I consider myself to be a polite person. I was raised in the Midwest where simple, good manners were expected. I was married to an Englishman. I say “please” and “thank you” regularly. I’ve even added the southern-born “sir” and “ma’am” suffixes to my salutations – something that works extremely well on Jacksonville cab drivers […]
Category Archives: Sober Article
I was on TV yesterday. For the first time. The Jacksonville Channel 4 Morning Show was kind enough to invite me to tell my story and plug Waking Up the Ghost. I was told to be at the station at eight A.M., so I did what I do every time I have an important early event […]
Kim says I have OCD. I say I like a really, really cleanly swept front porch and toilet paper points. These are personal preferences. If they were disorders, I would wake up in the middle of the night and check all the bathrooms for scraggly paper. Or I’d worry about everyone else’s toilet paper. […]
…thinking about and talking about and writing about drinking. Or not drinking. Let’s talk about art. Lauren and I went to Jim Draper’s Opening at KORK yesterday. Mark George was there, and Jeff Whipple and as we were talking, one of them turned to Lauren and said, “I think we were bad influences on […]
I read somewhere that the Warning Labels on cigarettes are actually a subliminal advertisement: people smoke because it’s dangerous. It made me ponder (till my ponder-er got sore). Can the same be said for wine? Why did I used to drink? One: It was something to do with my hands. For as long as […]
Kim has recently begun emailing me pictures of myself from several years ago, in various stages of inebriation. I think it is designed (like the ghastly, crash scene photos they make you look at in driving school) to scare me straight. And truth be told, they are very funny. These old photos have made me recast my thinking about […]
In the photos below, I am waiting happily for a ticket agent who will never come, and preparing to cross a body of water famous for its fast current on a boat called The Rowdy Woman… I have to be honest. I’m not very patient. I’m the kind of person who puts Jon […]
Google “gluttony” and you will thank me for this pretty depiction… I had one of those moments yesterday where a word just pops into my mind and I can’t get it out until I look it up and make sure it’s the exact word to describe the exact feeling I’m feeling. You know what I […]
There is something familiar and nostalgic at dark-fall on every island I’ve ever been on in the Bahamas. Everybody gets busy: walking back and forth; draping themselves languidly over roadside bar-tops; flirting with benign good nature; riding around in golf carts; talking trash. There’s always the guy whispering into ears and disappearing. There’s at least one jaundiced old […]
… I didn’t feel like drinking when I was in the Bahamas. I FELT a lot of other things, though. I’m just not ready to put them into words. And I have to admit, at the time this photo was taken, I had just surreptitiously looked at my watch (10:30) and I was acutely aware […]