Hangover Cures

A bloody mary, except with scotch and a raw egg.

A shot of tequila mixed with a paste of crushed aspirin and Tobasco.

Two stalks of celery: one filled peanut butter and raisins. The other used as sort of a duct for three ounces of Old Crow. Unless you got drunk on Old Crow. In that case use Cuervo. And if you got drunk on Cuervo, use Windex.

Take a hammer, brandish, bring down forcefully upon a tender extremity. Then smoke crack.

Bathe in oatmeal, except use grappa instead of water.

Mix three parts Clamato with one part buffalo semen, combine with vineagar and puree with Brussels sprouts. Heat and drink.

Run five miles. Works best if you are chased. Preferably by the police.

If hungover on a workday: DO NOT CALL IN SICK. Go to work three hours late, breathe on boss. Await refreshing lambast.

Cliff diving. 

The Big Apple & the Orange: Redux

I was, again, determined to move to New York City, more so even than before.

 That was the upshot of three hot and heavenly weeks perched in a perfect apartment in Greenwich Village atop the Red Line last August. The trains rumbled underneath, like the city was growling—or purring, depending on the mood. Unencumbered by work, I spent my days traipsing from café to bar to restaurant, laptop in tow, my novel at my fingertips, its progress quickening as I settled into the city.

 One night I drank a bottle of red wine while sweating in the steam-box apartment, the hot air pushing in all the open windows, the air conditioner busted. Thus inspired, or maybe addled, by heat and alcohol I wrote my mom an email that was a confusion of impulses and impressions—me sorting out so much nonsense from the sense of my life, all of which I will certainly not bore you with. But the conclusion reached was this: After 20 years of living in San Francisco, maybe it was time for a change. A really huge, sweeping change.

 Maybe it was time, at last to move to New York.

 I returned to San Francisco, my determination intact. It was time to change. It was time to do things differently. I was too young to be so settled in one place. Then came February, and I lost my job and was suddenly presented with the perfect opportunity to do exactly what I had planned. I would expand my job-hunt to New York and shake things up.

 Or would I? I had left for New York the previous August with the kind of contempt for San Francisco that only familiarity can breed. Oh, San Francisco, I thought. You are so fucking provincial sometimes. You and your annoying burners and your constant wafts of pot smoke, and your broken, ridiculous excuse for public transit, and your paltry, greedy cab fleet, and your homogenous weather, and your bands of pungent dogs and trustafarians, and your yuppie-and/or-hipster-infested neighborhoods.

 But in the months since I’d been back, I had become re-enamored with the city—and with my cozy, fabulous rent-controlled apartment within it. I loved the pervasive whiffs of pot, the colorful weirdoes on every street corner, the long opportunities that Muni afforded me to listen to audio books and catch up on my Scrabble games. So the sudden option of NYC seemed…well, foolhardy as well as frightening. Do I push this? Do I gut the lifestyle I’ve become accustomed to at the ripe age of 37 and move to the greatest city in the world in order to live like a broke college student? I do not relish the idea of living in New York on a shoestring—though I know it’s possible. But more so? I do not relish the idea of doubling (at least) my rent for the dubious privilege of moving into a flat with roommates in Brooklyn or Queens.

 So, I’m thinking San Francisco is stuck with me for the time being. At least until my career gets to the point that I can demand at least twice as much of a salary as I’m making now. So I can afford to make the move more of a lateral one, and less of a backslide.

 Unless…unless.

 There’s always that unseen, unanticipated variable, what I’ve come to think of as “the third option”—the one that in all your careful logistical ruminations you did not anticipate.

 And New York will still be there, after all. 

Dating or Job-hunting? You decide.

Unrealistically High Expectations

You’ve been exchanging witty, charming, intelligent emails with a virtual stranger, whom over the course of the communication comes to more fully embody all your hopes. Your sense of optimism is fully stoked and you become certain—certain—that this is the one. You enjoy the sweet rush of inevitability and you put on your best dress and you go for that first meeting, ready to swan dive into your glorious fate, because this is the first day of the rest of your beautiful new life! But then you walk in the door and spy them across the room, all lumpy and weird, and definitely not as tall as you’d imagined, and you know it’s never going to happen. 

