Scenes on Sunday ~ Orange County
When you are tired of California you are tired of Life.
Orange County in Southern California is one of my favourite places in the world ~ say right up there alongside Tuscany in Northern Italy. I’m visiting SoCal next week, but here are some pictures from my last trip there.
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jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Vacation Time
It’s very nice to be able to afford to go travelling.
I’m just about ready and prepared for my next long vacation, which starts on this coming Thursday.
Today I booked a car to collect me at the garret, for 06:00 on Thursday March 15th, as my flight leaves from Newcastle upon Tyne airport at 09:30. I then have layovers in London Heathrow, and San Jose International in Santa Clara County, before I eventually arrive at John Wayne airport in Orange County California at 20.32.
I’m renting a Toyota Rav4 at John Wayne, and then I have a shortish drive, so I expect to get to get to my accommodation sometime around 22:00.
If you add in the 8 hour time difference between England and California, that makes the journey exactly 24 hours. Why does air travel always take so long? Even if everything goes to plan?
Poor Marmaduke isn’t coming along on this trip ~ because when I looked at the layovers I decided I’d just take one carry-on bag.
Poor Marmaduke has been in tears since he found out.
I expect to be back in the garret on Wednesday April 18th ~ after another 24 hours of travelling.
I will be in touch while I’m away.
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jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Road Trip
Some places can’t be discovered without getting lost.
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jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Hole in the Ground
Don’t dig there, dig it elsewhere.
Life is fairly tedious here in the garret today. I still have a head cold and nasty cough, so I’m feeling pretty miserable.
The weather is miserable too. Things are supposed to be brightening up, but it’s snowing again, so I don’t much feel like taking a walk today. Anyway, getting in and of the building means negotiating an obstacle course. Talk about urban survival skills.
There are a bunch of blokes digging up the footpath right outside my ‘personal’ door. And, they don’t just make a lot of noise and mess, they dig through telephone cables, broadband cables, water mains, sewage pipes…. eewwww.
Anyhow, I can’t go anywhere because I have no idea where my wallet has got too since I bought a friend a couple of pairs of spectacles on Monday. No money and no cards. I need to sort that out today.
On the bright front, I have water again. Living without water doesn’t just mean no tea, it also means no laundry, and no bathroom. eewwww again.
And I have phone and internet, so life isn’t all bad.
And Marmaduke gives me a hug at night.
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jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Academy Awards Dresses
A man should look as is he had bought his clothes with intelligence, put them on with care, and then forgotten all about them.
Men have it pretty easy when it comes to going to a posh event. Wear a tuxedo, and try to look like James bond.
Women have to take much more care. And, if they get it wrong they will be criticised ~ mostly by other women.
Some frocks from last night’s Oscars ceremonies.
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Personally, I think red and black are always good.
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Fear and Trepidation
The deep introspection is there, along with much self-awareness and self-study. Monday December 11th, while possibly being the most psychologically painful day of my life, was also a cathartic epiphany for me. There are new beginnings turning to a new direction. I believe these new beginnings are a spiritual regeneration for my soul. I am aware that my personality is expanding, turning towards goodness, emotional stability, self-awareness, self-confidence, and well-being. With the help of the Dreambook and Planner I am learning who I am, and discovering who I can become. I am beginning to understand the lessons given to me, and through that I am becoming the master of my own life.
It is a new dawn for me.
jack collierthe grim, the bad, and the unholy
Wisdom cures so many things, except loves lost forever.
adulteress betrayal cuckold dreaming
erotic flirtatious gratuitous harlot
infidelities juicy kissable lusting
men naughty occult provoking
qualmless rape scary tart
unholy vixen witch
xeno-yearning
zoophile
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jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
the converse of this post will appear soon
If Nothing Changes, Nothing Changes
Only I can change my life ~ no one can do it for me.
Life is about change. Without change, without variety, without some stress in Life, all will stultify and diminish. Without change there can be no growth, and without growth and development all things will wither away and die.
I will not meddle with that which I cannot mend. ~ Thomas Fuller
But, as the Serenity prayer tells us, there are some things that we cannot change, some things that have to be accepted, and the wise learn to know the difference. I can think of a myriad of people, places, and things I cannot change. In reality no one can change another person, unless that other absolutely wants to change. This is why it is mostly pointless trying to talk to most addicts in an effort to make them change their ways. This is why many relationships, and many marriages, end in failure and recriminations. This is why there are wars.
