“Hey taxi!…”where ya wanna go?” To the edge of course!

Oh-k.  But what does the fine print say?  Always with the fine print. What is up with that?  Why is the important, potentially scary stuff always relegated to the bottom of the page in that teeny, tiny print? 

Alright, so you read the post title, maybe you listened to or are listening to the musical selection.  Pretty obvious, eh?  Moving.  Leaving.  Changing.  Altering.  Evolving.  True.  True.  True.  True and true.  (yawn – gimme something else…some thing)

What are the life changing moments/events portrayed in movies that catapult the main character/protagonist into action?  Are they ever good moments/events?  No!  Of course not!  Is there always a happy ending?  Right again!  No, there isn’t always a happy ending.  Yet that doesn’t keep people from making one last ditch effort at (fill in the blank)

Was in the library recently and decided to see if there might be a movie or two worth checking out.  Being the weekend, the selection was pretty much picked over.  Until my eyes fell upon Everything Must Go.  Huh.  That’s what I’ve been thinking lately.  Pulled it off the shelf and saw that Will Ferrell was on the cover.  (Not a favorite although I did like him very much in the film Stranger Than Fiction.)  Started reading the front cover first instead of my usual flip to the back.  I was highly suspect of the single line reviews:  “Sharply funny”  or the other one “A real gem”

Look at the front cover, flip it over, read the plot synopsis and then tell me how in the world this movie is a comedy?  According to the Detroit News:  “Everything Must Go is an unflinching comedy about what happens after life falls apart.”   Where is the humor part of that again?  Quick, get me some of what they’re smoking at the Detroit News and maybe I can find humor in losing your job,coming home to find your wife has thrown you and your stuff out on the front lawn(same day) taken up with your sponsor/friend, falling off the wagon trying to drink it all out of focus…..  Or any of all the other ”personal challenges” that accompany timeline deconstruction.  No.  No mind altering substance can convince me of the humor of such things.  This is not to say that humor cannot be found within those places.  Totally different thing.   But I digress. 

I’ve always been pretty good at sizing people up (a common clarklike trait), analyzin’ and dramatizin’ (long live the Lady! that in and of itself is saying something, trust me on that one!).  But what good is ”suss-sight” in reality, in practical terms?  It may head off a con man, an insincere lover, a fairweather friend perhaps but really what are the practical, self applications?  Can I suss out my own damn self?  Of course fool, of course.

In support and endorsement of it, I will restate for the record, that the Wakefield Doctrine is proving an invaluable tool of late.  For many, life’s journey is pretty straightforward.  A more or less uncomplicated, road trip with decent maps.  For others, the Rand McNally was left behind - on the kitchen table or worse yet on top of the vehicle.  Bummer!  The trip is bound to veer off on a few unauthorized exits.  Shit happens, right?  

Here’s the deal.  The Doctrine tells us that we all view life through the lens of/ experience reality as, predominantly a clark, scott or roger.  Whatever your predominant bias, there always remains the ability to see/experience the world as a scott or a roger would.   As a clark, this can be an asset on the (neverending) road trip when the maps were stupidly (or is that intentionally?) left on the coffee table or more accurately, under the pile of books and magazines stacked on the bedside table.  

(“any readers left? 1? good enuf”)  The purpose of this ramble-ette today?  Restating outloud my sincere intent to alter my timeline* when everything seemingly points to disaster.  Why?  As an example of the efficacy of the Wakefield Doctrine of course!  Besides, I have been languishing in a non creative, dusty draft hell for weeks.  Quick! Someone, anyone get me a broom stat!.**

* make sure kids when you attempt this thing you are in good physical shape. trust me   on this one
**reference to cleaning one’s island, the tonal as Juan would say    

Nowhere near the edge…of completion

No, I am not talking football. (Like I ever doubted that my team would lose.)  I’m talking about myself.  You know, the project that never seems to get finished.  Gets put to the side every now and then, coasts a little when it should be toiling steadily towards the fnish line.  But then, who can know where/when the finish line is? 