Feast or Famine

It’s been weeks since you’ve had the smallest whisper of a response, and your confidence is flagging. You troll the Internet, looking for any hint of affirmation, something to sink a hook in and sigh with relief, knowing someone, anyone wants you. But there’s only a gaping, ragged wound that was once your sense of purpose and belonging. Just as you’re wondering if your new habit of eating your own hair has some deeper psychological connection to your listlessness, an email or a phone call or chat bubble appears, and with it, your hope returns! But within two days you’re inundated with more opportunities and appointments than you can handle for the foreseeable future, and while you hate to gripe about getting what you wished for, you’re truly overwhelmed and losing sleep and your hair-eating habit has taken on a new dimension. 

Take It Because It’s There

No, you don’t really want it. You don’t even really need it—yet. But you’re not exactly sure when the next offer will come along. A bird in the hand, et cetera, et cetera. So you remind yourself that its merits are not wholly absent per se, and you know that with a small attitude adjustment on your part you can certainly make the most of the situation—at least for a little while. So you do what you need to do. 

Teases

You’ve spent some quality time and you’ve had some great conversations, and now you’re pretty darn sure this is the one. They’re hitting all your sweet spots and you’ve got that sort of intangible feeling of awesomeness, like you know this has just got to work out. And even better than that, they seem to really like you too. They say wonderful things like “You’d be a really great asset here,” or “You’re at the very top of the list.” All your worries are over! The search is done! Except, maybe it’s not. Because suddenly they’re not calling you anymore. You send out a witty email that’s confident (without being at all presumptuous) and reiterates your great interest (without seeming at all desperate). The relief you feel when you get a response is tempered somewhat by the barely discernible downtick in enthusiasm compared to previous communiqué. Did they meet someone else? Who could be better than you? It was such a perfect fit—or seemed to be. You agonize about whether to send another follow-up email—or god forbid—call them on the phone, until you realize it’s been three weeks and if you haven’t  heard anything by now, you’re probably not going to. 

You begin to eat your hair again. 

Not so Funemployment

I won’t lie. There were days when I woke to the dulcet tones of my alarm clock, pulled my head back under the covers like a turtle with a hangover, and wished very much to be unemployed. But mostly I just didn’t want to get out of bed. I’ve never been much of a morning person. 

Now I am unemployed. I am unemployed under what can be described as nearly the best possible circumstances. I have a generous severance that affords me the luxury of not being completely panicked about finding a job right this moment. My resume and portfolio have been well-received by enough places to suggest that finding employment is but a mere matter of some time, provided I infuse myself with a good deal of patience, which is not my strength. 

A more mentally stalwart individual than I might look upon this situation and muster some excitement about the abundance of free time. An opportunity to catch up on movie-going, on sleep, on reading the pile of books on the nightstand. A chance to reconnect with busy friends and family. Finally, the luxury of time to go to the gym every day and make your body forget about the 50-hour weeks spent at a desk. And travel! Now that work’s out of the equation for the moment, going places for stretches of time is suddenly a possibility. Or: what an excellent time to make headway on all-important personal projects (e.g., novel). 

You’d think I’d be more thrilled. 

Instead, what I do is marvel at how slowly a day passes, yet how quickly these four weeks since the day of the layoffs have zipped by. Normally a social smoker, I seem to have reinstated cigarettes as daylong companions, from morning coffee to the 5pm beer. That doesn’t bode well. I’ve gone from a relatively healthy and measured regimen of meals to eating cold leftovers once or twice a day while standing in front of the open fridge. If I don’t have a reason to take a shower, put on pants that aren’t made of stretchy loose fabric, and leave the house, I don’t tend to get around to these things until well after 3pm. And there have been days when I’ve gotten to nearly eight at night without speaking a single word out loud, making the sudden conversation I might have something of a shock to the system. 

When I do speak, I’m constantly at a loss for words, as if my normally robust vocabulary has flown the coop. Not ideal for job interviews or work-related phone calls, clearly. My brain feels stiff, like its gears, without the daily lubrication of work, have crunched to a halt. And as much as I used to fantasize about a work-free life, I find I miss work. I miss the structure that came with it, the constant engagement with people and ideas. I miss the reason to get up and moving and thinking. 

