Decoding Hangovers

I am occasionally shocked with myself for having only gotten drunk for the first time freshman year of college in a dorm suite (pictured above). Everyone seems to have partied well through high school, and I swore beer was about the grossest thing created by man. Since this inaugural night at the vomitorium I've considered what it means to be a heavy drinker. Usually over prayers and promises never to drink again because I'm so friggin' hungover.

The last time I swore off drinking was after a bunch of birthday revelers and I hit up Dino's Bikini Bar for an ostensible "night cap." We really just wanted to make fun of the sorry people who patronize bars like that, completely unaware that we were a bunch of sorry people about to patronize a bar like that.

After Dino's I tried twice, unsuccessfully, to take a cab home to Brooklyn from Chelsea. After the second cab defeated me in my quest to make the world stop spinning, I decided I had to take more serious measures. Slumped against the wall of an unmarked warehouse I meted my superpower--vomiting--to make the Earth stop moving.

With headlights scratching at my face like sandpaper, I turned my face away and saw in my carryall bag an open bottle of vodka. "That damned Canadian..." I though. Some canuck left it in my bag, and now I smell like the entirety of Manhattan. (Always blame the Canadians.) Somehow I got home and kept meting my superpower, again, swearing off booze... or at least vodka and Canadians.

The next day, I discovered The Hangover Cure:

+Alka-Seltzer

+Hot and Sour soup

+Fried kimchi

+Coffee

+Coca-cola

+Water (and this is going to sound weird, but a little bit of salt helps it taste less like aluminum)

+Singing out loud

+A lot of self-reflection

+A short but fast jog

I'm halfway through fried kimchi and coffee today, trying to recall that Ginsberg poem about vomiting through the years (yeah, which one, right?). I wonder if God likes vodka.

I know next to nothing about DJs but I love me my Powershovel/Superheadz.

This Friday, power up for Halloween with some toy camera love at Powerhouse Books in DUMBO where Powershovel celebrates their "raibei" (coming to America). Eddie Murphy won't be there but everyone else will be.

So much depends on a read email.

Chinatown Sticks

I somehow downed two pints while eating a hamburger with an old friend and got drunk. Realized I was in no shape to go on to the cmj show I planned on which would require drinking the rest of the day.

On my walk back home from the restaurant, a man approached me and this is the dialogue that proceeded:

Man: excuse me, could you hold this bag open? (Gives me a Dunkin Donuts bag) I need to take my donut out and put my coffee back in.

Anne: (confused but a little drunk) Sure.

(We keep walking, in the same direction)

Man: I like your shirt. Chinatown. It looks like you got it in Chinatown.

Anne: Thanks.

Man: Your hair too. You like you're from chinatown.

Anne: (silence)

Man: You eat with sticks?

Anne: Pardon?

Man: You know... (does scissor gesture with fingers)

Anne: Oh, sure.

Man: There's a chinese restaurant on Columbia with booths. You sit on one side, I sit on the other, we order food and talk. unless you like buffets.

Anne: (a little confused) That's nice.

Man: I want to learn how to eat with sticks.

Anne: It's really not hard.

Man: Yeah? My cousin eats with them like he was born that way. How long have you been eating with sticks?

Anne: I have no idea.

Man: I'm a construction worker. My name's Al. I work with a lot of chinese people. I'm in Chinatown all the time. What do you do?

Anne: I'm in publishing.

Man: You mean computers and stuff?

Anne: ... Yes.

Man: Are you married?

Anne: ... Yes.

Man: Well, this is where I turn. Into the projects. I bet you don't live in the projects. You're going past the park.

Anne: Yes.

Man: It was nice meeting you, Anne.

Anne: It was nice meeting you, Al.

Japan's first lady voted "best looking in jeans" by the Japan Jeans Association.

In other news, the Minister of Finance was voted "Most Likely to Become a Schoolteacher" and the Internal Security Deputy was voted "Best Hairdo."

(via AP)

Before. After.

Thanks to Alexis for bringing this gem of yellow fever to light.

"A Self-Guided Study of Japanese Food: (Setting) out to understand Japanese food traditions but finding out how modern and trendsetting it really is." (From Food & Wine magazine)

A. What year is it? 1985? Because if "discovering" trendy Japanese cuisine is novel, then I must still be wearing an acid-washed jean jacket with a pink L.A. Gear varsity patch glued onto the back.

B. This line:

I didn't have to try hard to appreciate the flavor of the grilled sanma. It was obviously delicious.

I feel sorry for whoever has to sleep with her.

C. This dialogue:

Harris ordered the sanma becaise ot was shun. In response to my blank look, he explained: He’d ordered a mackerel pike (sanma) that was at the peak of seasonality (shun). Shun is a critical concept in Japanese cuisine. Said Harris, “Japanese culture is so food-obsessed, even the mailman knows when an ingredient is at the height of its seasonality.

I want to know the mailman that describes his lunchtime bento box as "shun."

Thanks, Alexis.

Bali

It turns out life-changing vacations are nothing new.

There's even a book out there specifically about how women can "get their groove back" in Bali. I'm annoyed that my transformation is a cliché. Enough of a cliché to have warranted a best-selling book I'm going to refuse to look up.

A catalog of lessons and promises.

a. The rate at which I smoke cigarettes now would give Joe Camel a non-metaphorical boner. As a counter-vice I'm going to try never to throw out a cigarette butt on the sidewalk or road again.

b. I've momentarily lost my appetite. I've replaced it with wanderlust, and before my passport expires, I plan on filling the last eight squares of blank immigration papers with stamps from Norway, Mongolia, France and South Africa.

c. Most music sucks. I'm going to see more live music.

d. There will always be elephants in a room. Ride them.

Changi Airport

Rules.