“So where does this leave a person such as myself?”  That is to say, a clark?  Thanks to the Wakefield Doctrine, I have been introduced to other clarks who are rather active on the internet in the form of blogs and such.  They have provided me a source of inspiration and encouragement that we like people really can exist “out there” even if “out there” is as expansive a place as is the space that surrounds us all.

The first clark I made contact with “out there”, via another clark, is one Seven Ravens.  Not unclarklike, she is also known as Molly M.  You can visit her by clicking on her site listed to the right on my blogroll or you can find her at the FaceBook.  Coincidentally, she is also a proponent of the Wakefield Doctrine.  She read, realized and understood.  But then she is a clark after all. 

At this juncture, perhaps I need to restate that I, GirlieOnTheEdge, am a clark.  I do this, I recapitulate that which I find obvious, so that there is no misunderstanding as to how I view the world – what reality it is I am experiencing.  Some of you know that of late I have been on a “journey” of my own.  A journey of self – development, (self) evolution and the like, involving all sorts of “analyzin’ and dramatizin” (it’s the Lady Molly. it’s the Lady).  It is a sort of selves-actualization if I may cannibalize  a term (only) from Maslow and co. 

And there is Clairepeek.  Here’s where it gets a little interesting for me.  LOL.  Claire has been referencing the Wakefield Doctrine in some of her recent posts.   Claire you see,  is a clark.  That’s the cool part.  Someone “out there” in cyberspace,  on an entirely different continent is writing/creating/contributing all the while acknowledging just as publicly that she is a clark.  I recently left a comment at Claire’s  January 13, 2012 Wordy World post commisserating with her in what she was going through…you know, clark to clark. You can imagine my surprise, when I read her response to my comment.*  Check it out:

“Thanks Downspring#1
First of all… I need to say this because you need – as a roger – to understand the   motivation behind what I (and I think as any clark-like person would)”

(In my comment to Claire) I could not have referenced myself as a clark too many more times without being totally redundant, so what exactly happened?  Claire read my response and “saw” a roger.  But did she?  Claire is known in some circles as an “FOTD” which = “Friend of the Doctrine” (The Wakefield Doctrine).  Why? Because she has demonstrated on more than one occaision through her comments her understanding of the premise underlying The Wakefield Doctrine.  Which is why I was confused.  How could she think me a roger when in fact I flat out made the statement that I was a clark?  I can only assume she was reading my comment/words and getting a sense of something “not clarklike“.  It was not my intention to don a rogerian suit when I headed over to Claire’s “house” however.  I am perplexed…..(“tell me Vivian (as in Westwood), what went wrong?”)

* Over at the Wakefield Doctrine I am known as Downspring#1

To be decided at an edgier time…

Talk about walkin’ the edge.  There are times when the lines are so blurred how does a body know for sure?  How do you know when you’ve crossed the demarcation line?   

“I woke up fine so I told myself today
 there are no problems chance of ricochet
 It is not certain it isn’t always clear
 All I know is I won’t accept the fear

 Walking blindly I found myself alone
 there were no signs no little stepping stones
 With which to guide me I stumbled then I fell
 Who knew the edge could send me straight to hell

 I woke up fine so I told myself today
 there are no problems chance of ricochet
 It is not certain it isn’t always clear
 All I know is I won’t accept the fear

…….

The journey’s far from over or complete
There still remains for some a front row seat
If you have the patience and a little time
Then walk with me across that moving line”
(©GirlieOnTheEdge)

The excerpt above?  Just tryin’ something out.  Storytelling  through blog, poetry or song lyrics (“whadya think? country? blues? pop? not sure what musical direction to go”) is supposed to be cathartic.  That’s all well and good but unless there is a definitive outcome as a result, then what’s the point?  Spur of the moment words almost always do not emanate from spur of the moment events or emotion, therefore catharsis should result in something.

“Something!?” How very vague, so very clarklike of me to end this post with such ambiguity.  Ambiguity has such a bad rap.  It really shouldn’t.  It is my humble opinion that leaving as many doors open allows for as many thresholds to be crossed.  What’s wrong with that?     

