Yesterday, I divided my time between hugging the toilet bowl, wretching, and lying on the cold tile of the bathroom floor.
"Hangover" is really not the word. No, "hangover" is a cute little euphamism that you just couldn't use to describe my condition ... They need a stronger word. Hangunder? A cocktail of hangover and despair, topped off with a squirt of utter mortification, just for that extra edge.
While lying on the floor of the bathroom, moaning, I was visited by three ghosts. First was the Ghost of Hangover Past (she looked a bit like Debby Harry). The ghost took my hand and led me to a streetcorner in Paris, where I was barfing into a trash can at 2 in the afternoon, shaking like a leaf after drinking about 20 styrofoam cups of cold red wine at Mr. Goodfast Pizza the night before.
Then I was on a Strassenbahn in Germany, age 19, somewhere in wine country, after consuming a bottle of wine after having half a Twix bar for breakfast. I threw up all over the Strassenbahn (a sort of streetcar). A Polizei came over and said that it was strictly verboten to rolf on the Strassenbahn, that I would have to pay a steep fine. My friends and I got off the Strassenbahn in the middle of a field somewhere and hid behind a trash can, while the Polizei ran after us, yelling Schnell, Schnell, or something suitably WW2-film-ish.
Then, the Ghost took me back to a very yellow hotel room in Dublin. I was 23. The hotel room was very, very yellow, and my mind was unravelling, slowly. I was happy, but not all that happy, to be alive after the amounts of substances I had consumed. It was not good.
All of a sudden I was in New York, 24 or 25, when I was dating Laurent, or was it Laurent? Either one, I was cat-sitting for a French friend and somehow got drunk (following a party at 95 Second Avenue) and barfed in her laundry hamper. I didn't realize this until she discovered it upon her return. I think I mistook it for a toilet, which, you must admit, is a perfectly natural mistake. Unfortunately I was drinking red wine, so the laundry was ruined, as was a budding friendship.
Fast forward a few years, to an event called the "Big Hair Ball." I'd dyed my hair bright pink earlier that day, just for the theme-based party. I was also wearing a tutu dress. The night ended with me rolling around on the floor of my friend's living room in tutu, covered in bright pink dye from where my hair bled onto the rest of me.
Then it was October, 2001, and I guess everyone in New York was a bit freaked out in those days, so we drank and drank and puked and puked; no particular date in mind, but that whole month - drinking and puking. We didn't know what else to do, so we partied. It seemed like a good solution. I've never been to so many parties - I'm not even sure whose they were. I seem to remember there were a lot of Italians involved - people I didn't know before and haven't known since.
Then, it was time for the grand finale montage sequence - a steady stream of Halloweens and New Year's Eves and birthdays and Arbor Days, all rolled up into one.
And yet, Tuesday night was a bit worse than all of the above. That's what I learned from The Ghost of Hangover Present. I was going through that terrible, terrifying moment of trying to remember what all I'd said/done the night before, but mostly, it wasn't coming back. Based on the fact that I barfed in the flowerbox in front of my building, I'm thinking it's a safe bet that it was not good.
Me= mortified. Oh, the horror, the horror ...
On the Upper East Side, barfing in flowerboxes is distincly frowned upon. People in this neighborhood have never barfed in their lives, much less on rhododhendrums in a public space. I'm sure I'd have been arrested if I weren't so ridiculously white. Wearing (possibly for the last time) a searsucker suit.
So, as I was lying there on the bathroom floor, sinking deep into this pit of despair, kind of like Alice's rabbit hole, I finally reached that mythical point where you fall so far into the hole that you actually come out the other side. Lying there on the bathroom floor, naked, in a pool of my own vomit, I realized - this is not a good look for me anymore. I decided to stop drinking, for once and for all.
It's not like I drink every day or anything like that, but I have a ridiculously low tolerance for alchohol. You might say it makes me crazy. I'm talking Cuh-RAY-ZEE. Margot Kidder/Anne Heche/"Insane Marguerite Posse" crazy. It is distinctly NOT GOOD.
I think, like most people who are inherently socially awkward and nervous in most social situations, alchohol is one of those things that helps me feel more comfortable, less tounge-tied, or something. I never know what to say at parties; I never know what to do with my hands. It's like I become the socially retarded reject I was between the ages of 12 and (how old am I now?) all over again.
However, the net result is feeling much, much, much more like an idiot, only the next morning. Unfortunately, the part of the brain that tells you when you've had enough to drink seems to be defective, in my case. Sometimes it works, but far too often it does not.
Still, I'm absolutely horrified by my behavior, and am quite sure my friends/acquaintances think I'm stark raving mad, although no doubt they've all seen me Behaving Badly before. It's sort of been a theme. But at least the silver lining is that I've finally realized that it's time for me to grow up and stop Behaving Badly. In fact, you might say it's long overdue.
As for the Ghost of Hangover Future, I won't even go into it ...
"Hangover" is really not the word. No, "hangover" is a cute little euphamism that you just couldn't use to describe my condition ... They need a stronger word. Hangunder? A cocktail of hangover and despair, topped off with a squirt of utter mortification, just for that extra edge.
While lying on the floor of the bathroom, moaning, I was visited by three ghosts. First was the Ghost of Hangover Past (she looked a bit like Debby Harry). The ghost took my hand and led me to a streetcorner in Paris, where I was barfing into a trash can at 2 in the afternoon, shaking like a leaf after drinking about 20 styrofoam cups of cold red wine at Mr. Goodfast Pizza the night before.
