The Honeymooners, or: Pow! Right In The Kisser!

The honeymoon is over. I know this not simply because another Monday has dawned over a new week like a searing nuclear blast of fissionable suffering (as Mondays so often do), but because Brittany and I spent Thursday night through Sunday night wrapped in the warm embrace of our official Honeymooning period. During this time, we enjoyed the sights and sounds and all the best that New England has to offer. Or, we took in the rustic pleasures of Austin, TX or the cosmopolitan glitz and glamour of industrial Houston. Our exact destination depends on who you ask and which lie we told, but truthfully we never left the comfort of our own home.

It was an innocent little stretching of the truth, the harmless spinning a tale of honeymoon travel in an effort to shut out the noise and confusion of a loud and obnoxiously interfering world. I kept my cell phone on for emergencies and to talk to Trey, but beyond that we told everyone we were leaving, then we closed the door, turned the lock, and disconnected ourselves from the grid for a few days. It was a pleasant sort of withdrawal from reality, and we spent our days together under a familiar roof. It was our honeymoon after all, and when everything that we planned on doing was going to – *ahem* – take place indoors anyway due to the oppressive necessity of numerous indecency laws, it didn’t make much sense to travel to some distant place that we wouldn’t even bother leaving the hotel room to see.

And that’s all I have to say about our consummatory activities, strictly speaking. Just know that our marriage is safe from any papal dissolutions, and lets leave it at that. Apart from these personal goings-on that I am choosing to skip over entirely on account of them not being any of your business, we spent the days lounging around the house in our fat clothes, watching movies and playing video games and generally being as gluttonous and as slothful as possible.

Brittany made some not-so-delicious pan fried chicken on Saturday, but rectified her culinary misstep by preparing some very delicious pan fried chicken on Sunday. And, while the less I comment on the former, the more likely I am to keep all of my favorite appendages intact, I will say that her tenacity to perfectly pan fry dead chicken legs was admirable. She went through twelve legs on that first batch, all of them coming out either burned or undercooked or both, and she never once gave up. Well, after she ran out of legs, she did – but she was right back at the store the next day and frying up more legs that afternoon. These turned out – thanks to a properly functioning temperature probe (otherwise known as a thermometer) – golden brown, fully cooked and scrumptious. I whipped up some gravy from the oil in the pan, and sauteed some fresh spinach. And, although I made the gravy too thick and added too much nutmeg to the spinach, everything turned out well and we had a great meal. After that, it was back to the living room and my enormous television.

Earlier last week, a little game was released unto the world by a company called Bioware. The game in question is Dragon Age: Origins, and it has completely enthralled my bride. When not otherwise occupied this weekend, we took turns playing the game, me controlling my noble human warrior and her taking the reins of her scruffy, homeless elfin warrior goddess. It’s a fun game, filled with all the trappings of a traditional role playing game: dwarfs, elves, mages, and the occasional ogre or dragon. If you’ve played one RPG, you’ve played them all, but Dragon Age plays with the best of them. I’m enjoying it a great deal, but not half as much as Brittany is.

Her warrior elf, born in humble beginnings and betrothed to a husband murdered on her wedding day, travels the countryside making friends and saving kittens and helping old ladies cross the street. In contrast, my human character is of noble birth, which means that he travels the countryside making snide remarks at those he finds inferior to himself (which is everyone) and killing anyone who disagrees with him. He’s also sleeping with a nubile witch of the wilds who’s just as pestilent and mean-spirited as he is. It’s fun to watch our different play styles unfold, she playing her alter-ego much as I play mine, in that we’re both essentially playing ourselves projected onto the polygonal avatars of the game world. She helps lost children find their way home and stop crying, whilst I dismember and murder their parents for being negligent asshats. Fun times!

In the movie-watching department, we watched three films that warrant mention, and one television show. First up, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was a very long movie, filled title-to-credits with giant robots, explosions, and Megan Fox looking hot. While it wasn’t a bad movie, it certainly wasn’t very good, either. However, in an effort to give proper credit where it’s due, if I were the target demographic for this film – that is to say, if I were a twelve year old boy – I would most likely declare Transformers 2 to be the most awesome movie ever. It has everything a growing boy could want: giant robots punching each other, crude bathroom humor and clumsy sexual innuendo, and lots and lots of boobies jiggling about in slow motion. Cinematic genius when you’re twelve and have a penis, not so much if you’re thirty-four and have been neutered by marriage. (I joke, Brittany! I joke!)

