Hungover Quotes

On a scale of one to bitchy, how hung-over are you?

When I'm hung-over I try to imagine being old and look- ing back fondly on now, on this bit I'm currently living, and how in retrospect it might seem adventurous. In the future when I only ever sit in a chair because I'm too gnarled for pleasure or movement I'll remember when I stayed out all night and had life-changing conversations and walked all the way home because I lost my phone.

I've learned that it helps to talk about [anxiety]. Unfortunately I think most people would still get more sympathy from their colleagues and bosses at work if they show up looking rough one morning and say 'I'm hungover' than if they say 'I'm suffering from anxiety.' But I think we pass people in the street every day who feel the same as you and I, many of them just don't know what it is. Men and women going around for months having trouble breathing and seeing doctor after doctor because they think there's something wrong with their lungs. All because it's so damn difficult to admit that something else is...broken. That it's an ache in our soul, invisible lead weights in our blood, an indescribable pressure in our chest. Our brains are lying to us, telling us we're going to die. But there's nothing wrong with our lungs, Zara.

You okay?’ Nate asked warily. My fingers shook with the hangover as I leaned across my sink. ‘I look like the Bride of Frankenstein with a massive hangover.’ ‘I’d be hungover too if I’d just had to fuck Frankenstein.

There were days when no kid came out of his house without looking around. The week after Halloween had a quality both hungover and ominous, the light pitched, the sky smashed against the rooftops.

Why won't the light just shut up...? I swear I'll never drink again... someone please kill me..." -Britain (he was hung-over), Hetalia: Axis Powers

I would be clapping like a seal right now if I weren't so fucking hungover, just so you know. Inside I am doing happy jumping jacks for you with glittery pom poms.

Maybe Dracula wasn't a vampire, just a raging alcoholic who was constantly hungover.

I am. You sound hungover.” “It’s Canada Day.” “So?” “So, I’m in Canada.” “Why?” “Because it’s Canada Day! Come on, Garrett!” Zane snorted.

I feel hungover even though we didn’t drink, and lonely even though I’m used to being on my own

that the hungover eye had a weird ability to find the ugliest things in any given landscape.

Is it possible to be hungover from too much boba?

What?” I said defensively, clutching the mink and my dignity. Since I was barefoot, mostly naked and completely hungover, I was pretty sure I grasped only one of them.

I mean that you have the weirdest laugh of anyone I’ve ever met, Harriet,” he says softly. “And it feels like taking a shot of tequila every time I hear it. Like I could get drunk on the sound of you. Or hungover when I go too long without you.

You’re beautiful even when you’re hung-over.” He drops his chin, smiling. “You’re beautiful even when you ugly-cry.

IGNATIUS MARTIN PERRISH SPENT the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke the next morning with a headache, put his hands to his temples, and felt something unfamiliar, a pair of knobby pointed protuberances. He was so ill--wet-eyed and weak--he didn't think anything of it at first, was too hungover for thinking or worry. But when he was swaying above the toilet, he glanced at himself in the mirror over the sink and saw he had grown horns while he slept. He lurched in surprise, and for the second time in twelve hours he pissed on his feet.

I know. But I hate weddings.” “Because of Darcy?” “Because a wedding is a ceremony where a symbolic virgin surrounded by women in ugly dresses marries a hungover groom accompanied by friends he hasn’t seen in years but made them show up anyway. After that, there’s a reception where the guests are held hostage for two hours with nothing to eat except lukewarm chicken winglets or those weird coated almonds, and the DJ tries to brainwash everyone into doing the electric slide and the Macarena, which some drunk idiots always go for. The only good part about a wedding is the free booze.” “Can you say that again?” Sam asked. “Because I might want to write it down and use it as part of my speech.

By the following morning, Anthony was drunk. By afternoon, he was hungover. His head was pounding, his ears were ringing, and his brothers, who had been surprised to discover him in such a state at their club, were talking far too loudly. Anthony put his hands over his ears and groaned.Everyone was talking far too loudly. “Kate boot you out of the house?” Colin asked, grabbing a walnut from a large pewter dish in the middle their table and splitting it open with a viciously loud crack. Anthony lifted his head just far enough to glare at him. Benedict watched his brother with raised brows and the vaguest hint of a smirk. “She definitely booted him out,” he said to Colin. “Hand me one of those walnuts, will you?” Colin tossed one across the table. “Do you want the crackers as well?” Benedict shook his head and grinned as he held up a fat, leather-bound book. “Much more satisfying to smash them.” “Don’t,” Anthony bit out, his hand shooting out to grab the book, “even think about it.” “Ears a bit sensitive this afternoon, are they?” If Anthony had had a pistol, he would have shot them both, hang the noise. “If I might offer you a piece of advice?” Colin said, munching on his walnut. “You might not,” Anthony replied. He looked up. Colin was chewing with his mouth open. As this had been strictly forbidden while growing up in their household, Anthony could only deduce that Colin was displaying such poor manners only to make more noise. “Close your damned mouth,” he muttered. Colin swallowed, smacked his lips, and took a sip of his tea to wash it all down. “Whatever you did, apologize for it. I know you, and I’m getting to know Kate, and knowing what I know—” “What the hell is he talking about?” Anthony grumbled. “I think,” Benedict said, leaning back in his chair, “that he’s telling you you’re an ass.” “Just so!” Colin exclaimed. Anthony just shook his head wearily. “It’s more complicated than you think.” “It always is,” Benedict said, with sincerity so false it almost managed to sound sincere. “When you two idiots find women gullible enough to actually marry you,” Anthony snapped, “then you may presume to offer me advice. But until then ...shut up.” Colin looked at Benedict. “Think he’s angry?” Benedict quirked a brow. “That or drunk.” Colin shook his head. “No, not drunk. Not anymore, at least. He’s clearly hungover.” “Which would explain,” Benedict said with a philosophical nod, “why he’s so angry.” Anthony spread one hand over his face and pressed hard against his temples with his thumb and middle finger. “God above,” he muttered. ‘‘What would it take to get you two to leave me alone?” “Go home, Anthony,” Benedict said, his voice surprisingly gentle.

