Okay, I had to have very minor eye surgery, which required that I be awake. After talking over the risks/rewards with my doc of taking Valium (given that I am a drunk and a junky who’s–hallelujah–in recovery) I decided to risk 2 milligrams  in the interests of having my best shot at avoiding permanent eye [...]

This is a hopeful country, right now. Perhaps a hopeful world.
After a decade of what felt like partisan bickering for bickering’s sake, it feels to me as though we’re abruptly willing to slow down, chill out, and start looking for each other’s  good qualities again. All around me, I’m aware of people reaching out to [...]

Okay, it was bound to happen. Everybody who rides a motorized bike is going to drop it at some point.
Perhaps its just that I wasn’t expect to have trouble leaving my own driveway. But there I was caught in the drainage ditch on the other side of the dirt road I live on and going [...]

Yes, I’m tired. Something we all learn early in sobriety to guard against. I can feel that my whole being is stretched a little thin. But the deal is, there’s not a lot I can do about it till the weekend. I’m deep in public radio fundraising, on deadline for NPR, and have a book [...]

Sorry, I’ve been away. No reason, except too, too much to do. But, you know, I missed blogging, so, you know, I’m just going to find the time.

I spent Friday fretting our world economic crisis and the disturbing appearance of blatant racism in the American presidential campaign.

Saturday and Sunday, I spent a good part [...]

to go so long between posts. I had another piece in the Chicago Tribune and have been spending my spare moments responding to the many, many interesting e-mails it generated.
Here ’tis. This is part of a larger piece that I’m working on about being in partnership with God. I’d be grateful for any and all [...]

Ashley Bryan, 85 last Sunday.
The Warm Springs Gallery in Warm Springs, Virginia (population around 900) had an opening for a rare exhibition of his paintings. Bryan is best known as a writer and illustrator of children’s books. He was one of the first persons of color to present images of children of color in picture [...]

Multi-tasking.
I’d like to suggest it’s the antithesis of sobriety–at least of the all-important part of sobriety that’s manifested by a calm mind.
I re-decided this (for the 89th time!)  a couple of days ago while  talking on the phone while e-mailing someone else while simultaneously doing a web-search while trying to block out a too-loud hall [...]

God and I can only partner in any useful way in the real world, and the reality is that the real world often makes me uncomfortable.
I’ve certainly done my share of damage by shying away from my own discomfort. Back in the early nineties when I was first climbing out of addiction, I ran a [...]

and decided that I sound just too-too spiritual and perfect sounding. In fact, I thought I sounded like the kind of person I wouldn’t enjoy lunching with at all.
So I feel a burning desire to make one thing clear about my personal code of conduct (that’s the title of my last post). It’s very much [...]

I have a code of conduct, but it’s far less specific than it used to be back in the days when I used such a code mainly as a Richter scale for measuring the strength my current rebellion.
These days I try to be kind, thoughtful, completely honest with myself (an ever-evolving process) [...]

I make my living reporting for public radio, which means that I spend my days having conversations with folks I don’t know well. And as I do a lot of feature work–as opposed to hard news, a lot of those conversations go on for quite some time.  A successful in-depth interview requires me to help [...]

This appeared in 81–a regional publication that I love. Like most of what I write, it’s about issues that are relevant to sobriety.

lastwords
June 2008
Crossing the Jordan River
So What About God?
by Martha Woodroof
I began school in the Southern Bible Belt before the Supreme Court removed prayer from the classroom in 1962 with Engel v. Vitale. [...]

Our Head Cat, Mr. Lewis, is old, has feline HIV and has been on his dignified way out enough times to qualify as the definitive proof that cats have nine lives.
Lewis’ latest flirtation was death involved a bad reaction to a new medicine for joint pain. He stopped eating–and I mean stopped. We began syringe [...]

Had this essay come out in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune, and I was amazed at the response. So, I thought I’d post it here and see if any of you had anything to say about what I had to say.
Age before beauty is true view
By Martha Woodroof
May 25, 2008
For me, 60 need not be the new [...]

I really believe that sobriety is about living and let-living, forgiveness, tolerance, and getting along with others–and this certainly includes our neighbors.
That’s one of my neighbors in the picture. I just discovered that she took a recent stroll through my gardens, leaving huge holes where flowers used to be.
Sometimes, sobriety is a real challenge. . [...]

Here’s the deal. I just finished the second draft of my second book, which has the working title, God Is. Now What? It’s basically about having a working faith in God outside of the confines of organized religion. The manuscript is up at my agents, but I’m frankly hungry for feedback. Below is [...]

I’m rotten at doing anything with visuals, but I wanted to stick these up, because Shadow asked for them. There are six of these babies. They make it very hard for me to pay attention to what I’m supposed to be doing.

I’m back in the office and, to celebrate, my foxes brought out their kits. I went running (literally) around the office letting my very dignified and very mature colleagues know. They in turn came running (literally) into my office and we all stood around ogling this chubby furry creature  scarfing up my bird seed.
There are [...]

Okay, I’ve been clean and sober for quite a long time. Enough time to have gotten and hung onto a great job, husband, house and 2 cats. In other words, I’m an official grown-up and proud to be so.
However–and I do love this–there are still times when I feel like a kid playing dress-up, [...]