NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. In case you were wondering why I haven’t been posting here this month, I have been hyperfocused on completing a novel. The goal of NaNoWriMo is just to get it out. Just write. And write I have. I have written 30,000 words in 14 days. With a goal of 2,000 words a day, I am a day ahead of schedule. With luck and determination, I will have a 60,000 word novel draft done by the end of the month.
I can then take my time to revise, edit, rewrite, and everything else necessary. But for now, I am just plain pounding the keyboard, trying to churn it all out.
What’s it about? Nothing you would ever expect from me. My wife calls it an adult contemporary novel. In fact, it will be published under a pen name. I’ll pitch it, but I can self-publish if I need to. I have extra ISBNs left over from working on Solution Squad, and I already know how IngramSpark works.
So, I’m taking a month off from my blog. I’m taking a month off from my Mego figures. And I’m going to put a big check mark on my bucket list at the end of November.
The actual milestone date was a couple of days ago, but as usual, our family circumstances dictate that we dance around actual dates when we celebrate.
Twenty-five years ago this weekend, I stepped off an airplane at Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans. I was wearing a lavender long-sleeved shirt, a decision that I immediately regretted as I stepped through the exit of the plane. The air was heavy and thick, and strangely warm. I started sweating immediately, but not just because of the heat. I was going to meet the love of my life.
We met online the year before, both of us playing a Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) game called Terris. We were using America On Line to disappear into a fantasy world that bore little resemblance to our own. I was playing a soceror named Antrim. She was playing a shaman named Serafina. Being of low level, we found groups of like abilities and stuck together. Serafina and Antrim were both in the Wizard’s Guild, and while my character threw massive fireballs and wrought havoc with monsters, Serafina was a healer and kept the party alive. The problem with using magic in that word was that it required a lot of rest to recover spell points, the fuel that made us go. To enhance our recovery rates, we would often find ourselves sitting around in the Glade of Spiritual Healing, outside of the main city of Devardec. And there, we would chat–sometimes in-character, and sometimes out-of-character. OOC conversations were often held in “tells,” telepathic communication that the general public wouldn’t hear. It was there that Serafina’s player, who at first didn’t even want to tell me her real first name, and I talked about what we did for a living. She was interested in making a career change, and wanted to know about teaching, which I had revealed as my profession. And that’s how our friendship began, innocuously, sitting around playing a computer game across the country from one another.
As time went on, I spent a lot of time playing Terris. I couldn’t afford to do anything else. My then-wife was doing her student teaching 90 miles away, staying with her parents. She only came home some weekends. That should have been a clue right there that something was wrong with our marriage. We went through marriage counseling, but she quit within a few sessions. It seemed that she wasn’t really motivated to try to save the relationship. I started a new job, still teaching, but somewhere else, while my then-wife did her own thing. It was on my birthday that year, that the final straw broke. My not-so-loving wife decided not to even be home on my birthday and she left early to go Christmas shopping with her mother instead, staying a few days at her parents’ house. I was devastated. I went into Terris to see if Magi was playing, and asked if I could call her. I’d never spoken to her on the phone before. It didn’t seem like it would be appropriate since I was married. But that night, I cried my heart out to her and she consoled me as best she could. It was clear to everyone, especially me, that my marriage was over.
Almost a year later, Magi and I were still good friends, but thought that maybe we could be more. We talked on the phone almost every day and saw each other through personal and professional crises. We exchanged favorite books and movies. I had a long weekend for fall break, and we decided that I should fly to her to meet her face-to-face. When I saw her smiling face looking at me in the airport greeting line, any doubt was washed away. We went to Copeland’s for dinner (I had shrimp creole for the very first time), and we held hands and talked for hours. We were just so thrilled to be in each other’s company. We talked late into the night, and the next morning (I slept on the couch; I was still technically married) I made her my favorite Big Boy Mexican Fiesta Omelet for breakfast. Honestly, I think that’s what made her love me. I make a pretty good omelet.
She took me around New Orleans, sharing with me the best of her city. I loved it. It’s still my favorite city in the world. From Cafe Du Monde to French Market to the Riverwalk, every new sight and smell made me happy. She’d had me read A Confederacy of Dunces, so naturally, I had to eat a Lucky Dog. I ate a muffaletta for the very first time. We visited art stores, including one that had animation cels, which thrilled me. She packed as much as she could into a short trip. And it was made just that much more special because she was the one showing me around. While Magi was at work one day, another friend of ours from the Terris game came over from Bourg to keep me company. We went on a ghost tour of the French Quarter, and were allowed to see the recessed apartments that hide in the middle of the store blocks, behind gated doors. And we all went to dinner afterward. I felt so happy to be surrounded by people who clearly cared about me, especially Magi.