When reality and your dreams collide, typically it’s just your alarm clock going off.

Oh aye. Smells like she´s eaten a pickled skunk. Hungover isn´t the word. I´ve seen people looking healthier after they´ve passed post-mortemed." (Rennie about Steel )

Make her stop. I’m hungover and she has a robot. It’s not fair.” “Life is fair only in the grave and in the bedroom. This, you will notice, is neither.

...For the last few hours I could feel myself growing less drunk and more hungover by slow degrees. I'd never been awake through the entire process before, and it was not pleasant.

Rule number three. Do not make me do any physical activity,” he snarled. “What part about 'I am hungover' did you not fucking understand!

Unfortunately I think most people would still get more sympathy from their colleagues and bosses at work if they show up looking rough one morning and say ‘I’m hungover’ than if they say ‘I’m suffering from anxiety.’ But I think we pass people in the street every day who feel the same as you and I, many of them just don’t know what it is.

Why won't the light just shut up...? I swear I'll never drink again... someone please kill me..." -Britain (he was hung-over)

I was tired and wet and hungover, but I was usually that way and I waded through the weariness like I did the water.

4 AM and here we are. Awake, drunk on regrets, hungover on heartaches - without you.

One time he was so hungover he had to consult a cottage cheese carton to determine the approximate date.

She meant I was hungover. I had been slaughtered, legless, trolleyed, slashed, shredded, plastered, polluted, pissed. I thought, I do love my country's relationship with alcohol. How would I ever exist in the United States? I suppose I would have grief counselling instead. (77)

Unfortunately I think most people would still get more sympathy from their colleagues and bosses at work if they show up looking rough one morning and say ‘I’m hungover’ than if they say ‘I’m suffering from anxiety.

He dozed off, into a dreamless oblivion, for what seemed like seconds but was in fact hours, and awoke hungover, the inner surface of his skull pulsing like a single, giant nerve being chewed by some ruminant animal.

With her wild red hair draped around her pallid visage, she could easily be mistaken for a nymph from a Pre-Raphaelite painting. But then again, those nymphs were rarely hung-over or quite such a freckled, busty little thing.

The morning interviews were always the hardest, hung-over, trying to get the beer down. No, I have no idea why I am a writer. No, my writing has no particular meaning that I know of. Celine? Oh sure. Why not? Do I like women? Well, I’d rather fuck most of them than live with them. What do I think is important? Good wine, good plumbing and to be able to sleep late in the mornings. Are you really disturbing me? Of course you are. Do you expect me to start lying at the age of 58? Buy me a drink.

Strange, but I actually wished I was hungover. Because when you're so busy thinking about how awful you feel you forget for a moment how awful you are. Because pain can be its own relief. Because throwing up is a super-effective way to stay a size 0.

the children are playing soccer so you can hear it. It has to be experienced before you can understand it, the difference between silent and nonsilent soccer. Britt-Marie stops in the darkness and listens. Every time one of the children gets the ball, their teammates are shouting: “Here! I’m here!” “If you can be heard then you exist,” mutters hungover Bank, massaging her temples.

Imagine a person who enjoys alcohol, perhaps a bit too much. He has a quick three or four drinks. His blood alcohol level spikes sharply. This can be extremely exhilarating, particularly for someone who has a genetic predisposition to alcoholism.23 But it only occurs while blood alcohol levels are actively rising, and that only continues if the drinker keeps drinking. When he stops, not only does his blood alcohol level plateau and then start to sink, but his body begins to produce a variety of toxins, as it metabolizes the ethanol already consumed. He also starts to experience alcohol withdrawal, as the anxiety systems that were suppressed during intoxication start to hyper-respond. A hangover is alcohol withdrawal (which quite frequently kills withdrawing alcoholics), and it starts all too soon after drinking ceases. To continue the warm glow, and stave off the unpleasant aftermath, the drinker may just continue to drink, until all the liquor in his house is consumed, the bars are closed and his money is spent. The next day, the drinker wakes up, badly hungover. So far, this is just unfortunate. The real trouble starts when he discovers that his hangover can be “cured” with a few more drinks the morning after. Such a cure is, of course, temporary. It merely pushes the withdrawal symptoms a bit further into the future. But that might be what is required, in the short term, if the misery is sufficiently acute. So now he has learned to drink to cure his hangover. When the medication causes the disease, a positive feedback loop has been established.

