Posted on February 18, 2010
Rules, Rules, Rules
The regular publishing schedule here at Coquetting Tarradiddles is pretty simple: two new essays each week, with one released on Tuesday and the other on Thursday. It doesn’t sound like a difficult thing to manage and, truth be told, it really isn’t. However, every so often Life meets up with Fate over a game of cards in the back room of some celestial speakeasy where anthropomorphized representations of the human condition get together to eat ambrosia and figure out clever ways to screw with mortals, and their little omnipotent games of chance almost always result in Interesting Times for us regular schmoes.
about, which leaves me with, well, not much to talk about. Instead, I will use the opportunity of today’s brevity to perhaps pass a little of my hard-earned wisdom onto you, my gracious and ungrateful readers. Heck, I’ll even strip out my usual verbosity and further truncate my ramblings into a simple list form for all of the web-obsessed waterheads out there who can’t imagine life ever moving slowly enough to warrant devoting more than five minutes to reading anything. See? I’m catering to the needs of others. I think I’m growing as a person.#8,477: The price of sanitation and hygiene is eternal vigilance, so one must always be aware of the unfortunate explosive effect that multiple juice boxes can have upon a toddler’s sensitive digestive system, and plan accordingly. Failure to do so is guaranteed to result in a Regrettable Situation involving an unscheduled shower for clean up, followed by the sudden necessity to briefly regress your child’s potty training development from Underoos back into the more leak protecting appropriateness of a snug fitting pull-up.
too much faith in your TomTom will only get you hurt, or at least hopelessly lost. Apart from advising you to take phantasmic and non-existent highway exits, it will steer you towards closed roads, then completely deny any knowledge of recent construction as it quietly mocks your navigational acumen while it makes ridiculous demands for immediate u-turns every fifty feet for the next several miles. Left to its own devices and free from the scrutiny of a careful and untrusting driver, your average GPS is as likely to get you to your destination safely as it is to guide you down a snowmobile trail, then abandon you after your car gets stuck and you slowly begin to succumb to the elements and die from exposure. True story, sort of.
and painful procedure – especially when it’s a lunch meeting. An inability to properly control your facial musculature is probably perceived as some sort of a weakness by the people to whom you are speaking, and dribbling tomato soup down your chin whilst enduring the special horror that comes from suddenly realizing that your tongue has betrayed you and gone completely useless right in the middle of a very important and clever-sounding sentence certainly doesn’t help the situation, either. Still, if you manage to impress even under the anesthetic haze of a completely numb mouth that has you talking like a sedated Porky Pig with a lithium habit, you probably have nothing to worry about, even if they did notice what happened when you tried to bite into your sandwich…
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
Available now from the following retailers
| |
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
Available now from the following retailers
| | |
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.
You must be logged in to post a comment.