The weekend passed too quickly. Even when Magi was at work, I hung out at her store. I just couldn’t see her enough. By the time I had to return home on Monday, I was having second thoughts about even getting back on the plane. It was like a scene from a movie. We sat in her car, in the rain, and just felt our hearts tearing apart. We were both in tears. She took a ring from her index finger and put it on my pinky. I could smell her perfume, and asked what the name of it was. Spellbound. Of course it was. I got on the plane and returned back to Indiana. I couldn’t even call it home. Because for me, from that day on, my home was wherever she was.
A week after I returned, I walked around in a daze. I went to the grocery store, which also had a perfume counter. I asked if they had Spellbound, and had them spray some on a piece of paper I had with me. I just walked around the store, trying to imagine her by my side. I went to our Borders store, and sat there with a cup of good coffee, thinking of her being at her Borders store in Metairie, where she worked, and where I spent a lot of my time while I was visiting. I knew life would never be the same.
I set up at my buddies’ local toy and comics show yesterday. It was the first time I brought any Megos out for sale, to go with the Hallmark ornaments I’ve been selling for a friend.
Sales were light as the traffic was pretty limited due to the inclement weather. But I think this model might be workable. I had a couple of people stop by the table, and instantly smiled and fell into reminiscence about their Mego figures. One even told me that he had a few that were broken. I told them I could fix them and we exchanged numbers. Another dealer asked me, after he saw what I had out, if old, broken Megos had any value. I said, “They do to me.” He even had them with him but not on display. He got them out and we worked out a deal.
Now, this might look like a pile of junk to most people, but to me, it’s a gold mine. I mean, yes, some of it is junk. But the Captain America, Aquaman, and Conan were decent, despite Conan missing part of his leg. And let me tell you, whoever owned these toys as a kid must have been as mean as Sid Harris in Toy Story, because they weren’t broken at the knee joints like most Megos break, but they were broken below the knees, where it’s nothing but solid plastic. That takes some serious torque. But after a bit, I was able to harvest fresh vintage knee pins from each one. So, another great reason to do little shows in the area!
Another dealer was working on his own collection and had his Dukes of Hazzard Megos with him. They were in need of repair and I told him I could help him out. I said that next time, I would just bring my spares and tool boxes with me and repair stuff right at the show! I think that would be cool to do. If it becomes known that I do on-the-spot repairs at shows, people will bring business to me!
But the best bit of the day came when my good friend Bruce Nelson just suddenly appeared in front of me. Bruce is a special kind of friend. He drove all the way from Indianapolis just to see me at the show!
I met Bruce at the first C2E2 convention I did with Solution Squad, and he encouraged me to apply for the Lilly Endowment Teacher Creativity Fellowship, which I did, and received! We’ve been friends ever since.
You know, sometimes when I write about the past, people tell me that I make it sound like they are there. I take that as about the highest compliment a writer can be paid. But to me, there’s more to it than that. When I write about the past, it’s sometimes like I want to be there.
I have a vivid memory. It’s colorful. It’s full of sights and sounds and smells. And more recently, I have discovered the tactile sense of memory to be important as well. Working with and on the action figures of my youth has brought about a whole new perspective about my reminiscences. For example, when replacing a boot on a Mego Superman figure, I remember that sometimes it’s easier to get the boot completely back on the figure’s foot than others. You have to extend the foot by bending the ankle to point the toes to insert the foot. Then when the toes reach the sole of the boot, ideally, the foot bends back to flat again, the heel slides in, and the rest of the boot slides on easily over the calf. But sometimes it’s difficult. Sometimes the toes of the figure want to dig straight in the sole of the boot at a right angle and they don’t want to make that final slide. I have spent half an hour trying to get a boot on a Mego toy before, working the insertion at different angles, trying to get it to slide in just right. There’s a satisfying give when it finally happens that’s almost like flipping a switch in my brain that releases endorphins.
