Party Time! Excellent!

It’s Tuesday, which means Coquetting Tarradiddles is back to its regular posting schedule. I apologize for all the confusion while I got my feet wet with my first experiment in the serialization of my novel, Snowflakes In Autumn, but things should go smoother from here on in. I’m wrestling a bit with the Donate / Contribute / Whatever button right now as I try and persuade the demons chained to the walls of the PayPal basement that my bank account does, in fact, belong to me. There’s been some confusion, as it was previously associated with another e-mail address and somehow tied to my ex-wife’s lingering online presence, but I think I have things squared away now. I’m just waiting for a confirmation at this point, after which I’ll slap up the button and you little goblins can start sending me money.

I promised to write a bit about Trey’s Super Mario birthday party, so I’ll go ahead and jump into that before moving on to more recent happenings. As you know, Brittany and I had been planning Trey’s fourth birthday party for months, an event for which Trey had been contributing helpful tips and making intractable demands providing gentle, polite requests on an almost daily basis. He helped out with the cake baking and marshmallow fondant tasting, and lent his considerable crafting talents towards giving me a hand with some of the treat bags. There were endless shopping trips over the months, where we’d pick out some knickknack or other, the end result of which was that by the time his party finally rolled around, his little toddler brain was auto-synthesizing some sort of naturally occurring variant of crack cocaine that kept him in a perpetual state of overexcited bliss. Getting him to sleep the night before his party, therefore, was an education in futility.

The party itself went off without a hitch, despite some unpleasantness Brittany had to endure the night before, due to a bit of subterfuge from Trey’s dad. Months earlier, her ex requested that his summer visitation start on Brittany’s time – specifically, on Trey’s birthday. Since we’d already been planning his party at that point, Brittany declined the dates and offered to work with him on establishing an alternate schedule. This incensed him, but he was repeatedly assured by Brittany’s attorney (who drafted the decree to which both parties are bound) that she had the right to refuse his dates if they conflicted with her own, as per some modifications done to the decree after a dispute over dates last year. After sending a few e-mail protestations, he went silent, which led us to believe that he had accepted his default summer visitation of July 1-30. We found out only days before the party, however, that this was not the case.

I’ll spare you the painful details, but the summary version has to do with Brittany discovering documentation that her ex had developed a deceptive little stratagem designed to allow him access to Trey for a 2-hour visit, after which he was planning to not return him (much as he did in August of last year), and the subsequent fallout that arose from thwarting his scheme. Apart from his dad almost forcing Trey to miss the birthday party he’d been excited about for months, Brittany’s ex is now attempting other nefarious machinations that will, I’m afraid, ultimately force everyone back into the courtroom to have this sort of behavior finally stopped by court order. It’s frustrating to see a sweet and sensitive child like Trey be kicked around like a metaphorical soccer ball in some bizarre World Cup of Spousal Revenge while the vuvuzela whine of indifference drowns out the tearful cries of a mother pleading from the sidelines, but it is what it is. Trey is the one who suffers from every dispute, and I long for the day when his needs are finally placed at the top of the What’s Important list – but, to quote the immortal wisdom of Malcolm Reynolds, I’m afraid “that’s a long wait on a train that don’t come.”

Anyway, all of that aside, Trey’s party was great. He had a pretty good turnout from family and friends, some of whom traveled a good distance to be there. Brittany’s cake was a tremendous hit, and she’s had some follow-up requests to make specialty cakes for other birthdays and celebrations, which has led to numerous trips to the Cooking section of the bookstore as well as countless hours of TV viewing involving shows like “Cake Boss” and “Ace of Cakes” and generally any show having anything to do with the word ‘Cake’ anywhere in the title. I’m not complaining, though. I get to eat her experiments!

In other news, I want to come clean on my latest display of ultimate stupidity. Over in another post, a 17-year-old reader in Hong Kong recently left a very nice comment identifying himself as a fan and thanking me for the bibblebabble I write here. I was so overjoyed that there was someone out there under the age of 30 who hadn’t had his attention span neutered at the alter of the World Wide Web and was intelligent enough to both read and understand the thesaurus-raping vocabulary I often employ, that I quickly tossed off a reply without really thinking about it first…a reply wherein I thanked him for his comment. In Japanese.

I’m still recovering from that gaffe, made especially ironic since it’s attached to a post where I go on and on about how terrified I am of ever looking stupid. Sometimes, it seems, the universe is not without a sense of terrible and merciless humor made at my expense. I apologized to the guy, said my mea culpa and skittered off to the shadows to lick the wounds of my idiocy and whimper at the moonlight. I do that sort of thing. Don’t judge!

That about brings you up to speed on current events. Thursday’s entry will be a return to typical essay form, where I’ll rant at length about some unsettling and ultimately pointless topic, so be sure to check back.

Awwwwwwww!

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.