You're the measure of my true decline. Your home isn't in the underworld, you live in the back room of the liquor store. My eternally hung-over angel, my Satan crawling like an amber worm from a bottle of Zoladkowa Gorzka.

I suspected the severe boredom had unhinged my brain chemicals somehow, making me care more about things than other people would. Like waking up hungover bothered me, the self-abuse aspect of it. Some of my friends would still sleep away most of the weekend, waking up late and eating fried things, only to go out again. I have never been into fried food but even staying out late had at this point lost its appeal because sleeping in ruined the whole flow of the day, making me stress to catch up on whatever I had missed.

Thursday 18th June 07:37 TO: chris@christophercheshire.com Ow, ow ow. Sunburn. Grass burn. Torn dress. Mud in hair. Hung-over. Feel like a slut.

When hungover, some people crave fatty foods—I can’t get enough metaphor.

The women had one of their get-togethers last night. From what I heard, it was lots of margaritas and ice cream and calling you a bastard. They’re all hungover this morning, so

I’m a hungover midlife crisis of a person in love with my assistant. Give me a break.

the hungover eye had a weird ability to find the ugliest things in any given landscape.

He glanced around the reading room and closed his eyes, trying to keep hold of the past for a minute longer, a fattening and hungover middle-aged historian in a black corduroy suit.

One of the things that happens is that during sleep, your brain cleans itself of waste that has accumulated during the day. “During slow-wave sleep, your cerebral spinal fluid channels open up more and remove metabolic waste from your brain,” Roxanne explained to me. Every night, when you go to sleep, your brain is rinsed with a watery fluid. This cerebrospinal fluid washes through your brain, flushing out toxic proteins and carrying them down to your liver to get rid of them. “So when I’m talking to college students, I call this brain-cell poop. If you can’t focus well, it might be you have too much brain-cell poop circulating.” That can explain why, when you are tired, “you get a hung-over sort of feeling”—you are literally clogged up with toxins. This positive kind of brainwashing can only happen when you are asleep.

No, really. Why do you care? And why are you hungover"? I put on my most obnoxious teacher talking to a really, really stupid student voice. "Well Chris sometimes when someone overindulges-

The officer of the court was a good old boy with a meaty backwoods beard and a hungover wobble to his step. He’d outgrown his shirt and the pressure against the buttons made him look upholstered.

women had one of their get-togethers last night. From what I heard, it was lots of margaritas and ice cream and calling you a bastard. They’re all hungover this morning, so I’d stay clear if I were you.” He

I was not too crazy about sleeping with girls I didn't know. It was an easy way to take care of my sex drive of course, and I did enjoy all the holding and touching, but I hated the morning after. I'd wake up and find this strange girl sleeping next to me, and the room would reek of alcohol, and the bed and the lighting and the curtains had that special "love hotel" garishness, and my head would be in a hungover fog.

Getting drunk or high every night. Being hungover every morning. You run out of options at a certain point. You come to understand why everybody else is living the boring life. And it doesn’t look so boring anymore.

Let’s just understand this. If we are tired or hungry or hungover, we are likely to be in a bad mood. That bad mood is therefore not really us. To believe in the things we feel at that point is wrong, because those feelings would disappear with food or sleep.

One Sunday at Woodside, gloomy and hungover, I wrote an instrumental that fitted my mood, and kept singing one line of lyrics over the top: ‘Life isn’t everything’. The next morning I found out that a boy called Guy Burchett who worked for Rocket had died in a motorbike crash at virtually the same time I was writing the song, so I called it ‘Song For Guy’. It was like nothing I’d ever done before, and my American record label refused to release it as a single – I was furious – but it became a colossal hit in Europe.

I woke to a nibble on the shell of my ear. What the… Last night. Last night. Oh my God. Did I? Panicked, I momentarily froze in bed as I wracked my hungover brain, trying to remember the end of the evening. I was never so relieved when a paw smacked me in the jaw.

The college library was a high beautiful space, designed and built and paid for by people who believed that those who sat at the long tables before open books—even those who were hung-over, sleepy, resentful, and uncomprehending—should have space above them, panels of dark gleaming wood around them, high windows bordered with Latin admonitions, through which to look at the sky. For a few years before they went into schoolteaching or business or began to rear children, they should have that. And now it was my turn and I should have it too.

The Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche once pointed out, “If you put one hundred percent of your heart into facing yourself, then you connect with this unconditional goodness. Whereas, if you only put fifty percent into the situation, you are trying to bargain with the situation, and nothing very much will happen.

Another of my pet peeves is that the female characters used to be all sort of cutesy, like having flour on their nose after they baked cookies and not knowing it. And now they're all a mess, like waking up really hungover and getting fired. I want to create characters who aren't flawless but also aren't ridiculous or incompetent at life.

جسدي مرهق وعيناي لا تطيقان وهج الشمس وفمي صحراء لم يروِها المطر منذ مائة عام. أعراض hangover كاملة ومشرّفة! حدوتة شيّقة هذه لجرّ الكلام مع الفتيات.. إجابة cool لو سألني أحدهم: «كيف أصبحت يوم تسلم نتيجة الثانوية يا زاك؟ سيقول البشر العاديون: كنت قلقاً، منقبضاً، واثقاً... أما أنا فسأقول لأولادي وأحفادي: كنت hungover.. والأدهى أنني سأكون صادقا!

then went to all three of the tall windows in the room, ripping the curtains closed at each as he went. I got up and followed after him, drawing the curtains open again. “What are you doing?” “I'm hungover,” he announced. “The sun is trying to crack my skull open, which is making me very unfriendly. But please. Feel free to open the curtains.

I can’t overestimate the importance of accepting ourselves exactly as we are right now, not as we wish we were or think we ought to be.”8

hung-over groan, the elective malady’s melody.

I awoke with a mild hangover.

Consider this a lesson in being an adult. If you go to a boy’s house dressed like an invitation, take shots and flirt with him all night, give every indication of wanting to sleep with him, what do you think he’s going to do? Ms. Hargrove can’t go crying wolf over every sexual encounter she regrets, or else cops would spend all our time chasing hungover college kids after a bad lay.

I wake on the fiction couch deeply hungover, my head cracking, with Rachel telling me to get up. She’s holding my eyelids open like she used to do in high school when we’d stayed up all night talking and then slept through the morning alarm. ‘Get. Up. Henry.’ ‘What time is it? I ask, batting off her hands. ‘It’s eleven. The shop’s been open for an hour. There are customers asking for books I can’t find. George is yelling at a guy called Martin Gamble who’s here to help me create the database. And as a separate issue, Amy’s waiting in the reading garden.’ ‘Amy’s here?’ I sit up and mess my hair around. ‘How do I look?’ ‘I decline to answer on the grounds that technically you’re my boss and I don’t want to start my new job by insulting you.’ ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I appreciate that.

We should go,” Bennett slurred, pushing himself up with obvious effort. “We only have thirty hours before we need to reestablish a plausible executive presence.” “I’m going to be hungover,” Chloe moaned. “Who can I pay to dial back time and undo three of those tequila shots? Maybe four.” Sara, who had been asleep in our bed, walked out, stretching. “I just called a couple cabs. Let’s go, drunkies.

Saturday morning. Hung-over as fuck. The beer fear squirms through my belly with alien tendrils and I know with absolute certainty that I have done something unforgivable. Something apocalyptic. Again.

What if you wake up hung-over the following morning, not dead, but realizing that you had killed somebody? Even worse, what if you wake up in the morning realizing you destroyed the things you loved most in your life? When she regained consciousness in the hospital scared and alone, Kate realized the nightmare was a reality… her parents were dead… her soul-mate was in prison… her life would never be the same. Through the eyes of many, Troy Trindle had it all… he was good-looking, popular, captain of the football team and dating the head cheerleader. What he lacked were the basic necessities; food, shelter and a family. Kate and Troy’s worlds collide when she moves to Alabama to resume training for a spot on the Olympic Gymnastics Team.

Rayna does not get sick on planes. Also, Rayna does not stop talking on planes. By the time we land at Okaloosa Regional Airport, I’m wondering if I’ve spoken as many words in my entire life as she did on the plane. With no layovers, it was the longest forty-five minutes of my whole freaking existence. I can tell Rachel’s nerves are also fringed. She orders an SUV limo-Rachel never does anything small-to pick us up and insists that Rayna try the complimentary champagne. I’m fairly certain it’s the first alcoholic beverage Rayna’s ever had, and by the time we reach the hotel on the beach, I’m all the way certain. As Rayna snores in the seat across from me, Rachel checks us into the hotel and has our bags taken to our room. “Do you want to head over to the Gulfarium now?” she asks. “Or, uh, rest up a bit and wait for Rayna to wake up?” This is an important decision. Personally, I’m not tired at all and would love to see a liquored-up Rayna negotiate the stairs at the Gulfarium. But I’d feel a certain guilt if she hit her hard head on a wooden rail or something and then we’d have to pay the Gulfarium for the damages her thick skull would surely cause. Plus, I’d have to suffer a reproving look from Dr. Milligan, which might actually hurt my feelings because he reminds me a bit of my dad. So I decide to do the right thing. “Let’s rest for a while and let her snap out of it. I’ll call Dr. Milligan and let him know we’ve checked in.” Two hours later, Sleeping Beast wakes up and we head to see Dr. Milligan. Rayna is particularly grouchy when hungover-can you even get hungover from drinking champagne?-so she’s not terribly inclined to be nice to the security guard who lets us in. She mutters something under her breath-thank God she doesn’t have a real voice-and pushes past him like the spoiled Royalty she is. I’m just about aggravated beyond redemption-until we see Dr. Milligan in a new exhibit of stingrays. He coos and murmurs as if they’re a litter of puppies in the tank begging to play with him. When he notices our arrival he smiles, and it feels like a coconut slushy on a sweltering day and it almost makes up for the crap I’ve been put through these past few days.