Then I was on a Strassenbahn in Germany, age 19, somewhere in wine country, after consuming a bottle of wine after having half a Twix bar for breakfast. I threw up all over the Strassenbahn (a sort of streetcar). A Polizei came over and said that it was strictly verboten to rolf on the Strassenbahn, that I would have to pay a steep fine. My friends and I got off the Strassenbahn in the middle of a field somewhere and hid behind a trash can, while the Polizei ran after us, yelling Schnell, Schnell, or something suitably WW2-film-ish.
Then, the Ghost took me back to a very yellow hotel room in Dublin. I was 23. The hotel room was very, very yellow, and my mind was unravelling, slowly. I was happy, but not all that happy, to be alive after the amounts of substances I had consumed. It was not good.
All of a sudden I was in New York, 24 or 25, when I was dating Laurent, or was it Laurent? Either one, I was cat-sitting for a French friend and somehow got drunk (following a party at 95 Second Avenue) and barfed in her laundry hamper. I didn't realize this until she discovered it upon her return. I think I mistook it for a toilet, which, you must admit, is a perfectly natural mistake. Unfortunately I was drinking red wine, so the laundry was ruined, as was a budding friendship.
Fast forward a few years, to an event called the "Big Hair Ball." I'd dyed my hair bright pink earlier that day, just for the theme-based party. I was also wearing a tutu dress. The night ended with me rolling around on the floor of my friend's living room in tutu, covered in bright pink dye from where my hair bled onto the rest of me.
Then it was October, 2001, and I guess everyone in New York was a bit freaked out in those days, so we drank and drank and puked and puked; no particular date in mind, but that whole month - drinking and puking. We didn't know what else to do, so we partied. It seemed like a good solution. I've never been to so many parties - I'm not even sure whose they were. I seem to remember there were a lot of Italians involved - people I didn't know before and haven't known since.
Then, it was time for the grand finale montage sequence - a steady stream of Halloweens and New Year's Eves and birthdays and Arbor Days, all rolled up into one.
And yet, Tuesday night was a bit worse than all of the above. That's what I learned from The Ghost of Hangover Present. I was going through that terrible, terrifying moment of trying to remember what all I'd said/done the night before, but mostly, it wasn't coming back. Based on the fact that I barfed in the flowerbox in front of my building, I'm thinking it's a safe bet that it was not good.
Me= mortified. Oh, the horror, the horror ...
On the Upper East Side, barfing in flowerboxes is distincly frowned upon. People in this neighborhood have never barfed in their lives, much less on rhododhendrums in a public space. I'm sure I'd have been arrested if I weren't so ridiculously white. Wearing (possibly for the last time) a searsucker suit.
So, as I was lying there on the bathroom floor, sinking deep into this pit of despair, kind of like Alice's rabbit hole, I finally reached that mythical point where you fall so far into the hole that you actually come out the other side. Lying there on the bathroom floor, naked, in a pool of my own vomit, I realized - this is not a good look for me anymore. I decided to stop drinking, for once and for all.
It's not like I drink every day or anything like that, but I have a ridiculously low tolerance for alchohol. You might say it makes me crazy. I'm talking Cuh-RAY-ZEE. Margot Kidder/Anne Heche/"Insane Marguerite Posse" crazy. It is distinctly NOT GOOD.
I think, like most people who are inherently socially awkward and nervous in most social situations, alchohol is one of those things that helps me feel more comfortable, less tounge-tied, or something. I never know what to say at parties; I never know what to do with my hands. It's like I become the socially retarded reject I was between the ages of 12 and (how old am I now?) all over again.
However, the net result is feeling much, much, much more like an idiot, only the next morning. Unfortunately, the part of the brain that tells you when you've had enough to drink seems to be defective, in my case. Sometimes it works, but far too often it does not.
Still, I'm absolutely horrified by my behavior, and am quite sure my friends/acquaintances think I'm stark raving mad, although no doubt they've all seen me Behaving Badly before. It's sort of been a theme. But at least the silver lining is that I've finally realized that it's time for me to grow up and stop Behaving Badly. In fact, you might say it's long overdue.
As for the Ghost of Hangover Future, I won't even go into it ...
posted by Marguerite at 7:09 PM
4 Comments:
I know what you mean by feeling embarrassed the morning after. I think most people have been in that situation. My last night of drinking with the girls turned into a horrendous puking fest in my front yard and you can still see the puke stains on the walkway. Ugh!!! Anyway, I was pretty much forced to give up drinking by circumstances out of my control, but I'm kind of glad. It makes me feel much better, physically. However, there are those moments at parties I wish I had a drink to loosen up a bit. Aw well.
oh Marguerite, you kill me! i have many a time made the stand to quit making an ass out of myself, and yet, far too often i find myself sporting big donkey ears and a tail by midnight.
oh, you better scour your next issue of the Whiter-than-Thou UES Gazette for articles on the horror that is young wasps vomiting into flower boxes. and just blocks from that unsightly Dunkin Donuts coffee cup, no less.
Actually, I think the younger crowd on the UES vomits all the time. It's just before the alchohol so they can afford the pesky calories from the one and half cosmos they plan on having with that young lawyer who's 'recently divorced' and that's why he still has the ring tan on his third finger.
how do you get totally fucked up, have the worst hangover ever, and still manage to crap out these perfect magazine-piece 2700 word blog entries? jesus, i cant even manage to form three syllable words, in general, let alone when i'm hungover.
ps i didn't know you puked in the flowerbox. you go girl!
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