Hardscrabble

Hardscrabble

They call me Hardscrabble.  I have absolutely no idea why other than maybe it was someone else’s inside joke but I figured people saw me as marked by poverty because my eighth birthday party was in a church basement and my mother served us kids a melted birthday cake and sent us outside to play in a half deflated bouncy castle, on concrete.  The nickname just stuck I guess.  It’s quite the opposite really; I enjoy the full embrace of a charmed life.  Well, according to my standards that is, and you can judge for yourself whether or not my standards are acceptable or even applicable.   Doesn’t matter much to me though, it’s none of my beeswax what other people think of me.  To put it mildly, I’m living the dream, one slow nightmare at a time. They call me Hardscrabble but my name is Myrtle Yootha Mumford; don’t even get me started on my middle name.  Please, call me Hardscrabble.

Don’t let my birth name fool you.  I’m not old, I’m a mere thirty-something twerp, born to parents who either have a really sick sense of humor or who don’t fully understand the concept of irony.  And while it’s true that I didn’t have friends called Allegra or Cassandra who said words like contrived and audacity, I did okay for a girl whose name could easily be mistaken for a cantankerous old bitty on Coronation Street.  I made friends with the kids called Clarence (not to be confused with the awesome saxophone stylings of the late Clarence Clemons), Pearl (don’t tangle that one up with Nashville’s Minnie Pearl but now that I think of it, she did wear a green John Deere bucket hat everyday), Bart (no relation to the animated Simpson’s family) and Clarice (if I never hear the phrase ‘Hellllo Clarice’ again it would be too soon).  I also had a friend, Gertrude, Grody Gertie.  She had a grotesque hook nose and a zero scruples.  Once, a boy in school tried to grope her boob and she whopped him so hard his glasses flew two rows over and he suffered a bloody gash on his bottom lip from his braces.  She always called everyone a poop sock. I don’t really know what kind of insult it’s supposed to be but it was her number one smash hit.  Gert was a touch grody though.  She was prone to digging wax out of her weird little ears and rolling it all up into a ball between her finger and thumb.  Blarf. I suppose though at the end of the day, it doesn’t bode well for me having parents called Hilda and Clifton.  I was doomed from the start.  You can’t blame me for the idiocy, I didn’t invent the wheel.  In case you were wondering, I just gave my shoulders a lazy little shrug.

I am about to impart on you an extraordinary amount of information in a remarkably short period of time.  For the next several minutes I will be your resourceful narrator.  I promise I’ll refrain as much as I can from being pleading and mournful so your empathy doesn’t betray you and I’ll try not to linger too long on a phrase or curse like a sailor.  Actually, I don’t even know why I said that last bit.  I rarely cuss unless I stub my toe and then every dirty word I know rolls off my tongue.  I use my words.  Creatively.  At least I think so.  Please note, as a reward for not bailing on me, you’ll be entered into a draw for your chance to win a whatchamacallit, you know, one of those thingamajigs, that doohickey.  You know what I’m talking about, right?  Or a Kit Kat.  The chunky variety.  Or, whichever is readily available at the time of our parting. It probably won’t be the chocolate though; I’ll have snacked on it by then.  Good luck.

