Time and time again

This post is to get my thoughts together.  I have so many things I need to do in a week, and it often feels overwhelming. Every once in a while, I just drop down and look at everything and try to organize it, knowing most of it won’t get done, but prioritizing the important things.

My name is Jo, god of thunder, and I am a creator that has no audience.  Let’s talk about the things I have to do.

My first priority is my partner, Anthony.  He has Multiple Sclerosis and is unable to walk. He can talk and move a little but can’t prepare his own food, feed himself, or even change his clothes.  He is 100% dependent on me to have a decent day.

I don’t’ mind taking care of him. I don’t mind staying home and being there for him. Sometimes his mind wanders and so can he. He doesn’t walk much but he has a power chair, and it goes fast. I have had to chase him down once or twice. I love him so very much, and I will never regret or be angry at taking care of him, but it does take a lot of time. If you have ever met him you will understand why he deserves such devotion. He’s a firebrand, snarky, sassy, person who has NEVER let MS get the better of him.

Any given day I work two hours in the morning, two in the afternoon, and two in the evening.  Taking care of him requires meal prep, baths, physical and cognitive therapy, and I try to keep the house clean. If I add in appointments for doctors, therapists, and special medical procedures, phone time for medical billing, insurance, and follow ups I can quickly run out of time to do things, but it’s not just time.  I feel exhausted from it all.  One time I was on a two day 16 hour call with anthem, that resolved nothing.

The next pillar of my existence is ICHRONstudio.  It started off in 2005 when I made a poster for nightclub that then got me some gigs building websites.  Now, fifteen plus years later, it’s a semi decent micro business that employs four people.  I’m very proud of it.

ICHRON builds websites for small businesses.  I don’t personally build them but I’m the guy that coordinates the people that do.  It takes about two to three hours a day, and I usually don’t do much on the weekends for it.  There are some days when I watch it burn because I can’t get to it.  There are issues that come up that I know I can fix, but I’m just too damn tired, or mentally drained to do them.  Eventually, I or one of the team will get it moving, but I feel the whole thing would be more profitable if I could just focus more.

My main job at ICHRON is to consult for SEO, I have three serious meetings a month, and those provide the majority of my extra income.  It’s the easiest part, and I don’t have anything to complain about on that front.

I am an artist.  I draw, paint, and can even sculpt a little.  I have written some books, but nothing that ever got picked up by a publisher. I have mostly self-published, but I’m good. I am afraid to get a gig because if something happened with Anthony or ICHRON, I would hate myself for having to pick one over the other.  The idea of throwing away a comic book job is horrible, but I would never choose work over a loved one.

I am a social butterfly.  I need to have people around me or I go crazy. That’s not to say I need someone around 24/7, I have that with Anthony, but I need input, opinions, debate. I get all this and some creative expression from role-playing. I have been playing these tabletop games since 1981, met hundreds of people, ran thousands of scenarios, and gotten very good at storytelling because of it.

I have a dog, and too often she is the least of my worries. She’s emotionally high maintenance, but in practical terms she takes up very little of my bandwidth.  I have family, that oddly I think about slightly less than the dog, but it’s not because I don’t love them.  I have a decent relationship with my mom, I call my grandmother, my sisters, brothers, and I occasionally talk to my father, though that feels strained at times. The point being that they are in my life and occasionally take up some of my time, but mainly around the holidays.

The only exception to that is Seth my nephew, who I do talk to often, but it’s just text and mainly about video games. I love video games, can’t play them often for obvious reasons.

Here we are, the things that are in my life.  They are the same things that we all have, just I feel like most people spread the events out a little better.  Let’s take a look at what I want to get to this month.

Anthony: prince of powerchair.

I recently hurt my back, and have been trying to coordinate rides for Anthony. It required a few calls and some paperwork: I still haven’t mailed the Sac RT paperwork.  He also had a poop test. Did you know you can do that at home and then mail the sample to the lab?  Poop sample still needs to be mailed.

I need to get his Medi-Cal card.  I have no idea how to do that. I thought I did it a few years ago, but I did not. I think I got about halfway through but have zero memory of it. I basically have to start over.

Toothy grin.

He needs to get some dental work done.  He has no cavities, but there is crowding and some gum problems. I need to have his medical insurance, and Medi-Cal stuff coordinated with a local dentist, then get a n appointment, set up transportation and make sure I’m available for all this.

Something nice.

I would just like to do something nice for him. Lunch or dinner somewhere. This will get dropped to the bottom of the list.

Jo; god of thunder

I have surgery on Monday. I have a cataract and will be replacing a lens in my eye.  I’ll be down for the day, and on light duty for the week. This mostly means Anthony is stuck in bed for a few days.  I pulled a muscle in my back, from a bad transfer with him, and that’s been making things much more difficult.

I want to work out more, eat less, and just be pretty.  I have been working at getting up at six to have time to work out.  I can’t do much with my back for a week or two, and that matches up with the surgery, so at least the timing is convenient.

 

ICHRONstudio

Right before Covid I had put a huge amount of energy into developing protocols and procedures for ICHRONstudio.  This would have been documentation that allowed the business to run without constant direct supervision.  Task lists, priorities, and workflows.  Then Covid happened and it all changed.  Two years later these protocols are mostly accurate but require just a little modification and to be posted on the website for the employees to read.  This I estimate will be about ten to fifteen hours of work.

I also need to set up our product list, and match it to a workflow, and DocuSign agreement.  I suspect this will take about four or five hours.

Lastly, I need to do some light marketing and put a package together for the sales team.  This is easy to do but requires the protocols and all of the above are figured out first.

There’s some tax stuff, EID loan stuff, and general planning that has to be taken care of and those aren’t about time but energy.  I need to “adult” these things and I don’t have much “adult” left in me at the end of the day.

 

Academy of Art

Oh boy. I have several projects that need to be finished.   The first is a poster I am going to kickstart called The American Mythic series, the next is another Kickstarter comic called Vatican Assassins.  The poster needs about 15 hours or less, and the same for the comic.

On my website, I need about 20 panels of black and white art for Crybaby Queer.

Lastly, on the artistic front is “Horror from the Deep”, and online choose your own adventure novel.  This is the largest of the projects.

Jo Trek the next generation

The one thing I do make time for is my Saturday Roleplaying game. Five people come to my house for six to seven hours to eat shitty food and pretend to be Starfleet officers traveling the galaxy, looking for adventure and mysteries.  I can totally wing it but I like to have time to preps something. I need about three or four hours of prep time and I need to get to staples to print some stuff up. This will often be the last thing I do, but usually is the most satisfying even if it’s half-ass.

Well, that’s the stuff; here’s a bullet point version;

1. Get Medi-Cal Number
2. Get Prescriptions at Walmart
3. Find a Dentist that takes insurance
4. Call transportation for MRI on 5-20
5. Confirm transportation for MSA on weds
6. Double Check appointments with Tcore
7. Take Anthony to Dinner
8. Break down and post ICHRON jobs
9. Create workflows
10. Create or modify docusign
11. Create marketing for quarterly
12. Match up 299togetonline with current documents
13. Get eye jabbed and replaced
14. Get to the chiropractor
15. Call Aves to help clean the truck
16. Schedule dental appointments and transportation
17. Confirm EID Loan schedule
18. Finish Sadie Romp the Psychopomp poster
19. Find an artist to finish CBQ
20. Write out the 10 pages of Vatican Assasins