A while ago I resolved to stop trying to change others and instead decided to work on myself to become a better person. That is now my lifetime’s project, and it doesn’t always go smoothly. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all. Sometimes I make progress, and sometimes I go backwards a couple of steps or more ~ it’s like a man walking into a gale, sometimes he wins and sometimes the storm wins. In the last few days I think the wind won more than I did. In the last few days I went with the wind and my negative emotions, and that meant I really staggered in the wrong direction. In other words I totally fucked-up, again. For me, going with the flow is usually the wrong choice.
Life will do it’s best to deceive you. You may get knocked down, but you must always get up again. The mark of a really great boxer is not that he never gets knocked down. A really great boxer can get knocked down, but he will always get up again. And that’s up to and including Mohammed Ali in his all prime and pomp.
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.’ ~ Thomas Edison
The English language is filled with wise sayings, allegories, parables, and proverbs. As you would expect a lot are by Churchill; ‘To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often…’ Then from Scotland we have the allegory of Robert the Bruce and the spider, which gave us the saying; ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, and try again…’ But we also have almost the converse of that saying…
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. ~ Albert Einstein.
The Goddess knows I have been there often enough ~ every time I took a drink I expected it to be different from the last time, and it never was. But, somehow I usually got away with it.
Back in my illustrious career in banking I once went into a meeting on Madison Avenue with no ideas and nothing but blank pieces of paper in my briefcase. I had got good and drunk in the Plaza the night before, so I both looked and felt far from my very my best. But I stood up in front of the board of the world’s biggest advertising agency and tried just one more time. I told them not what they wanted to hear, but what I wanted to make happen. It worked. The thing is I didn’t give up, and I didn’t try to change anything except myself.
After that almost debacle I resolved to make a big change by giving up banking for good. It was the wrong change ~ I should have given up booze for good. Back then I didn’t have enough serenity within me to even think about being sober for life.
Right now, today, all I try to do is be the best Jack Collier I can be, sober. That is difficult enough for anyone. I realise that life is difficult and painful. I know that the causes of my problems and pain are my own cravings, lusts, and the blaming others for my faults. I now know that I can’t change others and I can’t change what happens to me, but I can change what I do, and how I react to people places, and events.
I know that the warrior’s road to freedom from continual distress, pain, and suffering is through self-discipline in body, mind, spirit… and that’s a hard road to walk in honour, honesty, and truth. I try to always walk that road, and often I fail. But, at least I try, and perhaps not one in ten men even do that.
The world and the sky is ours if we want it enough.
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jack collierRhythms of Insanity
Don’t be ashamed of your story ~ it will inspire others.
When nothing is ventured, nothing is gained, so what’s the sense of running away from your own life. The good things just don’t fall out of the sky, they have to be worked for. But we have to do the right things, at the right time, in the right place, with the right people. Trying to force the best that Life has to offer doesn’t ever work ~ we have to work with the rhythms of the Cosmos, and not against the flow of the tides.
The great rhythms of nature, today so dully disregarded, wounded even, have their spacious and primeval liberty….. Journeying birds alight here and fly away again all unseen, schools of fish move beneath the waves, the surf flings its spray against the sun. ~ Henry Beston.
Little did I realise when I was an overpaid and overworked international banker how little I saw of nature. What I saw were offices, the inside of cars, trains and ‘planes, hotels, airports, other offices, and city streets. I earned a hell of a lot of money, but money is a false God, and money never made me happy. Today I can be happy to walk by the sea, to look at the sky, to enjoy the vast curve of a distant horizon, to listen to the murmur of the surf and the mournful cries of the gulls. Cars, trains, and ‘planes still have their place in my life, but now it’s only a minor element of who I am ~ cities are no longer the be-all and end-all.
Perhaps it is the night of despair where you are, and I am certain that you are not sleeping soundly. If you are dreaming at all, I hope you are having sweet and pleasant dreams, but I’m certain that you are not. I am certain your dreams are weird and disturbing, turning into nightmares. Try and leave those night-terrors behind you for a while. There are enough nightmares in the real world without us having to suffer them during our sleep.
The world turns, it may be day-time here, night-time where you are, and somewhere the dawn is breaking and the birds are awakening. The Cosmos is like a giant time-piece, it has a rhythm of its own ~ the Cosmos keeps its own time. Be aware, just like the rhythms of a friendship and love between two people change and develop, so the Cosmos is a continual state of change. We need to enjoy the moonlight while we wait for the sunrise.
We are a part of the Cosmos, we are where our physical bodies are, but our spirits are everywhere. We exist in this time, but we also exist in a myriad of pasts and possible futures. I want, need, and desire that the future that awaits me is chosen from the best of all possible alternative realities. I can close my eyes and imagine ideal pasts, presents, and futures, and in all of them I hope I can spend some cool times with people I care for, cherish, and love.
