Thought for the day - October 1, 2000

Subject: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 01:07 AM

Jenny kiss'd Me

Jenny kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your lisrt, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss'd me.

- Leigh Hunt - (1784-1859)

from the 1900 edition of the Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250-1900

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: Mbo
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 01:11 AM

Thanks so much for posting this, kat. This poem always makes me cry.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: Rich(bodhránai gan ciall)
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 01:15 AM

Today is my birthday. That has nothing to do with the thought for the day but I thought I'd post it all the same.

Slán agat,
Rich

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 01:21 AM

Hey! Rich!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

If you let Pene Azul know, he can list it in the Mudcat Resources and we won't miss it, next year.**BG**

Mbo, glad you like the poem. Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: Mbo
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 01:26 AM

Reminds me a bit of a song from Collin Raye:

"If it all falls apart, I will know deep in my heart
That the only dream that mattered had come true
In this life, I was loved by you..."

And the way my situation is going, it means a whole lot to me...

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: Catrin
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 06:50 AM

Kat - I love this one. Its so simple and it reminds us all that no matter what pain we have had in our lives, there is beauty and joy as well.

Thank you

Catrin

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 07:11 AM

Nice poem kat,
It kind of reminds me of the dream I had last night but it wasn't a Jenny, it was a Benny in my dreams.

Benny kiss'd me
Benny kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair he sat in

Well that is about the only respectable part of my dream I would like to post here.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: Naemanson
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 09:29 AM

Similar to a song Gordon Bok recorded:

I HELD A LADY

I held a lady, O laddie daddie
I held a lovely red haired girl,
I held a lady, O laddie daddie
I held a lovely red haired girl,

I know that she was warm
For I held her and touched her
I held her so long
It was lovely holding her against my body

I see her laughing I see her smiling
I feel her arms around me
From morning when sun is shining
Till evening even when night is falling down
All down the calling way Calling yo ho young lady
For you red haired lady
Laddie daddie diddle a daddle diddle lady

O I remember, how I remember, Old days when I was young days
When I held a lady o laddie daddie
I held a lovely red haired girl,
Old days are dead and gone days
A light in the morning A light in the sun
Laddie daddie diddle a daddle diddle lady

Red lips that love at my lips are hard
And thighs hips and legs and eyes lips
Away in the dawning, day laddies dawning
I looks along the old road.
And old Sally Noggin bog road
Where I held a lady
Where I held a lady lovely yadin daddin
Diddly adden diddin didden lady

O I remember how I remember
Old days when I was young days
When I held a lady O laddie daddie
I held a lovely red haired girl
Old days are dead and gone days
Alive in the morning, Alive in the sun
Laddie daddie diddle a daddle diddle lady

I started singing it when a "lovely red haired girl" came into my life and quit singing it when she said we would only be friends. In the original version the girl has brown hair but I felt comfortable adjusting the words to fit the woman.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: Mbo
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 10:36 AM

Beautiful, Brett. I had the EXACT same experience early this year, down to the hair color. But that's all in the past now. I've moved on.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: Peter T.
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 11:29 AM

Nice coincidence, kat. I discovered yesterday a brand new edition of Carlyle's Reminiscences (Oxford U.P.) that has put back in all the material that was taken out by the editors in the first editions after Carlyle's death. His descriptions of his life with Jane are beautiful and heart-wrenching.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: tar_heel
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 01:16 PM

SANDYTOES KISSED ME!!!!!

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: flattop
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 01:35 PM

Slap her down Chuck! You can't have that happening on October 1st! Guys like you give musicians a bad name.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: flattop
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 01:38 PM

Interesting dream, Bonnie. As Bob Dylan said in Talking World War Three Blues, if you let me into your dreams I'll let you into mine.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: Naemanson
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 06:27 PM

Yeah, Matt, we've moved on too but we are still friends. She's coming to visit this weekend and we'll share a few laughs and some songs.

I hope you were able to do the same.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: Mbo
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 06:49 PM

Yes, we salvaged a friendship in the end. Never got to share and music (or really anything) with her. But she's moved on in her own life now. I haven't heard from her in a long while, but it's just as well. It would be best for both of us if we completely forgot each other. Well, you know what they say "ob la di, ob lad da, life goes on, braaaah, la la how the life goes on."