To be fair, there are many days that I do manage to do something with myself. But those are days that involve an appointment of some kind. I must go to this job interview, ergo I must shower and look presentable. While I’m at it, I’ll manage my time for the day in order to make sure I work on the novel, go to the gym, get some groceries, and make a date with a friend for drinks. But it’s that necessary stud of an appointment that builds the whole house of a day not dawdled away.  

Left to my own devices? Well, let’s just say I have some work to do. 

Torn

Allow me to introduce you to Saturday Smith and Trixie Balloux. Saturday is slightly girlish and a little old-fashioned, prone to dreaminess and fits of longing for chivalry—against her better judgment. Trixie is more, shall we say, sexually focused, and fuck all with the emotional side of things. She’s rude, cynical, brassy, and enjoys her whiskey. Here is a transcript of one of their recent interactions. 

Saturday:

(Wistfully twirling a strand of hair) A partner. An ally. An alibi. I want someone to join forces with and conquer this life, with all the zeal and verve that can be achieved when you know someone has your back. And is also great in the sack. 

Trixie: 

(Takes a shot of whiskey) I agree with the whole thing about “great in the sack.” However, in what century were you born that you feel you can’t “conquer this life” with zeal and verve all of your own accord? Are you not a grown, confident woman with solid resources?

Saturday:

Well, yeah. Duh. I’m just saying if I don’t have to do everything alone, then that would be awesome. Why shouldn’t I hope for a partner who wants to travel with me, work at what he’s passionate about alongside me…

Trixie: 

Bitch, please. Do you not have friends? You have the best friends a person can ask for. Don’t you feel a little greedy thinking you’re due a soul mate too? God, I hate that term: soul mate. It sounds fucking fatal. 

Saturday: 

Don’t get all dramatic. Jesus. You know my feelings on the whole soul mate thing. We have many soul mates. It’s not like I actually believe there’s one perfect man out there just waiting for me to magically appear. Or vice versa. Or whatever. 

Trixie: 

No, you kind of do think that.

Saturday: 

Psh. Do not. 

Trixie: 

Do so. 

Saturday: 

Do not!

Trixie: 

(Smiles knowingly) So, if you don’t believe the whole single soul mate thing, then what exactly is this life partner person? Besides imaginary, of course. 

Saturday: 

I told you. Someone who I can travel with, work with, live with…

Trixie: 

And the difference between this person and, say, any number of your friends…?

Saturday:

(Blushes) Well, there’s that little something extra. 

Trixie: 

Yeah. It’s called an accessible penis. 

Saturday: 

Well, okay, it’s that, but it’s more than that too. It’s declaring your affiliations, it’s shouting from the rooftops, “World, this guy and me? We’re a team.” 

Trixie:

(Stares blankly)

Saturday: 

What, you have no interest in having someone on your side? In being on someone’s side? Making a commitment to them? 

Trixie:

I’ve made a lot of worthwhile commitments to a lot of wonderful people in my life who are dearest friends to this day. I don’t see the point of seeking out this supersized romantic commitment you’re talking about. 

Saturday:

So. You’re telling me you don’t want that relationship—to align yourself with someone who loves you for who you are, which would be miraculous because you are such a pain in the ass. 

Trixie: 

I’d like to align myself with lots of people. I’m aligned with lots of people already. 

Saturday: 

You know what I mean. Don’t get all semantical. 

Trixie: 

You’re asking me if I want a monogamous lifelong relationship with some imaginary dreamboat of a guy? 

Saturday: 

(Sighs heavily) More or less. If you had to paint it in your usual broad, jaded strokes. 

Trixie: 

You do know that monogamy is just the mutual capitulation of two people to their insecurities, right? To say nothing of the fact that it basically sets everyone up to be highly disappointed at best and badly hurt at worse. 

Saturday: 

I totally cannot talk to you sometimes. 

Trixie:

(Snickers) You just hate it when I’m right. 

Saturday: 

We’re not talking about monogamy. We’re talking about…

Trixie: 

Actually we’re exactly talking about monogamy. Because I’ll bet you a million bucks that when you have your little reveries about Mr. Awesome, you’re the only lady in his life, aren’t you?

Saturday: 

(Shrugs, looks away) Not necessarily. I like to think I’m more modern than that.

Trixie: 

No, you say that. But do you really, really mean it?

Saturday: 

I really, really mean it—theoretically. 

