Evolution of a Gamer: Part 1

I have rage issues. If I think too long about my peers in high school, or the beautiful boy who raped me, or the arrogant asshole who tried to kill me, I lose my cool. I punch walls. I throw things. I scare the dog. Believe it or not, these are the functional expressions of my rage. When it sinks to levels that I can no longer control, I just sit and cry, and there’s no way I’m going anywhere for the rest of the day because life sucks and I don’t want to live in that place any more.

Before I met the Lemur, I had no outlet for this rage. Once I ran out of things to throw, I curled up under my comforter on my single dorm bed and cried until I fell asleep.

Sometimes, it helped to make lists, like the list of attributes my ideal mate would have (long, dark hair, a fantastic sense of humor, knows what loyalty means, and respects that my definition of cheating starts with kissing because, honestly, you can get diseases from that shit.)

I’m from Iowa, so that whole, “If you build it, he will come,” mantra is prevalent in my daily life. We hear it everywhere on television. I am not kidding. I think it’s more prevalent than, “Is this Heaven? No, it’s Iowa.” The “build it” line works for everyone, while only so many people live in Iowa. If you didn’t know where this was going…

I built my list, and he came into my life. Just like that. My friend RJ noticed my unhealthy obsession with Highlander‘s Adrian Paul and decided the time had come for me to move on. He picked the same night that the arrogant asshole picked to get his shit out of my dorm room as the night to introduce me to his friend (Lemur). RJ swore he wasn’t setting us up.

Time for another cliche: when one door closes, another one opens. I shut the door on the arrogant asshole, and then opened it to this dorky boy with a white windbreaker with red piping, black jeans, and a goofy smile.

My Lemur is adorable, don’t get me wrong. He’s tall, but not too tall. He’s got broad shoulders, nice legs (not chicken legs), and coppery-brown eyes. He doesn’t have much hair left, but when we met, it was down past his shoulders. He had the most unfortunate mullet, but hey, I’d asked for long hair. I appreciate a good sense of humor, even when it’s God’s.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I knew the Lemur was the one when he bought me a Queen CD. That was the same day he introduced me to Mortal Kombat.

I am no stranger to video games. I started out on Pac Man arcade games at Pizza Hut when I was little, and graduated to Nintendo when I was nine. Nine was a very bad year for me. My mom had what was supposed to be out-patient surgery, but the doctor left a clamp in her. It took another surgery and what felt like forever but was really only a couple of months for her to recover. And then my aunt’s transplant kidney, the first kidney transplant ever performed at the University of Iowa hospital, started to fail. And with all the stress, my grandma was in and out of the hospital a couple of times that summer, too. 

The Super Mario Brothers kept me company and distracted me from my family’s health issues. 

When I beat Bowzer, I moved on toRC ProAm, and blowing up that stupid peach-colored car before it hyper-drove to the finish line.

My favorite Nintendo game, though, was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Probably because I was the only kid I knew who had it, and because I was head over heels in love with Indiana Jones. I wanted to be Shorty when I grew up. That’s right. When one of my classmates earned the nickname Shorty, and it wasn’t me, I was devastated.

My huge obsession with Indiana Jones, and that movie in particular, is another story for another time. For now, just know that there was a video game, the last wave was BROKEN on my jacked system, and one took a huge leap of faith and hoped when the screen hopped seven or eight times that Indy landed on one of the rocky cliffs and not in the water with the crocodiles.

Mortal Kombat, though… that game was epic. I’d played arcade Street Fighter, but it’s so cheesy-cartoony. MK characters are sleek, and damn, they have awesome attire. I mean…have you seen Mileena’s boots? I WANT THOSE BOOTS. (These are from Deception. And yes, I’m looking at the boots. They are much better from side profile in the game, but obviously, I am the ONLY ONE looking at her BooTs.)

But this is my dude:

For those of you who don’t know, this is Sub Zero from MK3. There’s just something beautiful about a dude delicate enough to rip your head clean off your body and leave your spine attached…

I still know some of Sub Zero’s combo moves and his fatalities. And don’t get me started about that time in Vegas, when this little kid thought I was having way too much fun in the arcade…

So yeah. I love Mortal Kombat. It’s brutal, but it’s so pretty. Like my days playing Mario, it made me forget all the ugly in my life for awhile. Ro says he likes Child of Light because it’s so pretty, but our definitions of pretty are so very different. I like pretty that can eat you (Tarkatans are beautiful), or break you into a million pieces (Lin kuei discipline, er, magic, also beautiful). 

I guess that’s why Sharky and I loved the aquarium so much. (((HUG))) for Ro.

There will be more to come on my lengthy love affair with video games, but I have books to write. Watch for Part 2 on Saturday.