Next, we watched the reboot of V. I didn’t expect much from this, as I’m usually fairly hateful of reboots in general, but they did a really nice job with the pilot. It covered a lot of ground that it took the original miniseries several hours and at least fifty-three commercials to go over, and they did it with style. Granted, the interior of the alien mothership looked a lot like an Spartan’s idea of interior decorating fueled by an Ikea-themed shopping spree (rolling swivel chairs on a spaceship? really?), but the pilot showed a lot of promise. They’re sticking with the alien reptile idea of the original seres and infusing it with a little David Icke inspired paranoia, all while finding work for former Firefly cast members. They need to play things a little carefully though, and add in the Whedonverse cast sparingly. After all, once they throw a little Nathan Fillion and Gina Torres into the mix, the show will be destined for greatness – and cancellation. Hey, at least it’s not on Fox…

Finally, we wrapped things up with two romantic comedies. Yes, I know. I have a general No Go policy when it comes to enduring such meaningless tripe, but I let it slide on account of it being our honeymoon. Brittany first subjected me to the witless horror of The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, a film whose only redeemable quality was that it had the good graces to finally give a proper nod to Dickens in the final reel. Apart from that, it was filled with predictable plot twists and anemic humor, while Matthew McConaughey lays his southern Georgia drawl on thick and pretends he’s not from Texas. Michael Douglas materializes every now and again to give the film much-needed shots in the arm, but in the end even his star power fails to elevate Girlfriends from the miserable depths of the romcom basement.

The second romantic comedy up on the chopping block was The Proposal, which was another horrible movie made passably entertaining through exactly two things: Betty White’s indefatigable charm and Sandra Bullock’s naked body. I’m a huge Betty White fan, and I’ll have words with anyone who would claim she is anything other than a national freaking treasure. She’s in good form in The Proposal, echoing bits of her Delores Bickerman character from Lake Placid (another film that she, along with Oliver Platt and Brenden Gleeson, saved from mediocrity). The story is typical romcom fare, in that it is without merit and completely unworthy of any discussion whatsoever. Still, there’s a brief out-of-shower scene where Bullock is hiding her naughty bits with nothing more than a horizontal forearm and a well-placed hand that temporarily makes a married man forget he’s watching a chick flick. It’s brief and tasteful though, so don’t get too excited. It’s safe to go ahead and fall asleep after she puts the towel on, in other words. Nothing more to see here. Move along.

That, more or less, was our honeymoon. We’re taking Trey to Walt Disney World in January though, and we’re already planning our romantic New England getaway for next October, so we’re pretty happy with having taken some time off to just lounge around and relax for a little while. I know this essay is dropping on Monday, but don’t get too worked up about me possibly returning to a five day publishing week. I know I said to wait until after the wedding and the honeymoon, but the sad truth remains that the return on investment I get from Coquetting Tarradiddles is too one-sided to warrant devoting five days worth of time and energy to. Not while I’ve got other literary pans in the fire that need tending, and certainly not while all of you lecherous bastards keep on reading my words but never clicking my ads. I’ll stick to Tuesdays and Thursdays for the time being, thank you very much.

However, since I’m a generous sort of guy who feels the need to fulfill his obligations wherever he can, you’re getting three essays this week. There’s this one today, which is really to make up for only publishing on Tuesday of last week, then I’ll return to my regular schedule with another essay tomorrow, followed by another on Thursday. We’ll see how things go and, if you’re all really good little girls and boys, I might just switch to a thrice-weekly schedule in December.

Want some books? 'Course ya do!

NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

Humor | Nonfiction
Available now from the following retailers

Have you ever lived through an experience that was so humiliating that you wanted to die, but when you tell it to all your friends, they can't stop laughing?

Have you ever made a decision that seemed like a good idea at the time, but you're still living with the hilarious consequences years later?

If so, then grab a snack, get comfortable, and prepare to have all of your own poor life choices seem just a little bit more bearable.

You're welcome.

Short Stories
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The nine stories of rage and sadness collected here range from the most intimate of human experiences to the wildest realms of magic and fantasy. The first story is a violent gut-punch to the soul, and the rest of them just hit harder from there.

Those who tough it out will find a book filled with as much hope as despair, a constant contradiction pulling you from one extreme to another.

Life might knock us down, over and over, and will the beat the ever-loving snot out of us from the time we're old enough to give it attitude until the day we finally let it win and stop getting up.

Always get back up.

Gaming | Nonfiction
Available now from the following retailers

This isn't just a book. It's a portal to other worlds where there be magic and dragons and hilarious pirates. Okay, not really. But this book is about those portals, except they're called video games.

The Life Bytes series of books take a deep dive into one man's personal journey through childhood into kinda/sorta being a responsible, competent adult as told through the magical lens of whatever video games he was playing at the time.

Part One starts way back in 1975 and meanders down various digital pathways until, oh, around about 1993 or so.

If you're feeling nostalgic for the early days of gaming or if you just want to understand why the gamer in your life loves this hobby so much, take a seat in your favorite comfy chair and crack this bad boy open.

I'll try to not be boring.

Horror
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What you are about to read is not a story. There is no beginning, middle, or end.

What follows is nothing more than a series of journal entries involving shadow people, sleep paralysis, and crippling fear. It’s not pretty, it doesn’t follow story logic, and nothing works out well in the end.

You've been warned.