Labor Pains

After much deliberation I've come to a somewhat ragged conclusion about my blog birthin'. Having recently re-visited Gone With The Wind (the novel, not the Hollywood version) just let me say, "We need a doctor. I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' blogs!"
 
No, my favorite author is not Margaret Mitchell; it's Hawthorne, as in Nathaniel. Why? He gives me permission to write extremely long sentences and insert commas where I darn well please. But, as they say, 'opposites attract' and I'm counting on that chemistry to spark my format for Dating Profile (my alter-ego site) and this blog and a new idea I have for it's evolution. We shall see.

I'm not a Civil War buff and not even a huge Mitchell fan, or classic movie fanatic, but Scarlett does fascinate me, much like Hawthorne's Hester.
One a saint, the other a wench.

If you haven't read these cheerful classics in a while - or simply forgot to put them in your beach bag - here's a review. You might want to take a quick refresher course here and here and here.

While most people only remember the "sinful woman" in The Scarlet Letter and the dark side of Hawthorne's prose, let's not forget that his masterpiece, was first and foremost, a romance.

Likewise, Rhett's famous "frankly" line in Gone With the Wind ("Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.") is what most people associate with this classic. That's a shame. There are endless correlations between Hawthorne's Hester and Mitchell's

Scarlett - at least I think so - not the least of which happens to be Miss O'Hara's first name and the title of Hawthorne's work - minus one T.

I never know, when I sit down to write, what will fall out of my pen. There may be philosophical days in which a bit of Hawthorne brood takes over into serious discussion in my posts - but I hope they will always be relevant - and entertaining. Maybe downright silly.
At least that's my plan.
In the event that I err in my assessments (and I most certainly will), I will rely on Bazza - literary genius that he is - to correct me.

For instance, Hester wore the scarlet red letter A on her garment while Miss O'Hara wore her breasts on her garment (or outside her garment, I should say). Don't you remember that fabulous line from Mammy

"You can't show your bosoms before 3 o'clock."?
Hester sure could have used her advice.

Let's face it. Mammy was the only character in Gone With the Wind who had any sense. Everybody else wanted to chase corsets, wage war, pick cotton and play poker.

Had Scarlett O'Hara been given the tasks of sewing a degrading vowel to her chest, she, unlike Hester, who stitched it herself with gold trim, would have simply summoned one of her servants to do it for her. Moreover, had she been asked to stand for three hours on a scaffold holding a baby as Mistress Prynne did, she would have used the gallows as a makeshift swing for the baby and took bets in the crowd for one last dance on the platform.
What kind of person names a baby Bonnie Blue anyway?

Such a vixen, that Scarlett.

Furthermore, if her skimmy had been publicly eyed that fateful day, as Hester's was, and asked to reveal the name of the man she committed the awful sin with (as Hester did not) she most certainly would have rattled off the names quite readily, Confederate and Union, farmhand and Governor alike, and then would have saluted their wives with a toss of her ponytail. (Have you noticed how my sentence structure is becoming Hawthornish??! Spooky.) Anyway.....

And so, ladies and gentlemen, cyber-friends and flesh-and-bone-friends-who-will-not-reveal-my-identity, I shall call upon these two icons of femininity and scandal to help me de-bunk the mystery that is male.

Can you imagine a conversation between Rhett and Hester or Scarlett and Dimmesdale? Might be revealing. What if Hester had been banished to Tara and Mammy had to nurture the sin child? I dare say she'd have some tidbits to talk about in the hen house. Can you envision a more appropriate place for Scarlett than in a Puritan colony?

I think not.

Cancel your therapist appointments, throw away those worn out copies of Mars vs Venus! No need for such fuss. We all know that Hester's love for Dimmesdale was the much sought after real thing - as was Scarlett's love for herself. Miss O'Hara, I'd say, could have written any one of those silly dating profiles or at the very least, understood them. And don't you think it's time I cut a little slack for those wayward dating guys I'm encountering?

Well......let's not get carried away.

Let's imagine a literary fiasco.
I think it's time.
The contractions have started.
I'll be back later.
Got some birthin' to do.