Hung over at the Edge Cafe…

What the fuck is up with that, huh?!  Suffice it to say that at this very moment, both post and accompanying vid have a pointed significance pour moi.

…go ahead…they’ll wait…(like hell they will)….reach wa-a-ay in there and rip out some shit and throw it on up….they’re waiting Girlie and let’s face it, they’re not going to wait forever…

Trust.  Risk.  Persistence.  Self-awareness.  Urgency.  Denial.  Sympathy.  Patience.  Longing.  Realization.  Accomplishment.  Success.  Complement. (not to be confused with “compliment“)

I am able to write and launch into cyberspace any thought, any emotion.  It is for me, controlled folly.  Yes, I reference Don Juan.  His statement to Carlos regarding life is that , as a warrior, everything he does must be controlled folly.  That is to say nothing really matters, nothing is important.  

DJ to CC:  …“It’s possible to insist, to properly insist, even though we know that what we’re doing is useless”, he said, smiling.  “But we must know first that our acts are useless and yet we must proceed as if we didn’t know it…” 1

Moving forward is about will.  Will is about choice.  Remove the importance to a thing and remove the chain that binds.  Freedom comes when all things are equal, when all is everything and nothing at the same time.

1.  A Separate Reality, Further Conversations with Don Juan,      
      by Carlos Castaneda

I’ll burn the edge of the sky….line…..

In my next life, the timeline just around the corner I am going to have my computer facing out a window or patio door.  At this very moment, the sun is attempting to burn through the horizon.  The striations of grapefruit pink are melding with a golden hue that will eventually become the sunrise.  Added to that is the special winter mix of clouds that coalesce in clumpy, cotton ball formations.  Until the dawn starts pulling them apart, melting like cotton candy when it hits your mouth.

I didn’t write a Christmas post and I’m not going to write a New Year’s post.  My new year has already begun.  Long have I considered the day after Christmas to be the first day of the New Year.  Christmas for this Girlie serves holiday double duty.  It is special for all the reasons that Christmas is for me but it also represents/serves/stands in for New Year’s Eve.

So.  “What have I done so far in my new year?”  Not enough!  And there is no excuse!  As Downspring#1, (I am also found at  The Wakefield Doctrine, aka the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers), my contributions speak to the efficacy of  the Wakefield Doctrine.  Therefore, I have no excuse for not employing the single most useful tool anyone could ever have to alter one’s life, ne, one’s timeline.  It won’t be  easy, it won’t be a cakewalk, and it won’t move my mountain in a day.  But it’s not impossible. (Shit!  Think I just committed to something scary just then.  Maybe no one will notice? Quick – start the next paragraph.)

….er, ahem….just a sec…..where was I…..          I might as well admit that more ofen than not, this little blog thing I have going is, for all intents and purposes, a sounding board for myself.  Yeah, I know, yet another self indulging/self indulgent outloud, look at me now journal.  But not quite.  Ya see, as a clark in process (self analyzin’, dramatizin’, evoluting, non-polluting member of the werld at large), it is incumbent upon me to step aside and outside myself and lay claim to the statement, “yes Virginia you can alter timelines.”  More importantly, I am making a statement outside my own (damn) head from which I cannot hide.  I cannot retract the statement and I cannot crawl away in fearful failure.  There is no alternative to success.

Having said that, think I’m gonna make like a scott and skeedaddle. Just going to “do” today.  See what I can drum up.  You know what they say –  “if you’re not moving forward you are moving backward”.   Not going to think too much, not going to reminisce on things.  No sir!  My brain will be front and center, looking outward (and up in the trees) at all times.  Don’t worry….I’ll try and keep the carnage to a minimum and check back in again in a few days…

 

Topsy, turvey, and tottering on the edge of fashun…

Back by popular demand?  LOL  I cannot figure it.  Ever since it’s first publication on 5-7-11,  there is consistent activity at Girlie’s post, “Turquoise tube tops and the edge of oblivion…”.  For the last 4 weeks there has been a singular hit each and every week.  Of all the many, many posts gone by, this one is consistently viewed, albeit on a somewhat irregular, regular basis.  I ask myself: “why this one and not another?” (actually, there is one other - keep reading).  Give me a minute will you while I conjure those words for a mini review.  BRB.  In the meantime, relax, listen to some music.  This won’t take long….