I think that’s a part of toy collecting that is overlooked by the people who don’t understand the hobby. When I watched the joyous faces of very serious 40-year-olds as they transformed their Optimus Primes from robot to truck and back again out of sheer rote and physical memory, that’s when I understood it. It isn’t just photos, videos, foods, and songs that take us back. It’s touch as well, and it isn’t just old people. It’s holding something in our hands that we held when we were the happiest in our lives; before we had responsibilities and our imaginations were curtailed by rules, discipline, and structure. And in my case, abuse. If you have read any of this blog at all, you know that I focus on those scant weeks of happiness in the midst of years of horror. It’s almost like there was no way I got enough of that joy during those five years of abuse, and I’m going back to get more, no matter what anyone thinks.
It’s more than that. Not only am I surrounding myself with many of the toys I never had (and was not allowed to play with even if I did have them), but I’m fixing broken toys so that more people can experience the same joy I do. It’s a similar feeling to when I was teaching. I tried, successfully at times, to be the teacher I needed when I was that age. Now that I don’t have that, I’m finding it another way.
Nothing is too mundane for me to write about in this blog. And today, I’d like to write about ketchup. Now, you might think that it’s a topic that is relatively meaningless in the world, and you might be right. But in my long and storied life, even ketchup has played its part in the drama.
When my mom was young, she was not what anyone would consider a great cook, by any stretch of the imagination. That’s not to say that it was always the case. Over the seven years she was married to my dad, my Grandma McClain took her under her wing and brought her right along, and Grandma McClain was a farmhouse cook. She could put on a spread. But in the early days of my life, my mom didn’t cook a whole lot. What she could cook, though, was fried potatoes. She would get them sliced really thin, and fry them in a pan with butter and onions, and it was just about one of my favorite things to eat as a kid…with ketchup, of course, as she taught me. Naturally, I ate ketchup on other things, like hot dogs and hamburgers and such, but my primary use of the condiment was on Mom’s fried potatoes. There just wasn’t much better than that.
If we fast-forward a couple of years, though, it gets ugly. Everything does. By then, Mom was with Steve, the father of her newest child, and my dad was in the rear-view mirror, married to Steve’s ex-wife. One of the things Mom did best to make me happy was to make her fried potatoes. We had a pattern in our meals during those years. On Saturday, Mom made pancakes on the electric griddle, and on Sunday before church, she made eggs and fried potatoes. And the very first time Mom made the fried potatoes, I was so excited that I just reached for the bottle of ketchup that was already on the table. I never saw the backhand coming that caught me under the eye. I should have sensed it, but I was temporarily distracted by the prospect of fried potatoes. When my vision cleared, I tearfully asked what I had done wrong. “You didn’t even try the food your mother worked so hard to prepare before you were going to smother it in ketchup,” he nearly hissed. I looked desperately at my mother, whose potatoes were already covered, and she gave me a look that said, just take it. He had taken everything else away from me, and he took that too.
A few years later, Steve took a job in another county, staying with my Grandma B in her spare attic room, while we stayed in Hastings, left to our own devices, and I have to say that it was one of the happier times of my life with him. Mom let us watch TV while we ate, which was unheard of when Steve was around, and more nights than not, she made us fried potatoes for dinner, and I was allowed to put as much ketchup on them as I wanted. As I have said before, my mom did her best to keep us from being completely destroyed at Steve’s hands, and that memory remains strong in my mind as an example of that.
Years again later, when I went to live with my dad, the chains were definitely off. I was often left to myself for most of the day and many nights, and I was expected to feed myself. It was at that point that ketchup became its own food group in my diet. My diet consisted of TV dinners (yay, Salisbury Steak!), pot pies, and hot dogs or macaroni and cheese. Side dishes often included corn chips and cottage cheese. Everything was easy for me to prepare, but the lack of variety produced a need to experiment. It was at this time that I started putting ketchup on macaroni and cheese. As I have writtenbefore, we didn’t get the good Kraft dinners; we bought the cheaper store brand. It needed something. And what do you know, it wasn’t bad! Then I remembered hearing that Richard Nixon liked to put ketchup on cottage cheese, so I tried that. It was great! I couldn’t really stand cottage cheese otherwise, so I started eating it that way all the time.
We just had macaroni and cheese for dinner, and even though it was the fancy Kraft dinner kind, I still had to put ketchup on mine, for old time’s sake. Think I might fry up some potatoes tomorrow!
