Because nothing else works on those nasty boy-I'm-gonna-bother-you-all-day-long hangovers. Sleeping in doesn't work because of dehydration and headaches. Coffee works, but only for a while. Once you eat a meal, you feel worse than you did before the coffee kicked in. (Once again proof that food is overrated.) Working out at the Y is like coffee - temporary ecstasy, then an overall physical and mental malaise.

But come evening, when your head's again hurting and time's dragging on and on and you gotta get shit done - you know what you have to do: Shoot up a Jag and hit the beer. And your head clears, after a short while you smile. You then focus on the Three Biggies: Girls, Music, Writing. And because all the girls you could call are asleep; you pop some music into your kitchen boombox, light a candle at the breakfast nook, grab your pen, and start slashing through your notebook. And everything is moving kinda slow, kinda easy. You smile as you sip your beer and instead of vowing to never drink again, you instead vow to pick your moments better. You smile some more - life is perfect; the words tumbling off your pen, the music drifting through the kitchen. You occasionally pause to soak it all in.

The warm feeling lasts for a couple of hours until the channel surfing urge kicks in.

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