In most cases, I am very discreet about my life.  I pay attention to signs but often misinterpret them, read my horrorscope just to guffaw and dabble in the trusted Magic Eight Ball but it always stalls before telling me I’m an idiot.  I’m a dimpled brunette, an under-employed freelance writer who works a pair of well -worn sweat pants and writes drivel until it’s a pile of nonsense.  I’m the kind of slugabed to abandon said pile of nonsense for other in-house entertainment such as playing solitaire with a real deck of cards as opposed to the fake one on my computer, braiding my own hair or eating gobs of Fluff right out of the jar.  Short attention span?  Guilty.  I was once really good at expressing the inexpressible, words shot out of my fingers like lightning bolts but I’ve been tapped out ever since the expiration of my brief wild-flower and mason jar wedding and quickie rained out honeymoon at an all-inclusive roadside motel.  It was ‘paradise’ themed, complete with a round coin operated bed and a heart-shaped bathtub big enough to sponge bath my big toe in. Let’s not forget the leaky ceiling and shag carpet.  A woman scorned?  You bet.  I know, you’re probably thinking another man-hating troll but it shot through the heart.  That, by the way, is in no way a direct reference to Bon Jovi’s ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’.  I hate hair bands; they are so awesome.  I won’t offer you a delicate charcoal sketch of our loving footprints together but I will be sure to spill my guts on the gory details of our swift demise.  All I know is that from the stress and shock I sprouted a giant cold-sore dangerously resembling a second head and developed an itchy yeast infection that all but killed me and I didn’t even do anything fun to inherit them.

As I was saying, I’m a pretty private person but after being sequestered in my half empty two-bedroom apartment paralyzed by dejection and nursing swollen ankles from a potato chip and Mr. Noodles diet for five months I’ve decided to go public.  I drank too many beers the other night while half folding a week old basket of clean laundry then moved on to a sink full of cruddy dishes.  I was standing there with my hands in greasy sludge scrubbing a stubborn film of dried egg from a frying pan and it came to me, the hell with this emotional regression, suck it up you dummy and write it allll out.  Of the tens of people who will experience this tirade, someone is at least bound to pretend to listen and if I can save one woman from taking an unlucky plunge with a philandering poop sock then so be it.  I may as well have married a potato.  Now that I am thinking about it, he cheated on a girl when he first met me.  I wasn’t aware there was someone else until after the fact so you know the rule of thumb, if he cheats with you it’s highly likely he’ll cheat on you.  Leopards seldom change their spots.  That’s Bernie’s theory anyway but more on her later.  I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

Forging ahead on my own has been thorny.  Up until this moment, I’ve felt like nothing more than a bag of teeth.  In other words, insignificant.  I went from someone whose eyes danced with delight every single time he walked into the room to a hypnotized mademoiselle bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, in other words, a grotesque disemboweled zombie.  You know that saying if it seems too good to be true it probably is? It applies to my ex-husband, Anthony Trooper.  He is definitely worth a phrase denoting pessimism.  I mean I caught him ker-plunking a co-ed in our bed and he had the nerve to blame me.  Our quarrel went something like this and I am paraphrasing here so try a little tenderness:

Him:  “This is your fault!”  (Imagine a man with a scruffy GQ face and a golfer’s body bolting up off of a messy bed, wrapping a sheet around his waist in complete shock while the bimbo with the sweaty hair squeals in embarrassment trying to hide her bits and bobbles.  Just like those cliché movie scenes.  Yes, ladies and germs, they really happen.)

Me:  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shove you head first into her VAGINA.”  (Imagine me indignant, head snapping in anger, talking with my hands while trying not to cry and looking for something out of the corner of my eye to pick up and brain him with.)

Him:  “Well if you would get dressed once in a while, stop wearing those Jesus shoes and pry your fat ass off the couch and get shit done around here and be present things like this wouldn’t happen.”  (Imagine the cheater gathering the sheet up more in the front as if to protect his person.  No movement from the cream puff.)

Me:  “I AM PRESENT EVERY DAMN DAY!”  (Imagine me exclaiming.)  “I am a WRITER.  I work from HOME, I don’t HAVE to get dressed if I don’t want to.  And when I’m not writing I’m cleaning your house and cooking your meals and being your WIFE. I beg your pardon if I missed the part in our vows that we took TWO months ago that stated you were free to Christian Mingle jail bait!!  Let’s just go ahead and build you a monument for HUSBAND of the year!!”  (Imagine the vein in my neck growing to Incredible Hulk proportions.  And yes, I used Christian Mingle as a verb.  Political correctness be damned.)

