wasn’t told I couldn’t have. I was out for 2 hours and 15 minutes, and awoke with a seriously fuzzy ability to discern between “real” and “imagined.” That’s how you can tell a nap was a really good one — when your brain has to bootstrap at wake-up time, because everything it had cached, paused, or suspended is suddenly suspect.

You know how, on older, slower machines with too many utilities installed, Windows LOOKS like it’s loaded, but the apps you want to run still have to wait for other stuff to load? That’s how my brain is right now. There are still things loading into headspace as I’m trying to write, and the cranial tools I need for parsing words (and coming up with things like “headspace” and “cranial”) are starved for processing cycles.

I figure that if I wait long enough my head will be clear, but about that time the screensaver will probably kick in and

Wednesday night the training supervisor at the temple (where I serve one night a week as an ordinance worker) reminded me that a) this Sunday was the training film, b) everybody needs to see it about once every six months, and c) the new guys like me need to see it at their earliest convenience.

“Earliest convenience” is a funny misnomer. Training Sessions run at 7am, 9am, and 11am, but my congregation meets from 9am until noon. Thus, if I wanted to attend Sacrament meeting with my family, I needed to be at the temple, dressed out, at 7am. That pretty much dictates a 5:45am wake-up call.

The life of a full-time cartoonist has lots of “sleeping in” in it, especially lately. You might as well ask me to wake up on the moon.

Last night I couldn’t sleep. It was 1am before my lids grew heavy enough that the idea-hamster in my brain could quit running in circles and finally get off his wheel.

So… in my prayers before getting BACK into bed I said (and I paraphrase) “Lord, I’m not setting my alarm. If you want me at this training meeting tomorrow, you’ll need to pop me awake in time. If you DO, I promise I’ll go. But I have to be AWAKE, not this foggy ‘almost awake’ from which I can later remember looking at the clock, but from which I’m all but powerless to arise.”

Fellow-saints reading this know that this kind of “bargaining with the Lord” prayer is risky.

I realized as I uttered it that what I really WANTED was to sleep until 8am undisturbed, and that it would be WONDERFUL if I could do that with the peace of mind that comes with believing that it was okay to do. I also realized, with the certainty that comes from the still, small voice that occasionally answers prayers, that sleeping in was NOT going to happen.

5:30am, I popped awake, and the first thought into my mind was a quote for which I can’t find the reference: “The Sabbath day is a day for doing My Will, not thine own.”

So… I’m up, I’m dressed, and I’ve got time to spare to write about it.

I’m also pleased that the Lord hasn’t said anything like “No, Howard, You May Not Have A Nap After Church,” because I know I’m going to need one.

See? I told you I’m a religious nutcase.

–Howard