Reset

 Of the variant hobbies I've cycled through over the years, gaming is the oldest and most constant of them all. I've been gaming since...well, since I was pretty young. Nearly 30 years if I can make an estimate. I don't remember exactly when my father bought it, but we had a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) for some time. That was my portal into the world of video games. The system came packaged with a single cartridge, which was Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt. I don't remember what childlike awe I had for games, but I'm sure I was to some level blown away. Here was something I could see on my TV, but I could control it. I made Mario walk (or run) across the level. I made him jump. I made him swim. I made him smash goombas and koopas. I made him shoot freaking fire. What is cooler than that?

Later on my dad bought more games for the system. Batman, based on the 1989 blockbuster superhero movie of the same name, was really cool. At the time I was really getting into Batman, mostly because of the movie. In Batman I could play as the Dark Knight himself. I had the ability to punch enemies into dust. I could jump between walls. And of course, there were three different Bat-gadgets at my disposal. I watched my dad play it a lot because he was way better than me at the time. I feel like I kinda learned how to navigate and play an old NES game because I watched him do it. He died a lot, and watching as a kid, you learn a lot. 

As time went on, more systems came out with better graphics. I had the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), I had the GameBoy, I had the Nintendo 64. Later I moved away from just Nintendo and played Playstation and Xbox. The systems may have changed but my love for games remained the same. 

As I grew older, I wasn't sure if I continued to play video games because it was a nostalgic, comfort thing. Yes, that is certainly part of it. Is it that I could be Batman, or Superman, or Mario, or Sonic, or James Bond or that I could fight dragons, command armies, swing swords, shoot guns, drive fast cars, fly a ship, or save the world? Well, yes, that was part of it, too. Video games are immersive. Unlike books and other art mediums, I had the control. I controlled how the hero won, how the story played out. Games allowed me to sink into the world and escape for...many, many hours. And my "hard work" always paid off. The world was saved. The people were happy. I was thanked for doing the task laid out in the game. I was appreciated and recognized. 

The most overlooked, underrated feature to video games, however, is the "Reset" button. Stuck? Reset. Things not going your way? Reset. Need to change the game from "Medium" or "Hard" to "Easy"? Reset. On older consoles, there was an actual reset button. At any point, you could hit that bad boy. Didn't need to pause and navigate a menu, you could just hit "reset" and in seconds you were back at the title screen and you could start things fresh. 

I bring all this up because, probably like most anyone else, I wish life had a reset button. Reset and change the difficulty level. Reset and start over at your last save right before that boss battle. Reset and change the stats and attributes of your character. Reset just to play the easy first levels of the game just before it became unforgivingly difficult. It's been said, "Be careful what you wish for", but I almost wish I could hit reset on this year. Hit reset because, although it's been grueling and taxing on numerous levels, I still believe there were so many opportunities for me personally to be better. I did not take that time or effort in hindsight. I may have "learned" some things, but I didn't benefit myself or anyone else. This year could have been more of a victory than it has been.

So, what do we do? Try to do better. Try to apply what we've learned, which, as I grow up and grow older, have only realized I do a very poor job of applying. I also do a very poor job of remembering. This gets me into trouble, and then I wind up on a site like this and ramble for a few paragraphs about video games and how reset buttons are great but also metaphorical. 

2021 is in 3 weeks, and that'll be as close as I'll get to a reset button. Hopefully I can start applying and remembering, because I certainly can't reset and change my character at this point. 

A Pep Talk for Young Artists

 Years ago I used to make "books" several of which I made when I was still in kindergarten, sometime in May of 1993, at least that's when my father dated the published products. They include such classics as "The Man Going Fishing", "The Kick the Man In the Water", "The Aliens Shoot", "The Boy Gone to the Moon" and my personal favorite, "Throw the Pizza". All of them are only a few pages in length with no text other than the title, just crude stick figures drawn with markers. "Throw the Pizza" opens on a scene of two young boys sitting at a pink table with five legs. The boy to the right end of the table holds what appears to be an entire pizza in his right hand. The next page, we see that the pizza has been released and soars across the pink table towards the other boy. On the following page, the pizza has completed its journey across the table and an explosion of red marinara sauce covers the opposing boy's face. The fourth and final page depicts a mother wiping the boy's face off with a smile on her face. Simple, and brilliant. The other little books have roughly the same amount of plot, and unfortunately the titles of the others kind of give away most the story, the exception being "The Man Going Fishing" which opens with a man on a chair fishing by a pond and ends (Spoiler alert) with a large fish jumping out and swallowing the man, only to splash right back into the pond. 