Him:  (Imagine him stammering.)  “I … you … fuck you, Hardscrabble.”

Me:  “Real mature.  I hope you get wiener-rot and it falls off.  That’s what you deserve.”  (I get the upper hand here and I apologize for my choice of words but I was married to a man who sometimes jokingly referred to himself as The Jizz Infidel post coitus.  It was amusing when I was into him but all of those little things soured the second he cheated.  Other details best left unsaid for now.)  “Whatever, Trooper.  Get your hunk of hole and your stuff and get OUT.”

He didn’t protest.  And naturally, I fell apart.  We two, divorcees.

The fact that I married a man who calls flip flops Jesus shoes should have been my first indicator that a) I was insane and 2) he was too good to be true as well a comprehensive list of antonyms to imply good but just in the looks department.  After months of not shaving my legs, brushing my teeth with chardonnay and blaming myself for not being a Barbie Doll, I decided never again would I put my mouth on a man.  No man, no matter how much charm he radiates or how many stupid promises he makes, this blithering idiot was done like dinner.  It doesn’t matter that I’m sexually valuable, in my prime and it doesn’t make any difference how unaccountably loyal he is or that he loves his Mama and doesn’t care when I pee with the bathroom door open.  Hardscrabble is done.  Myrtle Mumford is out of the man loop.  Incidentally, our break up coincided with my discovering Adele’s heartbreak record, 21.  Adele came to me in one of my long gin-soaked crying jags; waded through the mountain of Kleenex to find me curled up in a fetal position and told me her record would be my summer wasted if I didn’t smarten up and straighten out, to quit being a whingey twat and get on with it.  I love her for telling me like it is, you know?  I think that was also the night I had a dream I was responsible for telling all of the small children of the world there was no such thing as Santa Claus and was jolted out of my coma by bawling littles pitching sharp pieces of candy cane at my face.  Your erroneous heroine has a slurry mind when she is knocked down.  Don’t judge me.

Obviously, being a writer type, I am prone to being insular so Spinsterhood seemed fitting.  I write almost full time for Travel Quest magazine so I spend a lot of time online and researching, nestled quietly in my space where I make things happen.  When Trooper and I were just cohabitating, he thought it was sexy to wander in and find me fashionably unkempt, working away with the window wide open, the stereo pumping and half empty cups of caffeinated beverages littering my desk.  He incorporated a little poem with his nickname for me, “Frowsy Wifty, kiss me, kiss me.”  (Side note:  Just to clarify, frowsy means habitually unkempt and wifty means silly and/or dizzy.)  Of course the second I find him berries deep in someone else it all suddenly becomes slovenly sloth behavior and I’m deduced to being a giant cow out in a pasture.  Figures, doesn’t?  Double standards are a shady business boys and girls club.  A confrère asked me if I could ever forgive Trooper for his indiscretion, the fancy word we’re apparently using now for betrayal.  I bristled at the suggestion.  Cheating on your wife isn’t a little whoopsie daisy it’s certifiably VERBOTEN.  You get my meaning.   To answer my social contact’s question I simply replied like a goofy nobble, “When pigs sprout angel wings and fly.”

I want to tell you about my novel but maybe I should tell you about Bernie Blixen first.  She’s my neighbor across the hall and at this moment in time, my only friend and ally.  Trooper got all of our friends in the divorce and the comfy couch.  Bernie, short for Bernadette, is what you might imagine a Grand Madame of cougars might be like if there ever was such a thing.  And by cougar I mean that crass word coined for women who are too old to be dressing too young and slobbering over twenty-something boys.  Believe it or not, she’s a dead ringer for Mrs. Roper, the randy landlady on Three’s Company minus the muumuus. For an older broad, her skin is flawless; it makes me hate her just a little bit. Often times she’ll be slinking around in Lulu Lemon yoga attire adorned with chunky gold jewelry and whatever bright lipstick is in for the season.  Sounds gauche I know but the dame can really pull it off.  She and I became friends the afternoon I heaved all of Trooper’s things out in the hallway while he was still scrambling around for his duplicitous drawers.  A few hours later there was a faint rap on my door.  I reluctantly opened it, my eyes all puffy like I just went a few rounds with an irate Mike Tyson.  She was standing there holding a bottle of Skinny Girl vodka. I’m guessing it was her brave attempt to ferret me out.  I however, was in no shape for the tsunami of attention.  Our first encounter went a little like this:

Me:  “Yeah?”  (Imagine me with a gray sickly hue, striped pajama pants tucked into thick wool work socks and a faded Doors t-shirt.)

Her:   (Imagine her just as I described except a great enunciator.)  “Baby girl, if we have learned anything valuable at all from those crazy Mayans, it would be if you don’t finish something it isn’t the end of the world.   In other words, Sugar, don’t cry over a man who doesn’t deserve your tears.  He isn’t worth a damn to walk away from a good woman.  I saw you kids when you moved in, you, you were sharp but I never liked the look of him.  Too suspect for my taste, he looked like he always had something to hide.  I am guessing now he did.  Looks like you could use a friend.  Here’s a little support from Bernie in 4B. Anything you need, kiddo …” (Imagine her handing me the bottle and winking supportively, if that’s even a thing, a supportive wink.)

Me:  “Thanks.”  (Imagine me closing the door, sinking into the over-sized arm chair that matched the comfy couch now missing from my spacious living area, cracking the bottle then cracking up.)

I didn’t invite her in that first time but I took the hooch.  Don’t’ give me that look, she insisted.  I know it was mean to not reciprocate when someone showed me a kindness but my husband of mere months, the human I spent three years with planning out an entire future just walked out on me in favor of buffing tweens.  Well, technically I told him to get out but under the circumstances … geez.  Bernie understood though and didn’t expect much in return anyway.  She hovered and kept an eye out.  She’s been my cheerleader, my mentor and the biggest pain in the patootie I’ve ever known.  I did briefly consider reaching out to Trooper to maybe work things out but Bernie reminded me that our conscience is what hurts when all the other parts of us are pleasured.  It wasn’t so for dear old Trooper, he clearly crapped out the last shred of decency he had in him.  I changed my mind after sleeping on that little nugget.  I’m glad now that I did or else I’d have just looked like daft ninny. And you know, he still hasn’t apologized for any of it and Bernie says strength comes from accepting the apology you never get.  Personally, I think that’s a crock of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter but hey, it happened to me so I’m entitled to my opinion.  Considering going backwards is like being homesick for a place you’ve never been before, nutty.  I confess that I do have jiffies where I miss him frantically but then I snap out of it and reward myself with a two-liter of root-beer and a pint of dulce de leche Haagen Dazs.  Most of the time I waffle over the decision to eat or to nap, I often find myself too tired to cook but too hungry to sleep.  I decided the best of both worlds would work, lazing and munching, a Monsanto-approved diet.  Believe it or not, I actually did attempt a balanced food regime once I started to pull my flaky cake head out of my derrière.  This one night I made myself a salad for dinner.  I stabbed together a hunk of herbed Havarti cheese, an aged organic grape tomato with a leaf of baby romaine and when I started to chew it up it tasted like Trooper’s semen.  That was the end of that.  Blerg.  I traded in my dandelion greens and kale for big ol’ messy Betty Crocker cupcakes.  I still work a Thigh Master though, God bless Suzanne Somers.  I may be a garbage disposal but I’m not that irresponsible that I’ll let myself go.  Don’t get me wrong, I have the potential to be Gilbert Grape’s mother, make no mistake but I like to move it move it.  As in dance, when the mood strikes.  Throw a little old rock southern boogie on and both of my left feet are aflutter.  I do like to cut a rug and when I do good things tend to happen but more on that later.