We are made of starstuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself. ~ Carl Sagan
What have we dreamed and who have we lost? In my ideal times we are entirely friendly, trusting, honest, open, caring and loving. You know what? I don’t think that it’s too much for me to pray to the Goddess to help me to attain my own earthly versions of nirvana. It may seem strange to you but I pray to the mother goddess, and in her form incarnate; Aphrodite. I dream of he Goddess Aphrodite, still looking for the place where we belong together.
I am excited about where I can go in time and space, in friendship, love, and sensual pleasure. The cool things I could possibly do, and the cool places I could visit. It’s about being able to fly, about having the courage to live life to the fullest, to enjoy every moment of every day. Someday soon I will build a tiny trailer, and someday after that I will build something much more ambitious, like a school-bus RV, or a tiny home in someplace beautiful, with a wonderful view of the dawn and sunset.
Shit happens all the time, but one has to remember that; as there is no growth without suffering, there can be no pleasure without pain. There is a reason we were brought to this life, all we have to do is trust and take one small step in time. Such are my beliefs.
It’s not all sweet and elegant lies. Shit happens, but Magic happens too.
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jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Recovery is possible ~ but first one has to admit that there is a problem.
The Pointlessness of Medicinal Marijuana
Banning cannabis just makes it even more desirable.
Some say that using cannabis has medicinal benefits. And that using a little weed never hurt anyone. All I know is that regularly using cannabis will put you on a slippery slope to misery, degradation, and death.
The US Food and Drug Administration, (FDA), has not approved marijuana for medicinal use, although a large number of doctors and their patients swear by its effectiveness and positive health benefits. Which is utterly delusional because a placebo is just about as effective as cannabis when it comes to relieving the worst symptoms of most illnesses. However, people still take medicinal marijuana to obtain relief from the more unpleasant symptoms of their illness ~ and not just to get high. However, medicinal marijuana will still give you a rush and get you high.
Cannabis in my view is being deliberately oversold as a medication, deliberately so by people whose primary objective is drug legalisation. Nations should be cautious and should not be seduced by extravagant and unscientific claims by noisy lobbyists. ~ David Raynes
This inevitable drug rush is because marijuana’s healing properties come from its high cannabidoil (CBD) content and critical levels of medical terpenes, flavonoids, and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). CBD, won’t get you high, but THC certainly will. Actually, there are more than 100 cannabinoids in marijuana ~ doctors and scientists don’t know what effect some of these potent chemicals have on the human brain and body.
Nevertheless, medicinal marijuana does show some slightly positive effects in treating certain psychological problems, and the pain from illness such as degenerative neurological disorders. Allegedly, medicinal marijuana helps ease pain, nausea and loss of appetite in people with HIV and cancer, and it just might help people with epilepsy or multiple sclerosis. It’s the CBD and THC that has these beneficial effects.
What THC does is make your brain release dopamine ~ the pleasure chemical, and to be honest, that’s why everyone uses pot, even the people who take it for ‘medicinal’ reasons. You will get high if you take cannabis for any reason ~ you will feel more relaxed, happier, and probably sleepy. You may also have hallucinations, delusions, short term memory loss, paranoia ~ and if you have pneumonia or bronchitis those illnesses will suddenly get a lot worse.
Cannabis does more harm than good, even when taken for medical reasons. New medical guidelines have been issued in Canada, (where cannabis is legal), warning that the negative effects of the weed far outweigh the minor benefits it has for most illnesses. The Canadian Family Physician journal states that in the few conditions where cannabis is helpful the effects are only marginally better than a placebo.
This Canadian guidance states that there is little evidence that cannabis could help many patients at all, and that the downsides far exceed the potential benefits.
Marijuana very strong stuff, especially the more potent types grown now, and its effects last a very long time. You will still be suffering from the after-effects of using pot four weeks later. Pot is addictive, and it’s also a gateway drug to worse things such as cocaine and heroin.
Marijuana is damaging and dangerous. If you use marijuana a lot you will probably get one or more serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia, anxiety and depression, memory problems, have difficulty with coordination, distortions in your sense of time and space, and have suicidal thoughts. Your work, social life, and interpersonal relationships will suffer. You will do risky and stupid things. To top it off, marijuana damages unborn babies too.
The real reason anyone uses cannabis is to experience the instant gratification of a THC / Dopamine rush. Anyone who craves instant gratification is immature and nowhere near being a balanced, grown up, grounded, and together person. They care little about the future, themselves, or anyone else. They have no real life outside of feeding their own wants, needs, and desires. They are unlikely to ever get well until they first learn to cure their own need for instant pleasures. This applies to anyone who demonstrates little self-control.
If you really want to turn into a Mr. Hyde, then smoke pot.
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jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