First things first:  Girlie does not, repeat does not wear a tube top of any kind, of any color.  (hint on the fashion front: only Elvis could get away with the rhinestone jumpsuit. Only Elvis.)  Girlie’s sister postette from  7-8-11,”Turqoise tube tops and the edge of…..” is also viewed with the same irregular regularity. 

So nuggets to nuts, I went and re-read both posts and checked the stats.  Despite more comments on the redux version, the original was still viewed more times.  It was in the original where I was trying to convince myself that if I was viewed/seen/thought of as being a tad on the, shall we say, “different” side, then it was due to a cultural difference. “Yeah, sure.  Whatever you want to tell yourself.”

“To change one’s frame of reference is not to say that “who” we are changes.  A clark* in Virginia is still a clark* in Florida, a scott* in Rhode Island is still a scott* in Idaho and a roger* in South Carolina is still a roger* in New Mexico.” 

[Got it.  The theory of clarks, scotts and rogers is gender and culture neutral.]

Flash forward to follow-up TTT post.  Huh, thought it would be heavy with life altering shit….wait.  It was because it referenced however lightly, my attempt at a script re-write, my ongoing attempt at altering life at will.  This, within context of  being a clark who, to be honest, is both a huge advantage and disadvantage all at the same time.  Let’s face it.  The odds at getting a new script taken seriously are huge .  

“Enough!”  Lets’ move this thing along already…!”  What is this post about? What is the point? Does fashion of any sort have a bearing on this conversation? Are you sure clarklike females can be considered fashionable?  Is this post simply about plugging the Wakefield Doctrine? (well, why not – it’s only the single most useful tool in the Universe with which to alter/build/and repair one’s life. who said self-development/evolution can’t be fun!)

Speaking of fun, I’m finished here.  Need to go and work on the other post, the new one that’s been sitting in queue.  So in case you find yourself grumbling a little for having spent the time to read my post today, this one’s for you. 

walkin’ or talkin’ edge – there is a difference

“Yes, yes you there….and uh, you….walk a bit with me…..

I know you find me a bit different - such is the nature of a clark but let go of that for a minute and allow yourself to be lead somewhere else.  Somewhere whose source does not emanate from a cell phone or web site.  See, that’s the point.  I cannot deny my origins and  those origins are pre-techno.  (no, no! not techno as in music/dance!). 

Despite, my outward appearance, I am in fact a 30 something or other.  Chronological aging stopped somewhere early 30′s.  My body progresses towards the inevitable although I must say I weigh less than I did when I was in my 30′s.  Go figure. (no pun intended) Yes, yes, I do undertand this is not the first time I speak of chronological vs. “mental” age.  Somewhere in the annals here (don’t even think about it LB!) is reference to an article (over at Hub pages) penned by the author of The Wakefield Doctrine.

Yup.  That’s where I’m going with this.  Sort of.  “Here….maybe we should sit right over… here“.

I find myself floating above and traveling over things lately.  In that Crouching Tiger sort of way….difficult to describe.  Even if you are not familiar with more recent martial art films than CTHD, I am sure you catch my drift here.  

It should come as no surprise to my regular readers that this Girlie has been sometimessharing her own “path towards enlightenment” within these cyber walls.  With the power that comes from understanding the Wakefield Doctrine (more completely) comes the power to understand self,  and one’s place in the world (in relation to all those rampaging scotts and circling?/circles of rogers!).  This is the easy part.  The preliminaries if you will. 