In a twisted way, I was glad to be unhappy for a little bit.  Being idyllically exultant all the time is bloody exhausting.  Obviously I’d prefer to still have my marriage intact and my life on track but because it isn’t I am afforded the small luxury of being an insufferable tyrant.  Hooliganism is a pungent tonic and I indulged.  My malaise told me to listen to all my Smiths records back to back and think deeply about all the things I wanted to do with my life but never did.  (Side note: Today I considered moving on to Morrissey’s solo efforts but opted for Air Supply’s power ballads on repeat instead.) For example, when I was a kid I wanted to be one of two things; a drummer or a fancy soap opera actress.  I was fanatical about music videos and always honed in on the drummer.  I wanted to be as hot as Sheila E and as epic as Phil Collins.  The trouble is I lack any kind of coordination and rhythm.  I can barely clap so there you go.  I also grew up watching daytime soaps with my mom in the early 80s.  I would crawl in my Smurf sheets at night, turn my pillow sideways and pretend I was a glamorous actress with an older salt and pepper-haired lover, an oil baron or a billionaire.  I’d gently stroke my fingers in slow deliberate circles pretending it was chest hair, give it suggestive glances, laugh flirtatiously and throw my hair-spray hard hair back while he whispered sweet nothings.  My dreams were lofty.  Hell, they still are.

It has long been my ambition to write a novel.  Now that am sans husband and a fertile future you would think I’d be up for the long arduous task of selfishly devoting my spare time to creative writing.  You know what they say, the sooner you fall behind the longer you’ll have to catch up.  Procrastinate, it’s now or never.  Don’t put it off.  Believe me, I’m trying.  My efforts to date are boldly going nowhere, it may as well be written in crayon. The project, tentatively titled ‘Sugar Rush’ is my creative attempt at collecting a slew of meandering thoughts and molding them into a story.  It’s bloated with clichés and one-dimensional characters who say things like whoop de do and whodunit.  Additionally, I also employ heavy use of ellipsis; suspension points, points of ellipsis or more commonly and colloquially known as dot dot dot.  I use them to build tension but truthfully it’s more because I am unable to finish my sentence and I get stuck, I feel like they make me look artsy and smart.  I don’t want to be one of those novelists who is cynical and believes writing is ten percent inspiration, fifteen percent perspiration and seventy-five percent desperation.  I am a solid achiever, gosh dammit it.  I can do crossword puzzles with my bleeding eyes closed.  The sad limitations of my pea brain, short attention span, a penchant for daydreaming and zest for goofing off all contribute to my raging writer’s block.  And, no matter how much I tell myself I do, I don’t have enough time to waste.

I’ve read a boat load of articles online on how to alleviate the writer’s block.  I’ve tried exercise, hitting the treadmill in my building’s gym but there’s always a group of creepy little kids in the daycare across the hall that stare at me through the glass walls.  It is suggested to schedule a time to write every day.  I could do that but then it would cut into my daily Desperate Housewives DVD marathon.  And believe me, after all that high drama and intrigue, I’m spent.  They always talk about setting deadlines, I assure you, I will be late to my own funeral and I don’t work well under pressure.  I buckle like a pilgrim.  They also say if all else fails, see a shrink.  Negative.  I should be checked for OCD or something though; I am so precious about the smallest things.  My distractions range from fussing with the dish towels hanging on the stove when they are uneven, playing with the small skin tag on my side just under my bra in the hopes that it’ll eventually just fall off, counting the same jar of pennies just because it’s soothing and hiding Grumpy Cat memes on my Facebook newsfeed because it honestly isn’t funny anymore and makes me want to pop a screw.  My new favorite thing lately, to combat both boredom and the creative crud is to watch the goings on in the hallway out of my peephole.  Mine has one of those nifty fisheye lenses so that you can see a wider view from inside but no one can see a thing from the outside.  And thank God for that.  I’d hate to know someone had their face pressed to my front door trying to catch a glimpse of me licking the beaters but its ok for me to monitor my hall as I see fit.  I’m a home-owner.  I’m authorized.