Trixie: 

HA! See: “theoretically.” 

Saturday: 

I really want to mean it. I don’t want to be that girl. 

Trixie: 

Oh, you mean the one that girl who can’t function unless her ego is being constantly reinforced by the presence of a doting man and thereby his implicit approval of her? 

Saturday: 

(Giving Trixie a dirty look) Yeah. That one. 

Trixie: 

Too late! Did you learn nothing from all that feminist theory we studied in college? To  say nothing of our general principles…

Saturday: 

I know! I know! It sucks, but I can’t help it. Sometimes I just want…you know, a boyfriend. Sometimes.

Trixie: 

(Shudders) But why? As is, your life is all your own. You answer to no one, you can go anywhere, do whatever you want, sleep with whomever you want…

Saturday: 

But don’t you think we need to eventually choose? 

Trixie: 

Why? 

Saturday: 

Because we want to. 

Trixie:

No. You want to. I’m good. 

Saturday: 

Okay. Fine. I want to. 

[Long pause]

Trixie: 

Well, that doesn’t get us fucking anywhere, now does it. 

Saturday: 

(Shrugs) I guess we’ll have to fight to the death then. 

Trixie: 

(Ties back hair) I guess so. But I’ll have you know, I’ve been practicing kung fu. 

Saturday: 

(Cracks knuckles) You don’t scare me.  

Broken

It is the nature of any relationship that beginnings are much easier than endings. You know how it is at the beginning. You just can’t get enough of each other. You hum with anticipation when the time approaches that you see each other. It’s the sweet rush of infatuation, replete with possibility and hope; too perfect to fail. Or perhaps, the newness of it, the unknowing that accompanies every encounter keeps the imperfections in the soft kind glow of “quirky.” So many tiny flaws that you seem to adore, thinking to yourself, how could something that fills me with such a sense of purpose, that energizes me in such an undeniable way—how could such a thing ever come to be anything besides a manifestation of my love and care? 

And then the inevitable happens. The storied honeymoon begins to wind down. The cold winds sweep across the once perfect golden beach of possibility, and the waves, that were so recently caressing and gentle, rise up in whipped peaks that look downright menacing. Your teeth begin to grind together as you contemplate your beloved. Your temples pulse with anxiety as you stare at it sullenly, hating its very existence, resenting it for being so goddamn essential to you. What made it so important? Who let it just swoop in and take over your life like that? Was it you? How could you be so blindingly stupid to let such a succubus feed on your once blithe, carefree existence?

Am I right, ladies? 

My particular succubus is my goddamn novel. We’ve been together a bit over two years now, and let’s just say, the shine has certainly worn off. We’ve undergone some counseling at the hands of trusted friends who know us both pretty well. We had a brief resurgence of the honeymoon period for a couple of months there, but this past weekend things got ugly. 

Some not-nice things were said—and they can’t be unsaid. I won’t lie: there was crying involved. Public crying. Because my novel seemed to think it best to reveal to me the depth of its dysfunction in public, at our favorite café, where we’d spent so many productive, happy hours. To say the least, being blindsided with a cul de sac of a story arc and flaccid climactic conflict whilst sipping café au lait was certainly not how I intended to spend my Saturday. 

Okay, okay, let’s be fair. I did make the novel. It was I who constructed the plot lines and the characters. It was I who noodled perhaps insufficiently over whether the actions of the characters were truly driving the plot all the way through—to say nothing of how much or how little I considered their actions to be true to them, who they are. I’m willing to take my share of responsibility in that. But what I am ever so pissed about is that fact that it took my novel so long to tell me it was broken. I mean, would it have been all that hard to just make it known, straight up, that there were some serious fucking problems here? Apparently so, because it just went blithely about its business, la di da, like this particular draft was actually going so, so much more smoothly than the last one. Yeah, not so much. I mean, seriously. If you knew your car’s lug nuts were loose, would you still drive it? No!

I’m getting worked up again. 

And you know the worst thing? We have a vacation planned. My novel and I were going to spend three weeks together in New York in August. We were going to soak up the city (because my novel happens in New York City, and I thought it would be best informed in a firsthand way) and spend long whiling hours in Manhattan cafes working together. We were going to walk the hot summer streets at night and begin to observe and record the nuances that really bring a story setting to life. But now? I just don’t know. The trip is still happening, that’s for sure. And I’m not above taking a totally new writing project with me to NYC. You hear that, novel? That’s right. There’s at least a half-dozen other ideas for books and stories that can take your place. You’re not the only one. 