When I attempt to write of more philosophic/metaphysical, as the scotts like to call it, ”sleep inducing psycho-babble”, I find myself faltering.  How do I bypass the abstract clarklike shit and express in a  John Q Public kind of way (can you say rogerian?) the notion of “seeing the world” through another’s eyes.  In this instance, not the view of the world of a clark, scott or roger necessarily but rather through the eyes of the generation that is now -  the eyes of youth who know not what it was like to not have a cell phone or computer attached to their person.  Through the eyes of an individual who used a pen or pencil to write….on paper, who relied upon phone booths if there was a breakdown on the highway late at night.  This is not as easy as you think.  I’m aware of all the gadgets available (most of them) and I am in awe. This very statement places me in that other generation.  The one before. 

Suffice it to say and in spite of what I said, I find it most excellent that communication, education and any other “cation” is virtually at one’s fingertips – that in fact, we can live a virtual world.  I struggle verbalizing my generational awareness….hang on for a second. (I believe it was one Mr.  A. G. Bell who first uttered those words to a certain Mr. Gray and then ran straight over to the patent office.  We all know how that ended!)  I don’t mean to infer that I prefer a virtual world, but damn if I don’t enjoy it every once and awhile… 

Is there an edge to the bottom? Damn right!

Excuse me….still a little somnobulistic yet – 2nd round comin’ up.  As far as coffee goes there is definately a last call.  Brb with second and final of the glorius go go juice…

So where was I? Lost the thread again (note to self: get bigger needle).  It must be the same for many of you writing people.  As soon as your head has been invaded by another person’s voice (for more than a minute or 2 that is), it becomes next to impossible to weave/sew/knit what might have been a toasty little sweater or scarf or mittens or in my case, a little doily.  Yeah, I said doily.  Victorian, antiquated. Kinda like me.  Dammit!  Had some nifty shit a little earlier.  So what do I talk about now!!!

Alright…..last night’s dream elements/objects:  very, very nice Lincoln Continental similar to what Big used to ride around in, only white; yachts of various sizes; church/retail building; and, of course, the obligatory scary characters of the human kind.  The last thing I remember before the alarm started ringing was that I was telling a friend of mine (from another lifetime/timeline) that if she got tired and couldn’t tread anymore she could/should float.  Enter yacht, sitting in, not so much the ocean, more like a bay - far enough from shore that if you decided you could swim to it (the shore),  it would take an hour or two.  If you didn’t get eaten by ocean prey meandering into the bay first that is. (it’s a dream so naturally there are all sorts of sea monsters lurking just beneath the surface. lol)

Yeah, yeah.  I get the dream interp. 101 about the floating, blah, blah and blah.  What I always, always wonder is if there is anyone reading that interprets elements herein the way I do. The aforementioned sweater vs. doily for example.    

My friend Lunchbox Lenny…let’s give a big hello to Lunchbox!!….would read this and think “get offa your ass Girlie and stop indulging. Don’t be a drudge!  Gestaldt the damn limo, yacht, water…and that fucking doily.” (see, Lunchbox Lenny l-u-v-s saying that word (in this case I refer to “doily”.    Something about the different, funny ways you can say it.  Oh, and the kinds of words you can rhyme with it.  

Damn, the sun is now well over the horizon which means it is time for me to stop.  If I cannot write a post before the sun rises then I don’t write a post.  That’s the thing.  Words for me come best at dawn, before the light of day streams through and shines light upon them and reveals…