Because of my new favorite pastime I made a discovery.  Get this.  Every Wednesday at 9:30pm, a young buck emerges from Bernie’s apartment.  I have watched now for three weeks and it’s like bloody clockwork.  I know she canoodles with younger stuff and I know she and I are buddies but the thought of them horizontally bopping is horrifyingly offensive, a complete waste.  Strong irrational reaction?  I agree.  I’ve seen her scoop up and throw away some of the finest young male specimens I’ve ever seen.  Why should this dingle dork be any different?  Confession time.  The first time I laid my single eye on him through the peeper I went weak in the knees.   He has a little something something that revs my lady engine.  I wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crackers, that’s for sure.  After the third sighting I had daydreams about doing night things with him, his rushing hands and roaming fingers.  Week four, against my better judgment, I bypass the peeper, follow him down the hall and stand with him to wait for the elevator.  I didn’t plan it or else I wouldn’t have been wearing my fuzzy slippers and a rogue scrunchie I found in a drawer while binge cleaning and blasting Duran Duran.  Kids, I am hungry like a wolf for this guy.  A total shock.  I did not see that coming, it blindsided me just like Trooper’s groupie. The only con is that Bernie has already had her way with him and her joints don’t lock so in that regard I am screwed but the need to encounter him is penetrating.  Our introduction went something like this:

Me: (Imagine me sashaying up beside him looking like the black sheep of The Bangles with a goofy Saturday Night Live smirk on my dimpled face.)  “How’s it going?”  (Imagine me how, with my fidgety hands at my sides, flirtatiously rocking back and forth on my slippered heels.)

Him:  (Imagine a young Brad Pitt circa Thelma and Louise with bright blue eyes and a smile that would curl Helen Keller’s toes.)  “It’s going.  You?” 

Me:  (Imagine me dying to reenact the most manic moments of Beatlemania in two point five seconds when his eyes casually meet mine.)  “You must be a friend of Bernie’s, I’m her neighbor and best bud from across the hall.”  (Imagine me beating myself up inside for the shrill tone of my swoony voice.)

Him:  (Imagine him casually slipping his meaty hands into his jacket pockets and grinning at me.)  “Something like that.”  (Imagine the elevator dinging and the doors sliding open.)  “Going down?”

Me:  (Imagine Madonna’s ‘Like A Virgin’ video, that was the inside of my head.)  “Going down?  What?  Oh!  No.  I was going down to the lobby to check my mail.  I forgot my key.”  (Imagine me patting my non-existent pocket on my pajama pants.)  “I guess I’ll have to go back and get it.  Nice meeting you …”

Him:  (Imagine him stepping into the elevator in slow motion.)  “Hugh Suggs.”  (Oh, that smile.)

Me:  (Imagine me leaning forward on my tippy toes to answer and then hesitate.  Imagine the internal tug of war, me not wanting to reveal my name.)  “They call me Hardscrabble.”

Him:  (Imagine him chuckling.)  “Pleasure.”  (Imagine the elevator doors closing.)

Me:  (Imagine me talking to the closed elevator doors.)  “All mine, Romero.”

I turn to go back to my apartment, my spank bank fully loaded and I come face to face with Bernie, standing at her door, arms folded, patent-leather toe tapping.  I stop dead in my tracks, like a deer caught in the headlights.

Her:  (Imagine her in tight black capris pants and a silky sleeveless blouse giving me the stink eye.)  “What exactly is it you were doing out here, Sugar?”

Me:  (Imagine my face tomato red.)  “Ohhh … I was just … running to check my mail.  Yeah, mail.”

Her:  (Imagine the look on her face suggesting she believes me to be full of beans.)  “Is that right?  And it didn’t have anything to do with the young man that just got on the elevator?”

