The Red Hat Society - Belonging

[Doreen Peri]

Amazing! I love this!
Older women who wear red hats and purple dresses and go out to eat!
What's not to like? lol

http://www.redhatsociety.com/info/howitstarted.html?
Maybe that's where I belong. Everybody's gotta belong somewhere, right?

Ever hear of this? Looks like they've got these red hat purple dress ladies all over the world. http://www.redhatsociety.com/news/presscoverage.html

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What is it about human nature that makes people want to "belong" to something? What does belonging do for you?

Don't you hate it when someone puts a word in "quotes" that doesn't belong in quotes? I do.

Tell me about belonging. Where do you belong? And why? How does it make you feel to belong?

What does it make you feel like when you don't feel line you "belong" (or has that ever happened to you)? Damn... there I go again. Quoting a word that doesn't need quoting. Geesh. Gimme a red hat and a purple dress and dinner!



Could I fit into this picture? ha! What picture do you fit into? Where do you belong and why?

[judih]

i'd fit in perfectly in a cut-up mosaic as a part of a portrait of this moment.

(p.s. how do women eat with a hat on...and with feathers? tickle, sneeze)

[stilltrucking]

I used to feel like I belonged, now I am happy just to be tolerated. I
We are one with many faces. We are one biomass with many dreams.

[whimsicaldeb]

What is it about human nature that makes people want to "belong" to something? What does belonging do for you?

Because it's FUN! Social fun.

Get together, hang out, talk, share jokes, gossip, shot the breeze, it's fun!

The red hats and all are the gimmick, the excuse, the "permission slip" to do it ...

S8 is the same thing; all message boards are. The poetry/writings whatever our just our excuses, reasons for getting together, hanging out, talking, sharing jokes (and photos and poems), shooting the breeze, talking.

Belonging, being part of something is fun, feels good and fulfilling.

Don't you hate it when someone puts a word in "quotes" that doesn't belong in quotes? I do.

~laughing~
No, because ---(!) --- I do it all the time!

[Diana Moon Glampers]

Good answer, WD,
"Fun
Hot dog bun
My sisters a nun" JP

What have I belonged to?

I used to belong to the international brother hood of teamsters. Or as it was better know among the
Initiates _The International Motherhood of Brother fukers.

The Religious Society Of Friends . aka Quakers. but lately I been attending the Religious Society of Ducks aka Quackers. Dick Cheney is a member, and he made me an offer I could not refuse.

I used to belong to a high school fraternity our chapter song " you got to be from Theta Epsilon. if you want to get the girls who will pet ‘

I would like to belong to The Procrastinators' Club but you know how that goes.

Secrete women societies no none of those but I read Margaret Mead's Blackberry Winter and the insight into how women think about men

It sounded fair to me.

[Arcadia]

God save the red/purple Queens!
I both enjoyed and also suffered for the idea/fact that I belonged to something (not at the same time and sometimes at the same time). When there was conflict, the good thing is that at the same time I belonged to different things (groups, organizations, institutions, etc), so conflicts had the chance to disipate, or re/focus in the other places.
Sometimes it didn't happened that way and the idea of an isolated island was good. For a little time. But I never could be member of a politic party. I always felt the idea claustrophobic in some way...

[Doreen Peri]

http://members.tripod.com/~Labyrinth_3/page59.html

Warning - When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple
By Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple
with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired
and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
and run my stick along the public railings
and make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
and pick the flowers in other people's gardens
and learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
and eat three pounds of sausages at a go
or only bread and pickles for a week
and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.
 
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
and pay our rent and not swear in the street
and set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

[mousey1]

I so love this poem! Thanks for sharing it Doreen.

When I am an old woman I shall wear polka dots
and gaudily coloured floweredy dresses
I shall live on toast and cheesecake
I shall spout nonsensical wisdom
and sit loudly in the corner
and guffaw at everything
When I am an old woman I shall not give a damn
about noses in the air
stiff disapproving looks
I'll let my stomach hang out
and my double chin sag
and I'll act like a Queen
though I'll look like a hag

ah...the freedom that comes with age!

Oh...and a cane...I must have a cane...so I can poke everyone with it and then cackle maniacally...while smoking cigars and sipping on Brandy.

[firsty]

i'm ashamed to know this, but didnt that oprah twit maya angeloo-hoo write something like that? when i'm an old woman i'll do something crazy?

[Doreen Peri]

I liked the poem, too, mousey1, and I like this, too!

"I'll let my stomach hang out
and my double chin sag
and I'll act like a Queen
though I'll look like a hag "

heh... and I'll drink brandy with ya!

________

firsty, says right there that this poem is by Jenny Joseph.

I'm not familiar with Maya Angelou's work so I have no clue if she wrote something similar. I also don't think she's a "twit." I think it's pretty darn cool that a poet can actually make a living at poetry! I admire her.

[firsty]

i know what it says. i'm prolly wrong about it, just reminds me of something i'd heard before.

[Doreen Peri]

OK. I just googled looking for a similar poem by Maya Angelou and I didn't find one but I did find "The International *I Hate Maya Angelou* BlogRing." If you're interested, firsty, do a google for it! heh

[bohonato]

The Red Hats are extremely popular around here among elderly ladies. They're extremely rude, too.

And the red and purple makes me want to cry.

[e_dog]

i'm no fan of maya angelou but i think, frankly, that "hate" would be a bit extreme, no?

best to reserve hatred for those who deserve it -- such as George W. Bush. or express your disapproval of his poet laureates (if you insist on hating poets) (as opposed to Clinton's poet laureates like Maya (?)) or for that matter (sorry, Zlatko) Ezra Pound.

in any event, the red hat purple dress network is a sleeping giant terrorist plot. they will rise up swinging their pocketbooks and take over the world. mark my words. be very afraid.

[stilltrucking]

"girls
they wanna have fu-un."

"you can leave your hat on."