But who am I kidding? I’m hopelessly monogamous. The next cannot start in earnest until this one is finished. So all I can do is hope that a little breathing room will be good for us. That we’ll be able to get together in a few weeks, have a tentative cup of coffee and see where things go. Take a little of the pressure off, you know? 

Anyway. Thanks for listening. It was good to get that off my chest. 

Wants & Needs

I woke up to you kissing my shoulder. And this was strange because there is usually a noticeable dearth of shoulder kisses in these situations, unless they were accompanied by an eager thrust and an urgent hand making its way to more consequential places than shoulders. But this time it was as if you’d woken, spied my shoulder and deemed it suddenly kissable. 

It was just another one of those things, those crazy flings, as they say, that happened every now and then between you and me. There we were, in the same place at the same time, by happenstance. Though we both knew where to find each other—it was just a matter of how hard either of us happened to look. But this time it seemed that no one had looked, it had just happened to happen that we were on consecutive barstools with objectives that evolved similarly as drinks were slowly and civilly consumed. It had happened before, you know. 

Then we went from the barstools to the street corner, hidden from the amber streetlight by a rustling tree. Then it was morning and you were kissing my shoulder in this soft, sweet way that filled me with a strange, elusive happiness that I recognized as love—and for those long moments of having my shoulder kissed by you I did fall in love with you…but only for those moments. For a hot second there, my imagination spun up a world where every morning I awoke to you kissing my shoulder, the warm morning smells of both our bodies filling my nose, the warmth of you stretched against my back and your arm around my waist. I imagined destroying my alarm clock in favor of waking up to your lips on my shoulder every single day for the rest of my life. 

But the problem with all of that is that I don’t want people kissing my shoulders. Or rather, to be brutally specific about it, I don’t want to want people kissing my shoulders. And that strange happiness I felt was elusive because I knew it was false—I’d felt it before. I’m not a fucking moron; I know how these things work. Some perfectly decent man puts it to you the way you like—and that should be enough, shouldn’t it? But no, he starts kissing your shoulder and you start having delusions of matrimony. Fuck that.

I have perfected wanting. I have organized it, micromanaged wanting with such precision, I scarcely notice that I want anything. I have organized my many wants in tidy labeled bins, color coded by how possible they will be to achieve. The red ones are top-priority, life-improving, self-enriching, do-it-now, action items; the wants that are arguably philosophically existential needs. The blue ones are a little dreamier, but they are certainly in the realm of possibility, but they can be done without too. The pink ones are the stuff of deceitful imagination. Like, winning the lottery, eating brie every day and not getting fat, fucking Javier Bardem, time travel as a legitimate means of non-linear conveyance, and, of course, happening upon a partner—that elusive man willing and worthy to spend some quality time with. These are the desires that have proven, by way of fact, consequence, experience, or the laws of physics to be wholly impossible, and therefore, nothing more than indulgent figments. 

So when tender shoulder kissing suddenly becomes real for a few moments, suddenly that goddamn pink box opens up like Pandora’s own and a world of wishing opens up and I fall back into it like it’s a cool pool on a hot day, submerged in delicious, fabulous hope as I see my life as it might be (though perhaps without the time travel), or might’ve been if I’d made different choices, comported myself in different ways, was, you know, someone wholly and entirely different than who I am.

That’s when I think of the red box, so full of goals and commitments and important objectives that are to be achieved in order that I may be a fulfilled individual, blah, blah, blah. I don’t have the time to travel time or fuck Javier Bardem. I don’t have time to go buy lottery tickets. I don’t have time to troll the city, the internet, the office, the world for a suitable man to be with, to say nothing of the inevitable false starts, self-delusions, and bad decisions that are inherent in such pointed searching. And I certainly don’t have time to have my shoulder tenderly kissed in the mornings. Do I?

So it is better that you and I no longer find ourselves happenstance on consecutive barstools anymore, drinking slowly and civilly, working up to that tree under the streetlight and then the morning. Because I simply do not have the time to want anything quite like you.