Me:  (Imagine me trying to buy into my own lie that I’ve told twice now to an untrusting audience.)  “Who?  What young man?  There isn’t anyone out here.”

Her:  (Imagine her shaking her head, her bold fuchsia earrings clacking as they sway.)  “You are a terrible liar.  Baby girl, you are busted. “

Me:  (Imagine me caught and flustered, sighing.)  “Fine, I saw that guy come out of your apartment a few times.  I think he’s … you know … kinda wow.  Doesn’t matter anyway, you’ve already had your way with him but I just wanted to see him up close, that’s all.  I swear.”

Her:  (Imagine her curling her lips into a devilish grin, perfectly lined with clear gloss.)  “Honey, having my way with him would make me a vile despicable woman, I’m adventurous but I draw the line at incest.  He’s my nephew.  Comes over every Wednesday for dinner and a game of crib.”

Me:  (Imagine me speechless.  I know, almost impossible.)  “Oh my God Bernie, I’m sorry.  I just assumed … “

Her:  (Imagine her giving me a touch more stink eye.)  “Never make assumptions, Pussy Cat.  They’ll get you into trouble.”  

Me:  (Imagine me firmly put in my place and then finding my nerve.)  “Got it. So, can you maybe introduce me?”

Her:  (Imagine her lips pursing.)  “Absolutely not.”

It turns out that my delicious crush on Hugh Suggs, Bernie’s hot tamale of a nephew or Suggsy as I have affectionately nicknamed him, lit a wild spark in my imagination and my writing is reaching unexplainable heights in leaps and bounds, completely undermining my persuasive passive aggressive penchant to wallow and stay still in the aforementioned resounding sadness.  I don’t know if it’s because for the first time since my honeymoon I felt a tingle in my triangle or because my tarantism has flared up.  Remember my love of dance?  Definition: tarantism – a disorder characterized by the uncontrollable urge to dance.  Old Word Italians attribute it to the bite of a tarantula.  Suggsy symbolizes my spider, his bite, the catalyst for overcoming my melancholy through the delightful movement of dance, which I love.  And when I feel like dancing, the words do willfully follow.  I scrapped the whole first novel.  Put it in the trash and took a stab at something new.  I it call ‘Project Suggsy’, tenderly.  Bernie refuses to introduce me every single time I ask because she thinks it’s a rebound reaction to my divorce grief.  You can bet your wallet my eye is pressed tight to the peeper every Wednesday night on his arrival and departure.  Beautiful Suggsy.  I also confess that my lust for him ended my new craze of creeping Trooper’s Facebook page.  We aren’t friends or anything anymore but sometimes things show up, mostly profile photos of him with the toothy roller derby blonde or his half-witted overweight best friend who insists everyone call him Meat Loaf, total spaz.  This activity was no more than a weekly installment plan to certain insanity, being privy to bits and pieces of the pointless schemes my ex was caught up in was not good for my mental health but just like a car crash, you can’t help but look.  Rumor has it he’s engaged to the half-wit he cheated on me with, he hasn’t even known his bride a full year yet.  That’s bound to work.  People are inherently stupid, what can I say.  At arm’s length and with total oblivion, Suggsy helps me eulogize my dilapidated marriage and diffuse my need to continually punch myself in my soul.  I also spent a large unredeemed balance on a Victoria Secret gift card Trooper gave to me for our last Valentine’s Day to clothe my beautiful forevers, just in case there’s ever the slight chance Suggsy sees me out of my sweats.  I live for that day.  Oh yes Sir I do.