--Matt

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: flattop
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 08:22 PM

Even though I'm a tea drinking Cape Bretoner who can't stand the taste of Coffee, one of my favourite short stories is Richard Brautigan's Coffee. Someone has been kind enough to include it on a web page.

Coffee by Richard Brautigan

Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee affords.

I once read something about coffee. The thing said that coffee is good for you; it stimulates all the organs.

I thought at first this was a strange way to put it, and not altogether pleasant, but as time goes by I have found out that it makes sense in its own limited way. I'll tell you what I mean.

Yesterday morning I went over to see a girl. I like her. Whatever we had going for us is gone now. She does not care for me. I blew it and wish I hadn't.

I rang the door bell and waited on the stairs. I could hear her moving around upstairs. The way she moved I could tell that she was getting up. I had awakened her.

Then she came down the stairs. I could feel her approach in my stomach. Every step she took stirred my feelings and lead indirectly to her opening the door. She saw me and it did not please her.

Once upon a time it pleased her very much, last week. I wonder where it went, pretending to be naive.

"I feel strange now," she said. "I don't want to talk."

"I want a cup of coffee," I said, because it was the last thing in the world that I wanted.

I said it in such a way that it sounded as if I were reading her a telegram from somebody else, a person who really wanted a cup of coffee, who cared about nothing else.

"All right," she said.

I followed her up the stairs. It was ridiculous. She had just put some clothes on. They had not quite adjusted themselves to her body. I could tell you about her ass. We went into the kitchen.

She took a jar of instant coffee off the shelf and put it on the table.

She placed a cup next to it, and a spoon. I looked at them. She put a pan full of water on the stove and turned the gas on under it.

All this time she did not say a word. Her clothes adjusted themselves to her body. I won't. She left the kitchen.

Then she went down the stairs and outside to see if she had any mail. I didn't remember seeing any. She came back up the stairs and went into another room. She closed the door after her. I looked at the pan full of water on the stove.

I knew that it would take a year before the water started to boil. It was now October and there was too much water in the pan. That was the problem. I threw half of the water into the sink.

The water would boil faster now. It would take only six months.
The house was quiet.

I looked out the back porch. There were sacks of garbage there. I stared at the garbage and tried to figure out what she had been eating lately by studying the containers and peelings and stuff. I couldn't tell a thing.

It was now March. The water started to boil. I was pleased by this.

I looked at the table. There was the jar of instant coffee, the empty cup and the spoon all laid out like a funeral service. These are the things that you need to make a cup of coffee.

When I left the house ten minutes later, the cup of coffee safely inside me like a grave, I said, "Thank you for the cup of coffee."

"You're welcome," she said. Her voice came from behind a closed door. Her voice sounded like another telegram. It was really time for me to leave.

I spent the rest of the day not making coffee. It was a comfort. And evening came, I had dinner in a restaurant and went to a bar. I had some drinks and talked to some people.

We were bar people and said bar things. None of them remembered, and the bar closed. It was two o'clock in the morning. I had to go outside. It was foggy and cold in San Francisco. I wondered about the fog and felt very human and exposed.

I decided to go visit another girl. We had not been friends for over a year. Once we were very close. I wondered what she was thinking about now.

I went to her house. She didn't have a door bell. That was a small victory. One must keep track of all the small victories. I do, anyway.

She answered the door. She was holding a robe in front of her. She didn't believe that she was seeing me. "What do you want?" she said, believing now that she was seeing me. I walked right into the house.

She turned and closed the door in such a way that I could see her profile. She had not bothered to wrap the robe completely around herself. She was just holding the robe in front of herself.

I could see an unbroken line of body running from her head to her feet. It looked kind of strange. Perhaps because it was so late at night.

"What do you want?" she said.

"I want a cup of coffee," I said. What a funny thing to say, to say again for a cup of coffee was not what I really wanted.

She looked at me and wheeled slightly on the profile. She was not pleased to see me. Let the AMA tell us that time heals. I looked at the unbroken line of her body.

"Why don't you have a cup of coffee with me?" I said. "I feel like talking to you. We haven't talked for a long time."

She looked at me and wheeled slightly on the profile. I stared at the unbroken line of her body. This was not good.

