How to get not hanged over

So I've spent maybe 6 or 7 hours over the last several days looking around online for what information is available about avoiding a hangover. Do you want to know what I found?

*Water. Duh. We all knew about that one. Drink a bunch of water before you go to bed, in between drinks if you can, the morning after, etc. Sports drinks before bed are good because they have electrolytes (basically sodium and sugar). Fruit juices are pretty good, because your liver needs some sugar because it's expended so much in processing the alcohol, AND because Vitamin C helps a bit (I forget why, but a lot of sources recommend it). Citrus juices aren't a great idea--really acidic and whatnot. Just DON'T pass out before you get some water--it's probably the most important thing.

*Greasy/fatty foods before you drink. Apparently it lines your stomach and makes the alcohol absorb more uniformly. Food in general is good to have in the stomach for that reason.

*Vitamins. A multivitamin before you drink, maybe another before bed--seems pretty intuitive: your body's doing a lot of stuff and trying to get rid of what is really a mild poison. It's going to expend vitamins. Specifically, vitamin B complex is recommended all over the place, and vitamin C also.

*Alcohol selection. The clearer stuff has fewer "congeners," which are figured to be one of many factors that can make you hangover-y. In other words, distilled vodka and gin will be a lot kinder to you than Brandy. Same with dark beers versus lagers. And red wine has tyramine, which causes headaches. But then white wine is for pansies anyway, so . . . whattayagonnado. Oh, and cheaper alcohol is more likely to give you a hangover--you probably already knew that too.

*Eggs the morning after. They've got cysteine, which helps to clean up your dazed and confused liver.

*Some people say pop a painkiller before bed with your gallon of water. Sounds like they can pretty easily mess with your stomach, but they've done studies that link hangovers to inflamed things inside your body (Meh. Big surprise.) which means anti-inflammatory things might be good. Aspirin is about the only one that doesn't mess with your liver and it also has prostaglandin inhibitors, and there was a study that said prostaglandin makes you more hangover-y. Personally, I don't want to put any painkillers in my stomach while it's already swimming with booze, so I'm taking a miss on this one.

*Hangover pills . . . seems like there's reason to believe they can help, but not alone. They generally have calcium carbonate (ie. Chalk), which is found in TUMS, and activated carbon, which is found in, uhhh, charcoal pills. So you could save money by grabbing a TUMS or two and a charcoal pill (available at drugstores). I hear that the carbon from burnt toast is NOT the same as activated carbon and hence doesn't work. But toast is pretty gentle on your stomach so . . . why not. What calcium carbonate and activated carbon do is soak things up. They soak up nasty things, acidic and poisonous things. That's why having them in your stomach can help.

*There's a study floating around that says no hangover cures work. But I read it and they only really tested compounds I've never heard of, and nothing I've mentioned here. Several websites also said there's no way to prevent a hangover, but I don't really buy that--you put something noxious into your body and when you do that, there's usually something else you can put in to help your body fight it off.

*There are also a bunch of herbal/alternative things that people claim can work: Milk thistle: An herb to help prevent hangover, known as a liver tonic . . . "Evening primrose oil contains gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) which can help prevent a hangover. Try 6 capsules before drinking." . . . Grapefruit juice is said to help detoxiy the liver . . . "Dandelion root is considered food for the liver because it aids metabolism and detoxification." . . . Green tea with ginger the morning after eases the crappiness if you didn't preempt it the night before . . . I haven't tried any of these and there are only scant references to them.

So there you have it. It's probably not 100% perfectly right, but I did sift through a lot of stuff.

You're welcome.

JsJh; on the flop: 9cJcJd

At the concert the other night, I was listening to the song "Casimir Pulaski Day." The reputedly macho guy from our group who was standing to my left rubs his eyes with thumb and middle finger when we get to the line "I thought I saw you breathing." A minute later, near the last lines of the song--"and he takes and he takes and he takes"--the guy to my right wipes his face with his sleeve. Me, I'm doing my regular lumpy throat thing and listening to the girl behind me who's been singing every word to herself.

I'm not sure if it's exactly how she meant to say it, but the other night someone told me that happiness and sadness are really almost the same. In a roundabout, otherworldly way that makes sense to me. Why else would it be so . . great to hear a sad song and let yourself get all choked up by it? It's better to hear someone just say "It's not alright" in a beautiful way than to hear someone say "It's alright" in any other way. There's a kind of momentary revelling in the pain that's not necessarily masochistic--though people can definitely become addicted to it. It's sweet to be reminded that Oh yeah, that still hurts. I still feel that. And even if it's not love or ecstasy or excitement, it's . . . I dunno, Pure? If the shittiness of life never came to a head every now and then, there would just be this vague, dull sense that something's wrong but no idea of what it really feels or tastes like.

Like shivering, right? Our body shivers because it's cold and it's trying to warm up. Likewise, we cry . . . And crying is physiologically almost the same as laughing anyway.

***

My dad quit his job today. For a long, long time he'd been in the advertising business for the newspaper, and awhile back they were bought out by a big ol' corporation. Accordingly, the people started getting treated like figures in a ledger. Enough was enough, and after almost 35 years it was time to move on. But a few weeks ago, he and a few employees were e-mailing back and forth during the day. They got to joking about cutting out of work, and for the first time in my father's life, freed up by the sensation of his impending retirement, he just left work and went to the park.

Remind me to just leave work and go to the park sometime before I die.

I think the worst thing about turning 40 will be having so many people around me think that they're old, they've paid their dues, and their moving and shaking days are over. Come on, now! Every single day is a day you can reinvent yourself! Hooyah!