And this is it, and it is true: that wherever I go, now, for the rest of my life, and whatever I do, and whatever freedoms I am granted, I am always going to be worried about whether my daughter is cold, and whether she is wearing her hat. And that I will never be able to give this feeling back.

I awake to hear a shower running and quickly stifle a groan. Oh God, my head hurts! How much did I have to drink last night? I slowly prise open one eye and quickly close it again, the light hurts my delicate hung-over state too much. I sigh heavily and try to recall what exactly happened last night.

There was a baby wailing in morning-related outrage a few apartments away, so Nona walked on the balls of her feet to not add to the noise. The people underneath hated it if you walked loudly, and Pyrrha said they had militia links and not to piss them off because they were also hungover ninety percent of the time. This was unfair, because the person above them never took their shoes off inside, which surely meant they were allowed to complain about that. But Pyrrha said they shouldn’t piss them off because they were a cop. Pyrrha called it the shit sandwich. Pyrrha always seemed to know everything about everybody.

No. I wanted to talk to you first.” It was true that I had not told our lawyers yet. I wanted to keep to my word about this being a personal decision and I wanted to show her respect by coming to her in person, and first. I was a bit hurt that she thought I had already contacted an actual lawyer but felt clean knowing I had not. The idea had not come from Perry or Andre—they were just helping with practical elements. “Well then, do whatcha gotta do.” There was a hint of her thinking it bullshit that I wanted to save our personal relationship. I saw her smirk as if I were just using it as the excuse. She was a mix of hungover and

He was disorganized, forgetful, perpetually dissolute, and famous for his tremendous benders. One year he missed fifty straight weekly meetings at the Office of Works. His supervision of the office was so poor that one man was discovered to have been on holiday for three years. When sober, however, he was much liked and widely praised for his charm, good nature, and architectural vision. A bust of him in the National Portrait Gallery in London shows him clean shaven (and indeed clean, a slightly unusual condition for him), with a very full head of hair and a face that seems curiously mournful or perhaps just slightly hungover. Despite

When you feel like life is so overwhelming that you have no choice but to cry, simply stop in your tracks and bend over like you're catching your breath after a run. Then, let the tears fall straight down out of your eyes to the ground. Aim for perpendicularity. Your tears will avoid contaminating your cheeks, and you will not have to desperately swipe at your face, which is what leaves the irritation and telltale red marks. Consider enacting a few vomitous heaves. It may seem like extra drama, but people will assume you are merely hungover after some all-night rager you attended with your million friends, rather than standing alone in the street, sobbing into the sidewalk, watering the dried gum on the ground.

Unfortunately I think most people would still get more sympathy from their colleagues and bosses at work if they show up looking rough one morning and say ‘I’m hungover’ than if they say ‘I’m suffering from anxiety.’ But I think we pass people in the street every day who feel the same as you and I, many of them just don’t know what it is. Men and women going around for months having trouble breathing and seeing doctor after doctor because they think there’s something wrong with their lungs. All because it’s so damn difficult to admit that something else is… broken. That it’s an ache in our soul, invisible lead weights in our blood, an indescribable pressure in our chest. Our brains are lying to us, telling us we’re going to die. But there’s nothing wrong with our lungs, Zara. We’re not going to die, you and I.

But you know what, Zara? I’ve learned that it helps to talk about it. Unfortunately I think most people would still get more sympathy from their colleagues and bosses at work if they show up looking rough one morning and say ‘I’m hungover’ than if they say ‘I’m suffering from anxiety.’ But I think we pass people in the street every day who feel the same as you and I, many of them just don’t know what it is. Men and women going around for months having trouble breathing and seeing doctor after doctor because they think there’s something wrong with their lungs. All because it’s so damn difficult to admit that something else is… broken. That it’s an ache in our soul, invisible lead weights in our blood, an indescribable pressure in our chest. Our brains are lying to us, telling us we’re going to die. But there’s nothing wrong with our lungs, Zara. We’re not going to die, you and I.