Among these little books, which are kept in a manila envelope, are also some old drawings of things I was into at the time, all of which were dated by my dad with the month and year. I have also a short story I wrote dated October of 1993 (I was in first grade at that point). I'll copy that short story for you here now, complete with grammatical and spelling errors. 

one night a little boy wnt to a graveyard. a ghost popped up and scared him. the little boy ran away and jack-o-lanterns popped up while he ran. he fell down and he got up and ran some more. he looks back and he sees the ghost behind him. boo, says the ghost. the little boy ran to his house an he went under his bed. he never heard from the ghosts again. the end. 

Chilling. Now, aside from my vignette  "slice of life" work I had accomplished only five months earlier, I think this was my first short story. I typed it up on my mom's old electric typewriter. I recall my mother sitting right beside me and, given that I was only six, I had to ask her how to spell pretty much every word. I will say, it's not my best work. Little to no character development, unless we think that maybe the boy went out there on a dare or just happened to be into the occult. There's some suspense in the middle. Not sure on the resolution, but maybe the ghosts just wanted to scare him enough to run back home and leave their graves in peace. Difficult to say. 

I bring all this up because, looking back on these creations as well as all the drawings and comics and stories I made in the following years, I realized I had no fear of being imaginative. I had no fear of sitting down and making something. I just did it. I did it because it was fun. Sure it passed the time, but it wasn't work, it was something pleasant. Now I try to think of something, and I can't. I can't because I just don't have the tenacity to just sit down and CREATE something. I corner myself by thinking, "That sounds like this", "That's too simple", "No one would be interested in that."

College did a lot of great things. I learned how to workshop as a writer and receive honest feedback as well as give it. I read a lot, and I read a lot of things I probably would never read on my own, or think to read. I learned different styles of writing, such as fiction, poetry, playwriting and screenwriting. My worldview and cultural awareness grew. But, I think it stymied my imaginative vision. This could also speak to my character, that I didn't exactly accept critiquing well and thus questioned if I would ever have the ability to produce something of worth. That's what I'm trying to overcome right here, right now in front of you. I look back at this blog and, man, there's a lot of nothing. It is not really good. At all. I seriously don't know what my goal was other than just writing consistently online. But God Bless 23 - 31 year old Mike. He still tried. 

One quote I'm pretty sure I've seen before in my life but it had a stronger impact on me recently is "Give yourself permission to write crap". I've done that from time to time, but not consistently. My goal now is to commit to writing even if it's just good for nothing dribble. I'm jogging here. I'm fat and pasty and sweaty, but I'm jogging down the block on a hot summer afternoon. And one day, I'll run a 5K, or a 10K, or half-marathon. Who knows, maybe I'll slim down and go for that marathon. Right now, I just have to jog down the block in all my disgustingness. 

Ultimately, I need to be a kid again and create for fun. Write a story, draw a comic or cartoon, play music. I did all of these things but as I got older I slowly did them less. For those of you who know me, Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favorite writers. Writing this I am reminded of a quote of his from "A Man Without a Country":

Practicing an art, no matter how badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something. 

I'll keep striving to post on here, whether or not anyone is reading. If nothing else, it'll be an opportunity to make my soul grow.  