"It's too late," she said. "I have to get up in the morning. If you want a cup of coffee, there's instant in the kitchen. I have to go to bed."

The kitchen light was on. I looked down the hall into the kitchen. I didn't feel like going into the kitchen and having another cup of coffee by myself. I didn't feel like going to anybody else's house and asking them for a cup of coffee.

I realized that the day had been committed to a very strange pilgrimage, and I had not planned it that way. At least the jar of instant coffee was not on the table, beside an empty white cup and a spoon.

They say in the spring a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love.

Perhaps if he has enough time left over, his fancy can even make room for a cup of coffee.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 09:16 PM

Thanks flattop, that was a great story. I enjoyed it very much.

Bonnie

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: flattop
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 09:38 PM

You're welcome Bonnie. Now how about those dreams? Dylan also dealt with the feeling for the one left behind and putting a good face on the hurt. It hurts and hurts and hurts. You probably didn't know that. We have gone a distance from kat's original posting.

If You See Her, Say Hello
(Words and Music by Bob Dylan)

If you see her, say hello, she might be in Tangier
She left here last early spring, is livin' there, I hear
Say for me that I'm all right though things get kind of slow
She might think that I've forgotten her, don't tell her it isn't so.

We had a falling-out, like lovers often will
And to think of how she left that night, it still brings me a chill
And though our separation, it pierced me to the heart
She still lives inside of me, we've never been apart.

If you get close to her, kiss her once for me
I always have respected her for busting out and gettin' free
Oh, whatever makes her happy, I won't stand in the way Though the bitter taste still lingers on from the night I tried to make her stay.

I see a lot of people as I make the rounds
And I hear her name here and there as I go from town to town
And I've never gotten used to it, I've just learned to turn it off
Either I'm too sensitive or else I'm gettin' soft.

Sundown, yellow moon, I replay the past
I know every scene by heart, they all went by so fast
If she's passin' back this way, I'm not that hard to find
Tell her she can look me up if she's got the time.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 09:54 PM

When a man finds the words to express his broken heart, it has such an impact on me. Much more than when a woman is expressing hers. Not too sure why it affects me so much except maybe because it can be more difficult for a man to verbalize his feelings than a woman.

As for my dreams, well.... it is the kind of thing that loses something when verbalized.

Bonnie

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: flattop
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 10:10 PM

Perhaps it's because men try to avoid weeping. I really like the line: She might think that I've forgotten her, don't tell her it isn't so.

The man thing may be training, may be something else. There's an essay in the book Marginal Natives, Anthropologists at Work, where an anthropologist follows Mohawks from southern Quebec around to see why they take most of the work on top of skyscrapers. The anthropologist discovered that the men didn't enjoy falling to their deaths off of tall buildings but that they were trapped in a little culture that made them pretend that they were not afraid. Sometimes it might help if we boys just admitted that it hurt like hell, shed a tear or two, and made better decisions.

I don't want your dreams to lose a thing. Could you play them on the banjo instead?

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 09:45 AM

And I always heard that line as GO tell her it isn't so... wow, how different...

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: tar_heel
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 11:54 PM

sorry FLATTOP.........i dont slap women........only cowards do that!....talk about giving someone a bad name???

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: flattop
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 12:37 AM

Yeah, the men may be mumbling things that you don't expect Mrrzy.

And Chuck, you're taking my message a little too literally.

Since you brought it up, what are the rules of engagement? What if she is much bigger than I am and she tries to kiss me? How do I fend her off? What if she's bigger and stronger than me and likely to beat the crap out of me, wouldn't it be cowardly to not slap her and get the thrashing that I so richly deserve?

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: tar_heel
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 03:16 PM

wow!!!testy aren't we,flattopp????

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: flattop
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 04:13 PM

Very mellow, not testy at all at the moment Chuck. We have a beautiful sunny fall day out here by the lake. So I'll have to work after dark.

However, you answered my question with a question. Where am I going to turn for guidance in this mixed up world if Chuck won't give me a straight answer?

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - October 1, 2000
From: flattop
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 04:18 PM

And what do you think of that kat, Chuck? I see on the past lives thread that she was beaten, raped and drowned by a crew of hairy assed pirates, and yet, the kat keeps on laughing. Talk about nine lives. What a trooper! Didn't they make a Disney movie about it?