The microcosms of a hangover

When we drink too much, we're all aware of what will happen the next morning: a hangover. The hangover can take many different forms, some more intense than others. Sometimes we wake up with a horribly dry, crusty mouth, like after passing out in a desert and sliding down a sand drift, face first, mouth wide open. Some of us run for the bathroom to lean against the toilet, sit on the toilet, or lie down next to the toilet. Some of us can't even roll out of the depression in the mattress that our body made from staying in one coma-like position for ten hours.

For me, the hangover has always been shrouded in mystery because I never know what form it will take. Sometimes I can bathe myself in liquor and I wake up feeling like I watched an episode of Full House and tucked myself into bed at 7:00pm. I can pass out in a drunken stupor, the last fleeting thoughts rattling around in my head saying, “oh god, how will I ever function as a human being again?” before completely blacking out. Then the next morning, I drag myself out of bed and I’m all, “let’s make some fucken eggs and bacon, I feel GREAT!”

Typically I have one kind from a large array of "my hangovers"....either the queasy, or the gassy, the dizzy/heavy body, the "I honestly can't so much as move my pinky finger without spewing all over the place" (aka. the "I'm never drinking again" hangover), the headache....really, the list is quite large and I never know which one is coming, but they're all quite diverse. Today though, in various areas of my body, this hangover has taken the form of a hundred little different, simultaneous hangovers. One group has erected a city on one half of my brain that must be repaving every road in town, because I can feel the little jackhammers pounding. But then I have these moments of clarity, where I think, "yeah, I actually feel OK now," only to realize that something isn't right because I'm sitting crooked in my desk chair. Literally crooked. I haven't actually measured with a protractor or anything, but I'm going to estimate that I'm relaxing at about a 60 degree angle here. Just picture that. I'm not just feeling one way, I'm feeling a hundred ways at once and it feels terrible.

Last night when my cousin told me that I should write about people and their microcosms, I don't think this is what she had in mind...but I'm hungover, and right now my microcosm revolves around getting some hashbrowns and placating the "I want greasy food" hangover that just reared its ugly head.