Gardening, My New Hobby: Cultivating Peace and Fond Memories During a Time of Global Unrest

 At the start of this year I decided to try my hand at gardening. There were a few reasons for this decision. For one, there are two garden beds beside our house which remained untamed over the first couple years we lived here. I did little to maintain it, so for the summer seasons of 2018 and 2019 they were both overgrown with weeds of all kinds. It was almost like one of those vacant lots you see while driving, or the "Prairie Restorations/Preserves". So last winter I decided to clear out both beds and make use of them, as they were intended. My other reason was I had an urge to grow and make my own things. I had this fleeting thought years ago of raising an herb garden. My thought was to plant herbs which I would later use in herbal teas, so lavender, mint, lemon grass, chamomile, etc. This never came to fruition. Another reason was, I felt like I needed a hobby, but one that's productive. What's more productive than having a garden? It also seemed fairly simple. I could learn a new language, yes, but I could also just dig around in dirt, place seeds or plants into the ground, and watch'em go. I also watched my dad grow peppers and herbs years ago to use in cooking and to make his own salsa, which I guess also falls under the "grow and make my own things" reasoning. Lastly, of the plants I wanted to grow, I wanted to grow tomatoes. I felt like they were easy enough to handle, but I have a memory of my Uncle Rex going on about how tomatoes grown in Missouri soil were the best he ever tasted. Personally, I have never really cared too much for tomatoes, but wanted to make my mild skepticism into belief. 

First thing I did, back in February, was I borrowed some books from the library. They were helpful to get an idea of what I would need, provided the difficulty of each kind of plant, and helped me craft a rough plan for the project. My plan was simple as far as "what to grow". I was going to grow herbs like cilantro, basil, thyme, dill and oregano in one bed; my other bed would have tomatoes and peppers. With that in mind, I was ready to clear things out and till the earth. I bought simple tools at first such as a shovel and a spade. I went to work clearing out the beds. One had this deep rooted tree-like weed which took a majority of my time and effort. A gnarly thing that I had to dig in deep to uproot. With some hacking and snipping I was able to get it with a hand saw and hand trimmers. Once the beds were cleared, it was time to get the garden in shape, but since it wasn't spring yet and we still had a while before the anticipated last frost of the season, I decided to wait. 

And wait I did. Time went on. COVID came and made it's home. I was furloughed from my job during this time in April. I spent time looking at some YouTube videos so I could plan my work (Gary Pilarchik - The Rusted Garden was probably the most helpful with his video on starting your beginner garden, in case you decide to do the same). I made a list of supplies and headed over to Home Depot. I bought a couple bags of garden soil and fertilizer. I bought some seeds for my herbs, but planned to get transplants for tomatoes and peppers. None to be found, so I headed over to a nursery I knew of near our house. Near as I could tell, not a lot of what I was looking for, unless I was looking for more landscaping items. I went to another nursery, also very near our house, and they had a wonderful selection of plants. I bought two grape tomato plants, one regular run-of-the-mill tomato plant, green pepper, jalapeno pepper, chili pepper, cayenne pepper and a lavender plant (for the herb garden). I bought a few stakes and then took everything back to the house to get started. 

I remember it was a great day - sunny, blue skies, warm. I started breaking up the dirt in the beds with the shovel then poured a bag of garden soil in each and mixed it in. For the seeds, I put them just under the soil and mixed around some fertilizer. For the plants, I dug a small hole, mixed in fertilizer and set the little guys in. I set up the stakes next to them some support as they grew. Gave them all a good shower of water and...well, let them go. 

When I did all of that it was around April 18th or so. It was slow going for a long time. Every morning, during the time my daughter took her nap, I would go out through our walk-out in our basement and go to the side of the house to take a look. This morning visit would occur nearly every day until roughly a month ago. Honestly, the pepper plants looked worse for wear at first. The poor cayenne pepper plant I planted at the very end of the bed looked ragged for a while. He would get the first and last bit of sun every day, but it didn't look like it helped much for a long time. I also snipped the tops of the pepper plants when they were still small, a tip I learned online to help pepper plants grow bushier and with more peppers (which worked over time). Time went on. April became May which soon brought us all to June. My plants were getting bigger (the grape tomato plants shooting up like a weed). The plants were finally starting to flower. Then, one morning in early June, I stepped outside to do my morning check and found something which made me involuntarily and audibly gasp: a single, tiny, green tomato. Yellow flowers had been budding and blooming for a couple weeks, but this, THIS was a sign that I was doing things right. It still took a while for that little tomato to grow and ripen, but seeing it for the first time was exciting. From then on, the plants went crazy, both in growth and production. My first venture in gardening was turning into a success. 

