Meanderings: January 1, 2000

Saturday,
January 1, 2000
New Year's Day

Well, much to everyone's shock, the world still seems to be here. Of course, those who poured bottles and bottles of cheap champagne down their throats while screaming out the countdown and then exchanging tonsil swabs with complete strangers are probably wishing this wasn't true. A champagne hangover is one of the worst in existence, a true scourge from whatever divinity you have in your life. Imagine this -- you vomit endlessly until you start bringing up things you never even imagined were in your body. Your tongue feels like a dead shag rug. There are no words to describe the taste in your mouth. Your head goes from feeling like you have little leprechauns banging away with their shilleighies to this long, slow, rolling thud of red pain -- BOOMWah. . .BOOMWah. . .BOOMWah. You feel like you were mugged by two guys who then gave you Ebola. At that precise point, all you want to do is crawl under your bed and plead with God to kill you, right now, if he wouldn't mind.

And it goes on like this for days. Your average hangover is finished in a couple of hours, maybe -- three or four if you've been playing drinking games with Jack Daniels or mixing your Screaming Orgasms with your Buds. But there's something about the sugar in champagne that gives its hangover real staying power. The last time I had a serious champagne hangover, I was sick for two days. They stuck me on the couch in the basement, coming down every hour or so to change the vomit bucket and enquire if I wanted anything -- Demerol, oxygen, a gun?

From that point on, I realized something that would change my life -- I Didn't Want to Do This Again. Ever. I mean, I may be stupid, but I ain't that stupid. Life would be more than willing to inflict all kinds of pain on me -- I didn't really need to do it to myself. So no more cheap champagne for this girl. I'll only overdose on Tattinger or better from now on.

This, by the way, is a joke. I don't really drink anymore -- in addition to not caring for the taste of alcohol, it's just too bloody expensive here. On the waterfront last night, they were selling bottles of Pommery champagne and four plastic glasses for 380 crowns -- that's about $47.50 in US dollars, for about a glass of champagne each. Whee. Plastic glasses of beer were 4-5 bucks apiece. Concert halls would look at that and think, "Man, that's extortion." So the fact that I usually stick to water or pop isn't because of high moral fiber or a horror of alcohol -- I'm just cheap.

I have also decided that I'm going to take a couple of days off from writing, and not just because I'm the Hostess with the Mostess. I'm just bloody-assed tired from the last few weeks -- my mind needs a chance to veg out for a bit.

Besides which, Christian and Tina were making noises about going out for Thai food all day, so we spent the evening wandering around Gamla Stan trying to find something open. Such silly people we are -- this is a holiday, after all. In the end, the Thai place we were interested in was closed, but we did manage to find a nice Chinese restaurant open in Gamla Stan -- here's a nice shot of Christian and Tina aprés starter.

And here are shots of my beloved and myself, looking somewhat the worse for wear due to lack of food (it took the starters some time to arrive, by which point we were eyeing the centerpiece speculatively). He truly is an adorable creature, and for reasons I've never fully worked out, he seems to think I'm perfect. Silly boy.

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