Tomago House #2: My dog destroyed my planner.

My dog, Leo, well...he destroys a lot of things. Off the top of my head, he's eaten and spat out two Apple Pencils, two Wacom styluses, five TV remote controls, at least half a dozen socks, several toques, medicine, the nubs off my Xbox controller, several dinners that we left cooling on the kitchen counter, medicine, and most frightening of all, the handle of a large butcher knife.

This is a growing list.

But I've never felt such panic and despair and fury over his crimes as I did when I came home from boxing class and found my beloved Leuchtturm planner shredded and flung about the four corners of our home.  

Leo was immediately sorry and tried offering his paw contritely, and normally it would have worked. I would have pat his head and just asked him to put away the butcher knife when he was done playing with it. I often reason away his criminal behaviour because we got him for free and I figure a free golden retriever puppy probably comes with a certain amount of credit with which he could use to trash our house.  

But the loss of my planner sent me into a pit of despair from which I've still yet to recover.

The Chaos of Freelance Life.

To be a professional freelance comic writer/artist is to wake up every morning knowing that you will face madness and certain danger. This can take on many forms: sometimes you'll get an e-mail from your editor asking why you drew butts on the front of all your characters for some reason and would it be possible to redraw all the butts on their backside instead. Other times, you'll look out the window and realize that autumn has given way to winter and you'll wonder if yet another season will pass before money enters your bank account once more.

The shield which I use to keep the chaos at bay is my trusty green Leuchtturm1917 agenda. I've been experimenting with various agendas over the last year and none of them felt quite right. I've tried daily planners, weekly planners, and monthly planners but I just wasn't passionate about any of them until I found my dearly departed Leuchtturm1917 planner.  

It had just the right amount of complexity I needed to stay organized, and it was the perfect size for me to carry with me everywhere. It had little dots on it that I would lovingly draw squares with and as my pen filled in that square with a checkmark when a task was completed, the texture of the paper gave me the perfect resistance to let me know I did something worthwhile.

I have... five... or perhaps six... ongoing projects in various stages of progress. I can no longer recall how many because my dog, Leo, destroyed my planner.

In any case, whatever amount of projects I have going on right now is probably two (or three) more than my brain can handle. But with my planner, I could break this mountain range of insurmountable tasks into small manageable tasks, each with their own due dates and action items. If I just followed my planner meticulously, then maybe... just maybe I would have a chance of getting out of this alive.

But now... its gone.... all gone. Like tears in the rain.

Picking up the pieces of my shattered life.

You can only wallow in misery and despair for so long. I've since ordered another identical planner straight from the Leuchtturm website. Thankfully they still had a few left, but it will take a week for it to arrive.

I will live this next week like a man in free fall, counting the days until the replacement of my fallen agenda arrives safely in my hands. Then I must sort through the corpse of my deceased planner and meticulously transfer all the information over to the new one.  

I now understand the haunted look in Mon Mothma's eyes when she relayed the terrible cost it took to acquire the plans to the Death Star.

But the night is always darkest before the dawn and tomorrow is another day.

Because you see, tomorrow I'm taking Leo in to be neutered.

Have a great week everyone.

Tri