The edge of madness that is black friday

Greetings.  I suppose it had to happen. My public admission that I have become not only my parents but the grandparents I never knew. (“would they be proud of me? whatever”).  Yes, I know I have claimed to have ceased watching the news and/or news programs but not in the absolute, never, I swear upon my all of my dead relatives’ grave, sort of way.  So that is why, today, this stupidist of days, Black Friday, I just viewed the Buzz people listing the top toy gifts for boys and girls.  AAGH!  I hate the apple people. I hate’em.  Tell me what is wrong with actual crayons?  Have I missed the news broadcast in which it was revealed by undercover journalists that Crayola has been using carcinogenic properties in the making of their crayons?! Whaat? It is stupid and sad and totally stupid (“I said that already?”) There is this new thing called the I Marker that is used on an I Pad (“yes, I know it’s spelled with a small i. again. whatever”). You “color” with the marker on the screen. Tell me, someone, how this can be fun.  Is it not enough that kids nowadays can use a Crayola gizmo and melt down their old crayons, or new ones for that matter, to create their own special colors?  Or use crayons that will glow in the dark?  Never had those when I was a kid.  How cool is that?  So here’s my favorite (not): the Cars app for the I Pad in which you have an actual little car that you, (get this), race around on a track on the stupid I Pad?  Um, you all know what’s wrong with that picture.  If you click on this vid here [you tube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXV-yaFmQNk] you will see our future, well actually, you see present day.  Pity the child who does not know, will not know the magic of a book.  Not the words in the book, but the holding of an actual book with a binding, with pages that have texture, that if you are lucky have a smell of history and nostalgia.  Alex over at Extreme Writing  feels the same as does Molly of Seven Ravens fame. We had a brief discussion a coupla Saturdays ago on The Wakefield Doctrine Saturday night drive call-in show about the demise of the artifact known as a book. 

Think I will start buying books again.  Think I will start frequenting the used book stores again.  Who remembers the wonder of  being able to stop time  by simply walking through the doors of a Barnes and Noble or if you are lucky a store of the magnitude that is the Harvard Coop in Cambridge, MA? (“Is it still called that?”)  Books.  Magazines. Prints. Music. Art and art and art and history and life and all that is magical……magic.  I still believe…..

Lemmy, Ozzy – nice? Edge-y…?

  

…”and a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”…, sure….

It’s about perception.  It’s always about perception.  OK. Let’s get it out of the way early.  According to – wait for it – The Wakefield Doctrine,  an individual is either a clark, a scott or a roger.  What this means simply is that there are 3 ways in which to view or perceive the world.  We look at life through the lens of either a clark, a scott or a roger.  Got this so far?  (Good, ‘cuz I just want to get to this post.  Like the song enough to want to use it so I have to come up with something.) 

“Nice”.  A lovely adjective that can be applied first to clarks, occaisionally to rogers and rarely, hardley ever, to a scott.  (“Harsh? No, no it’s not.”) The act of being nice is viewed  as: strength (by a clark), weakness (by a scott), naivete (by a roger),   What?  You want me to explain the previous statement? You know, if you would have been following the links and familiarized yourself already with the Wakefield Doctrine, this wouldn’t be so darned difficult!  Stop!  From now on when I refer to the Doctrine or clarks, or scotts or rogers, there will no longer be any in depth, lengthy or helpful explanations. Fuck that!  Click on the link and figure it out your own damn selves!!

See?  That wasn’t very nice.  And it wasn’t very clarklike either. But what of it? Was anyone harmed in the process? Could one say it was not so much the message as the delivery of that message? Having said that, being ”nice” often comes at a cost.  Sometimes, ”being nice” is simply a reflection of a person’s desire/hope for behavior that never quite makes it to the public stage as they say.  And at other times ”being nice” is a sublimation of  more instinctive behavior.  We’re all guilty of that one - you know, for the greater good and all that bull.  But is it fair to do this ?  Is it caving to societal (can you say rogerian) “peer pressure”?

 Here’s what I think, (this coming from someone considered to be one the “nicest” persons on the planet.)  It’s in large part about self awareness.  Honest. Consider the motivation(s) behind someone being nice - a) manipulation,
 b) escape (insert person, situation, challenge here) c) naivte.  But really, what of it?  You are correct. I did leave one motivation out. Why not be nice?  Why not be pleasant?  Why not take time to actually see and hear someone outside of your own damn self? 

Word of caution: beware/be wary of/ be aware of being nice.  There are negative ramifications if, in being so (nice), one obfuscates the proper/more appropriate response to (insert person, situation, challenge).  This deprives any and all involved of a more genuine experience….. 

Whoah Nelly!  What am I thinking getting all heavy and leadlike on a Monday morning!  Bottom line:  it takes no more than a fraction of second to stop and consider what is the nice thing to do, what is the proper thing to do and what is the generous thing to do.  For self and others…..