becomes more powerful. It believes alcohol is necessary for survival (again, more than food, more than sex), and it’s on a mission to get it. If you’ve ever woken up hungover and resolved to never drink again, and at five p.m. found yourself standing in line with a bottle of red in your hand, this is the flip. Your top-down controls—which made promises to not drink, which are horrified by your perceived weakness, which know that alcohol does you no favors, which want a social life and a future and a sober night with your kids—are weakened, and the part of you that thinks in terms of the next fifteen seconds, which is concerned only with your survival, is running the show and telling you to fuck it, the wine is what matters. This is the cycle of addiction. It doesn’t matter how much we want to quit or hate that we haven’t; we feel compelled to ingest a substance or engage in a behavior we think will provide relief, or make us feel good, and whatever relief or goodness we get in the

When I woke up, Cat had already left but there was a text from Mike, asking me if I wanted to meet him in the lobby for breakfast. I felt gross and hungover, not to mention all of the butterflies in my stomach from the thought of just being near him, so I wasn’t sure I could handle keeping up a conversation all by myself. I wrote back Sure and then immediately texted Whitney and asked her to meet us so I wouldn’t have to be alone with him. When I arrived, they were bright and awake and alert, and I felt like a total zombie next to them. They teased me about my constant groaning about how sick I felt. But the truth was that my stomach butterflies were brought on more by how strange I felt around Mike. He seemed totally fine, like nothing had happened last night, but I kept stealing glances at him and thinking, You were my first kiss! In the light of day, it was hard for me to fully accept, because even though I was finally able to talk about my feelings with my friends and Nicole, I was still partially removed from that part of myself. We

Yeah, she is—sorry, I can’t lie to you, Andy,” Jane says. “It’s actually for her, the trip.” “Why?” “To help her with the break-up,” she says, as if it’s obvious. “To take her mind off things, cheer her up. Talk it through.” I look at Avi indignantly. “You hear that? She gets a whole weekend.” “I’ve got a whole weekend planned.” He shrugs defensively. “Oh yeah, like what?” “Like…tomorrow. When we’re hung-over. I’ve checked if the local KFC delivers on Uber Eats.” “And?” I demand. “They do.” “We’re doing a hammam and a forest walk,” Jane offers.

Do you remember asking me, one of the first times we met, if I could explain what panic attacks were? I don’t think I ever gave you a good answer.” “Have you got a better one now?” Zara asks. The psychologist shakes her head. Zara can’t help smiling. Then Nadia says, as herself, in her own words rather than those of her psychology training or anyone else: “But you know what, Zara? I’ve learned that it helps to talk about it. Unfortunately I think most people would still get more sympathy from their colleagues and bosses at work if they show up looking rough one morning and say ‘I’m hungover’ than if they say ‘I’m suffering from anxiety.’ But I think we pass people in the street every day who feel the same as you and I, many of them just don’t know what it is. Men and women going around for months having trouble breathing and seeing doctor after doctor because they think there’s something wrong with their lungs. All because it’s so damn difficult to admit that something else is… broken. That it’s an ache in our soul, invisible lead weights in our blood, an indescribable pressure in our chest. Our brains are lying to us, telling us we’re going to die. But there’s nothing wrong with our lungs, Zara. We’re not going to die, you and I.

I was mildly curious but clueless, and my husband—to—be and his friends were too hung—over to be of much help. They were mostly “lapsed” Catholics like my husband, the products of parochial schools in the 1950s and Jesuit colleges in the 1960s. They seemed vastly bored by the proceedings and had not gone forward to receive communion. But I watched the ceremony intently from far back in the big stone church. And at one point, I gasped. “Look,” I said, tugging on David’s sleeve. “Look at that! The priest is cleaning up! He’s doing the dishes!” My husband shrugged; others in the pew looked at me and then at him, as if to say—Dave, your girlfriend has gone soft in the head.

Sam groaned. A warmth on her face alerted her to the new morning. She opened one eye and peered at the fuzzy daylight streaming in through the window. Her head throbbed like a bitch. Her mouth felt like a carpet. She pushed herself off the couch and stood up shakily, kicking bottles as she stumbled to her small kitchen. Every movement was painful and slow. She was a sloth tight-roping through time. She held onto the basin for a moment to steady herself. She grabbed a plastic cup and opened the tap, letting it flow as she filled and refilled it, gulping down as much water as she could. She splashed her face, neck and chest with water, then refilled the cup and dumped the contents over her head. She stood there, unaware of the moments passing by, as the water dripped down her body. Willing herself to wake up and feel better. Willing the nausea into oblivion.

Locke was pulled out of his vivid thicket of dreams by a number of things: the rising heat of the day, the pressure of three cups of wine in his bowels, the moans of the hung-over men around him and the sharp prick of claws from the heavy little creature sleeping on the back of his neck. Struck by a sudden foggy memory of Scholar Treganne's spider, he gasped in horror and rolled over, clutching at whatever was clinging to him. He blinked several times to clear the veil of slumber from his eyes and found himself struggling not with a spider but with a kitten, narrow-faced and black-furred. "The hell?" Locke muttered. "Mew," the kitten retorted, locking gazes with him. It had the expression common to all kittens, that of a tyrant in the becoming. I was comfortable and you dared to move, those jade eyes said. For that you must die. When it became apparent to the cat that it's two or three pounds of mass were insufficient to break Locke's neck with one mighty snap, it put it's paws on his shoulders and began sharing it's drool-covered nose with his lips. He recoiled.

