I went out for "a" beer on Friday with my friend from work. We met at the Three Penny, had a beer and some tacos, then had another beer, then split another beer, at which point I suggested we go back to the house where I had more beer. I never got to the point of drunkenness, but I sure did dehydrate myself, and so when I woke up at 6am on Saturday I could tell that I was going to have a doozy of a hangover. I went to the bathroom and took a vitamin B Complex and two ibuprofen with a large glass of water and then went back to bed. Based on how shitty I felt when I awoke at 9:30, I was very glad that I had taken those precautions. I felt like I was dying until about two o'clock.
Speaking of hangovers, I should finish my New York story.
We went back to K's house after the show. None of us was ready to sleep, still abuzz from the rock, so we decided to split a beer. We had a bottle of something called Judgment Day from Lost Abbey Brewery that we had gotten in Pennsylvania on the way. Since we had missed the End Times (that never happened) by 24 hours, we decided we needed to drink it.
It was delicious. It was big and full-bodied, strong without being boozy, and tasted like dried fruit and chocolate and defuckingliciousness. We shared it between the three of us, smoking cigarettes and sharing stories and looking out the windows as Park Slope went to sleep. Then we went to sleep. And several hours later, I woke up and remembered something. I remembered that the word "Abbey" in the name probably means Belgian beer, and that me and Belgian yeast are decidedly not friends. I felt terrible. Like I had food poisoning. I got in the shower, which made me feel momentarily better. I went back to bed. I slept through the most incredible noise- there was a hospital across the street and a grocery store downstairs, as well as a school on the block. There were delivery trucks, ambulances, kids, yuppie parents, and every other imaginable loud fucking sound. I only heard them when my stomach woke me and propelled me out of bed. I slept between visits to the bathroom. I repeatedly got in the shower to lower my temperature. I thought I was dying. When the b.h. finally woke up, he seemed to know right away that something was wrong. Perhaps it was the moaning, or the fact that I repeatedly said
"Fuck. I think I am going to die" before rushing off to the bathroom. ANyway, he was very sweet, and when I pointed out the thing about the Abbey name, he also seemed confused at how we might have missed that detail. Then we realized maybe it was the four or five IPAs that we had drunk at the Br00klyn Bowl. In any case, he said, we could wait as long as necessary before leaving. I had to drive, you see, because the b.h. is not a driver. When K finally woke up, she looked at me gravely and said
"You're green."
Well, yes.
We finally left around 10am. I I made sure that I had an empty plastic bag in my lap just in case. The thing is, I knew I was going to feel like shit either way, and at least driving would take my mind off of it and get me home faster. Traffic was crawling all the way through the borough. When we finally crossed the bridge, it was the first time that I didn't feel the terror I normally have of bridges(or at least I didn't notice, because my stomach was already in knots and I felt like I was going to shit myself anyway). I couldn't even drink water for the first hour. I was hungover until well after noon. At least the weather was okay. Hotter than I prefer but at 70 to 80 miles per hour there's not much difference. I downed about 32 ounces of gat0rade, then had an iced coffee drink for lunch. By the time we got home I was feeling spiffy. Still got to bed early, though, because I had to work the next morning.
Now, of course, I can't wait to go back.