2018 was a pretty difficult year. Then again, 2017, 2016, and 2015 weren't peaches either. As Counting Crows tells us long December, but there's reason to believe maybe next year will be better than the last. Looking at my Spotify-generated 2018 playlist, there was a lot of Counting Crows, Fleetwood Mac, Joni Mitchell, Boston, Kamelot, and Red Hot Chili Peppers -make of that what you will. My definitive reading experience was probably a re-engagement after 12 years with Neil Gaiman's Sandman and teaching Collins' The Hunger Games to 7-9th graders. Oh, I guess there was a trip through Virgil that helped me appreciate the Man From Mantua a bit more. My definitive film experiences were Black Panther and NetFlix's The Haunting of Hill House. I guess both are par for the course though none of my friends have seen Hill House yet. So, a long December it's been here at Platypus of Truth, but there is reason to believe that this year may be better than the last or as Samwise's Gaffer puts it: "where there's life, there's hope and need of vittles."
I got my Super Nintendo Entertainment System when I was eleven years old. That's a couple years after it first came out. The occasion was a little dramatic: to celebrate the end of a two-and-a-half year course of treatment for cancer. I had no idea that it would be waiting for me at home after the final doctors visit. It was a nice spring day, the trees were waving gently in the breeze outside the bay windows. With a cup of tea resting on the coffee table, I set down to play. What was that first game? It was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past . Around twenty years later, my SNES still works as does that Zelda cartridge. It's been a long way from boyhood in Southern Connecticut to manhood in North Houston, but I'm still playing. Why am I still playing? There were stretches when I didn't. Many times, I've just been too busy. There were also seasons when it felt embarrassing to still be playing video games....
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