What if she had already done it to herself? What if she had shaved away from the surface of her brain whatever synaptic interlacings had formed her gift? She remembered reading somewhere that some pop artist once bought an original drawing by Michelangelo—and had taken a piece of art gum and erased it, leaving blank paper. The waste had shocked her. Now she felt a similar shock as she imagined the surface of her own brain with the talent for chess wiped away. At home she tried a Russian game book, but she couldn’t concentrate. She started going through her game with Foster, setting the board up in the kitchen, but the moves of it were too painful. That damned Stonewall, and the hastily pushed pawn. A patzer’s move. Bad chess. Hungover chess. The telephone rang, but she didn’t answer. She sat at the board and wished for a moment, painfully, that she had someone to call. Harry Beltik would be back in Louisville. And she didn’t want to tell him about the game with Foster. He would find out soon enough. She could call Benny. But Benny had been icy after Paris, and she did not want to talk to him. There was no one else. She got up wearily and opened the cabinet next to the refrigerator, took down a bottle of white wine and poured herself a glassful. A voice inside her cried out at the outrage, but she ignored it. She drank half of it in one long swallow and stood waiting until she could feel it. Then she finished the glass and poured another. A person could live without chess. Most people did. When she awoke on the sofa the next morning, still wearing the Paris clothes she had worn when losing the game to Foster, she was frightened in a new way. She could sense her brain being physically blurred by alcohol, its positional grasp gone clumsy, its penetration clouded. But after breakfast she showered and changed and then poured herself a glass of wine. It was almost mechanical; she had learned to cut off thought as she did it. The main thing was to eat some toast first, so the wine wouldn’t burn her stomach. She kept drinking for days, but the memory of the game she had lost and the fear of what she was doing to the sharp edge of her gift would not go away, except when she was so drunk that she could not even think. There was a piece in the Sunday paper about her, with one of the pictures taken that morning at the high school, and a headline reading CHESS CHAMP DROPS FROM TOURNEY. She threw the paper away without reading the article. Then one morning after a night of dark and confusing dreams she awoke with an unaccustomed clarity: if she did not stop drinking immediately she would ruin what she had. She had allowed herself to sink into this frightening murk. She had to find a foothold somewhere to push herself free of it. She would have to get help.

In truth the memoir was a game of postponement – a trick he played on himself almost daily, and fell for every time. There would be a poor and evasive morning, with letters to write as well, and a number of phone calls that had to be made; then lunch, at a place not necessarily close, and several things to do after lunch, with mounting anxiety in the two hours before six o’clock: and then a drink, a glow of resolve and sensible postponement till the following morning, when, too hung-over to do much work before ten, he would seek infuriated refuge, about eleven forty-five, in the trying necessity of going out once more to lunch. Over lunch, at Caspar’s or at the Garrick, he would be asked how work was going, when it could be expected, and the confidence of the questioner severely inhibited his answers – they had a bottle of wine, no more, but still the atmosphere was appreciably softened, his little hints at difficulties were taken as mere modesty – ‘I’m sure it will be marvellous’ – ‘It will take as long as it takes’ – and he left fractionally consoled himself, as if some great humane reprieve were somehow possible, and time (as deadline after deadline loomed and fell away behind) were not an overriding question. In the evenings especially, and towards bedtime, half-drunk, he started seeing connexions, approaches, lovely ideas for the work, and sat suffused with a sense of the masterly thing it was in his power to do the next morning.

It was raining again the next morning, a slanting gray rain like a swung curtain of crystal beads. I got up feeling sluggish and tired and stood looking out of the windows, with a dark, harsh taste of Sternwoods still in my mouth. I was as empty of life as a scarecrow's pockets. I went out to the kitchenette and drank two cups of black coffee. You can have a hangover from other things than alcohol. I had one from women.

But if you want world peace, you need to overcome your internal warfare before looking to love yourself and others.

I woke up several days later with knifing chest pains, feeling not hungover but mortally wounded by alcohol.

And they spoke gleefully of the legendary Monday morning when Mr White arrived late and hungover, ordered the class to write an essay on the dangers of the demon drink, put his feet on his desk, and fell fast asleep.