Yes, when it comes to Suggsy, I am magniloquent.  I can’t help it.  I just know his neck sweat tastes like honey and I will find a way to sneak in a butt-pat when we pass each other by accident in the hall on a random Wednesday night.  I will be discreet.  Bernie will never know.  Although, I would feel guilty for doing something so clandestine behind her back with someone she holds in such high esteem by someone she holds in such high esteem, which would be me by the way.  I know if Suggs could just get to know me, he’d love me.  I’m witty and smart and cute.  Don’t’ forget single.  I could charm him out of his Ray Ban’s in two seconds flat.  No doubt.  But, alas I won’t.  For Bernie.  I’ll respect her wishes and salivate from afar.  Maybe this whole Muse thing real writers talk about is real.  Who woulda thunk? I could have been your girl, Hugh Suggsy Suggs.  Oh, what might have been.  What still could be.  In case you were wondering I just breathed a lengthy longing sigh.

All pursuits are trivial. This much I know is true.

I don’t know guys; I just want to be a woman footnoted by decent writing, strong bones, good teeth and hair that’s less frizzy and more manageable.  It’s true; I am trucking on through some pretty gross stuff; love, betrayal, divorce, demise, malnutrition, alcoholism, and depression to name a few.  I don’t want to be remembered or talked about as the woman who fell apart because she wasn’t smart enough to realize that what doesn’t kill you makes you better.  I deactivated my Facebook account, stopped tweeting and started breathing, well in short little huffs for now until I learn to steady myself a little bit better.  I will still strain for a glimpse at Suggsy on Wednesdays but I won’t go so far as to tattoo his name on my body in Stella lettering but because things happen for a reason, because of the sequence of events that followed my crippling blow to the heart, my existence is no longer debatable.  I get knocked down but I get up again or so the song goes.  (Imagine me planting that cheesy Len song in your ear on purpose. Neener neener.)  I suppose that’s the moral of the story, isn’t it?  Flourishing in the face of adversity. 

I really want to tell you more, about things like my extensive t-shirt collection, my thoughts on God and some other interesting tidbits but I’ve run out of time.  We still have to do the draw for that gizmo, the doodad I promised.  Unfortunately, I broke it.  Sorry.  And I ate the Kit Kat.  However, because I’m progressing so quickly on my novel, lickety split fast, I promise you, lucky wiener, you will receive one of the first edition hardcover copies, signed of course.  I will not sign it, Mrs. Hugh Suggs, cross my heart.  You’ll know it’s from me because it’ll have Hardscrabble scrawled on the inside.  You won’t recognize my pseudonym on the cover.  It’ll either be something like Brandi Swann or Howard Lively.  I haven’t decided if I’m going yin or yang yet, I guess it depends on which direction the story takes me and that is entirely up to the characters.  There is no way Myrtle Mumford will grace the front of my masterpiece.  If the story advances with a muscular tone I’m definitely publishing as Howard but if it takes on a more portentous and self-conscious cool I’ll be Brandi.  It’s as simple as that.  Anyway, I hope you’ll like it.

Thanks for hanging out with me.  You are the bees knees.  They call me Hardscrabble but now you can call me friend.

**

Here it is, my latest.  I still feel like it's a bit of a hot mess but maybe it's because she is. Having said that, I had fun hanging out with her because she's funny, scorned, ambitious and lazy all at once and she possesses the ability to know that despite hardships, we all prevail. I know there are still some edits needed but I thought I would test her in the wind and see how she does.  As with all of my prose pieces, I've said I'm the writer but I'm horrible at being my own editor.  After I read something back a thousand times I am blind to the mistakes etc.  I do enjoy editing to a degree but I don't know I'd quit my day job to do it.

It's FRIDAY!!  I'm going tonight to see Old Crow Medicine Show at the Dirty O with my friends. Should be a great time.  A little bit of rambunctious bluegrass never hurt no one.  I do look forward to sleeping in a little tomorrow though, I'm beat this week. When I do wake up, the warm weather we are experiencing today will move into Saturday making for a perfect summerish day.  I will be stepping out tomorrow night to see The Stanfields at Casino NS. I may even take in the matinee at The Lower Deck. Mmm a cold beer might just be the real ticket.

However you spend your weekend, I hope it's with a happy heart and a smiling face.

In propinquity,

Nic