The summer went on. I had loads of grape tomatoes. I had numerous regular tomatoes. And the amount of cayenne peppers my little cayenne plant was producing! Everybody was doing pretty well...except my herbs on the other side of the AC unit. The cilantro slowly but surely sprang up. The lavender I planted from a transplant was doing well. As for the dill, oregano, basil and thyme seeds I planted...no shows. Nothing at all. To make up for it, a cherry tomato plant sprouted right out of the ground beside the lavender. Over time it became overwhelming, growing faster than the other tomato plants which I purposely planted. It too produced loads of cherry tomatoes. 

Over the summer I harvested and used a lot. The fresh cilantro was used for a pork chop marinade and a batch of salsa I made. The lavender buds I used for hot tea. The grape and cherry tomatoes were used mostly as a snack (and mostly for my daughter, who luckily enjoyed them a lot). I gave many plastic bags fit to burst to family and friends. The regular tomatoes were used for burgers, BLTs, salsa and, well, just plain eating. The jalapenos I threw into salsa and some omelets. The chili pepper plant...was interesting. It grew large and bushy, but its problem was the flowers. For most of the season, the white flowers would die and fall off. Only a couple produced chili peppers. It wasn't until I trimmed it down considerably that it came back and produced numerous peppers, but by then the season was nearing the end (which was about September/October). The cayenne, however, became a wild bush filled with peppers. They would ripen to a bright red and I would harvest them a few at a time (only a handful seemed to ripen on the vine at once). With those, I tried my hand at producing hot sauce. It was a bit of trial and error at first, and I required the collective knowledge of YouTube yet again. After a couple tries I got it down. I probably made 5 or so batches of hot sauce over the last 4 or 5 months. It was used for hot wings a couple times, but mostly to put on eggs an mexican food. My last batch of peppers I harvested before the plant died I actually smoked on my grill, along with several chili peppers. That sauce has probably been the best. 

Overall, the attempt at gardening was a success. Sure, a few herbs didn't grow, but I wasn't broken up about it. I still got a lot of produce from my plants, and nothing beats the feeling of picking something fresh and bringing it into your kitchen. Some of my favorite memories though, are going out each morning and examining the plants. There were mornings I spent twenty to thirty minutes pruning and taking care of the plants which brought a sort of Zen peace I guess. Through everything that's going on, I needed that. I needed that quiet, that focus on nature. Then there were the mornings after it had rained. The crickets chirped and the air felt cool. I would grasp a grape tomato covered in rain water and pluck it off the vine. I put it in my mouth and it seemed sweeter and juicier than any store bought grape tomato I had eaten. 

Another memory I enjoyed was sharing the garden with my wife and daughter. With my daughter, we would go out in the backyard and play. She would trot over to the side and look at the plants, wanting to tug and pull at them. She always managed to pull off unripe grape and cherry tomatoes. I tried to teach her only take the red ones. I would pull off some that she couldn't reach and hand to her. She would munch on as many as she could get, or at least as many as I would allow. Her mouth and the top of her shirt covered in tomato juice. 

The garden is of course gone for this year. A night that dipped below freezing earlier in the month killed off pretty much everything. The lavender is hanging in there though. I anticipate building raised beds and possibly making it a little larger next year. Would love to grow cayenne peppers again and make hot sauce. I'm a little bummed the sauce I have now is the last batch.  Just need to make it last.

And to answer your thought - Yes, this skeptic, who once didn't even care for tomatoes, now believes that Missouri soil can produce some of the juiciest and sweetest tomatoes.

For those interested, I did post some garden photos earlier in the summer on my Instagram @AllTheMadOnes. I have others which I still have on my phone and I may post later as a sort of recap.