One week into my new Silicon Valley life, and the lesson was this: if you want to be a startup entrepreneur, get used to negotiating from positions of weakness. I’d soon have trickier situations to negotiate than convincing a cop to let me take a cab. And so will you if you play the startup game. The next morning, I wasn’t merely hungover, but was in fact still mildly drunk. The company all-hands meeting, wherein the entire company gathered to hear about new deals and employees, and generally to get pep-rallied by Murthy Nukala, the CEO, was scheduled for noon that day. I had to be there or risk having my coworkers file a missing persons report, as well as look like a pussy. My frazzled brain was slow to realize my car was still somewhere in San Mateo. One hundred and thirty dollars and too much sunlight later, I was standing beside my four-wheeled Bavarian steed at the scene of last night’s triumph over the rule of law, and fifteen minutes later I was an acceptable five minutes late for the all-hands. As I walked into the company-wide meeting, a murmur was heard from a corner of the assembled crowd, expressing either surprise or amusement at my being both alive and unincarcerated. The company rumor mill had been busy that morning. I probably looked as pickled and embalmed as I felt. Murthy launched into his weekly harangue. The wheels of capitalism ground ever on.

The only thing worse than having a hangover, in my opinion, is being hungover and middle-aged.

The view of basic goodness is that we are already perfect. We are already amazing, just as we are.

Generally speaking, I resolve to change my life on average maybe thirty to forty times a week, usually at about two a.m, drunk, ore early the next morning, hungover.

No, he didn’t drink because he’d seen every kind of reason for diving into a bottle, seen them up close and personal. But he’d never seen a solitary soul come out the back end of a bottle any better off than they had gone in. Mostly they just came out hungover and in need of a shower.

There’s something about today that makes me want to be hung-over tomorrow.

When I was on a trip to Iceland about ten years ago, I remember standing on the harbourfront in Reykjavik, and looking at the blue fjord north of the city. Across the choppy blue waves was a glacier, maybe twelve or twenty miles away - a big, dirty white tongue of ice crashing down from the bald black mountains with infinite slowness. Intrigued, I asked some hungover local about the glacier, its name and whereabouts. He told me the name of the glacier. The he told me the name of the sea-channel: Faxafloi. But then he addded that the glacier wasn't twenty miles away, it was two hundred miles away. The air in Iceland, he explained, is so clear and unpolluted, things look nearer than they are. I turned and looked again at the glacier, framed by the imperial blue waters of the fjord. I felt a bloodrush in my heart. The scenary was so breathtaking, and so majestic - I was moved and gratified - and yet I was obscurely troubled at the same time. The sense of unexpected distance was dizzying and confusing as well as exhillarating. This may seem far-fetched as an analogy, but it's the best I can do. The feeling I had by that fjord is, somehow, the same weak and head-spinning feeling I get when I look at a truly beautiful woman.

Being on Heroes was like being in one of those comedies where the leading man wakes up hungover with a woman in his bed and a walrus in his bathtub and he shakes his head and says, “What happened?

Sometimes I feel compelled to do something, but I can only guess later why it needed to done, and I question whether I am drawing connections where none really exist. Other times I see an event – in a dream or in a flash of “knowing” – and I feel compelled to work toward changing the outcome (if it’s a negative event) or ensuring it (when the event is positive). At the times I am able to work toward changing or ensuring the predicted event, sometimes this seems to make a difference, and sometimes it doesn’t seem to matter. Finally, and most often, throughout my life I have known mundane information before I should have known it. For example, one of my favourite games in school was to guess what numbers my math teacher would use to demonstrate a concept, or to guess the words on a vocabulary test before the test was given. I noticed I was not correct all the time, but I was correct enough to keep playing the game. Perhaps partially because of the usefulness of this mundane skill, I was an outstanding student, getting straight As and graduating from college with highest honours in neuroscience and a minor in computer science. I was a modest drinker even in college, but I found I could ace tests when I was hungover after a night of indulgence. Sometimes I think I even did better the less I paid attention to the test and the more I felt sick or spacey. It was like my unconscious mind could take over and put the correct information onto the page without interruption from my overly analytical conscious mind. At graduate school in neuroscience, I focused on trying to understand human experience by studying how the brain processes pain and stress. I wanted to know the answer to the question: what’s going on inside people’s heads when we suffer? Later, as I finished my PhD in psychoacoustics, which is all about the psychology of sound, I became fascinated with timing. How do we figure out the order of sounds, even when some sounds take longer to process than others? How can drummers learn to decode time differences of 1/1,000 of a second, when most people just can’t hear those kinds of subtle time differences? At this point, I was using my premonitions as just one of the tools in my day-to-day toolkit, but I wasn’t thinking about them scientifically. At least not consciously. Sure, every so often I’d dream of the slides that would be used by one of my professors the next day in class. Or I’d realize that the data I was recording in my experiments followed the curve of an equation I’d dreamed about a year before. But I thought that was just my quirky way of doing things – it was just my good student’s intuition and it didn’t have anything to do with my research interests or my life’s work. What was my life’s work again?

Christ, was the woman a witch? Twice in twelve hours, his head felt fuzzy, as if he was hungover…and he jolted to realize his traitorous cock was at half-mast.

You have the weirdest laugh of anyone I've ever met... And it feels like taking a shot of tequila every time I hear it. Like I could get drunk on the sound of you. Or hungover when I got too long without you.

I may accidentally fuck my employees, but as God is my witness, I will never show up to my winery hungover!