Tag: hangover

#oneaday, Day 42: The Hangover

It’s been a while since a truly drunken night, and as I commented in one of my favourite posts of last year, it’s important to take stock of your situation the day after in order to ensure that no lasting damage has been done to yourself, your friendships, your relationships, your internal organs or the bathroom in the place where you were living or staying at the time.

Last night was what we shall politely call “a heavy night”. The reasons for said night out are either unimportant or possibly under embargo right now, so let’s just say that there was me; a group of people from whole other countries; lots of free-flowing alcohol, mostly in the form of Kamikaze shots or Jameson’s and ginger beer, which seemed to become the “official drink” of the evening (I initially judged the first one as disgusting but it either grew on me or I stopped caring after the first one. I forget which.); a basement bar called Roppongi; some girls in very tight dresses including one with a very 80s haircut and her friend who was still dressed up but looked like she had made less of an over-the-top “conscious effort” and was consequently far more attractive; and… well, I don’t think I need to go on—surely all the ingredients for a great night are already there.

I managed to conduct myself with an appropriate degree of decorum, however, and found myself on more than one occasion confronted with some very pleasant company who were probably mostly using me as an excuse to get away from some somewhat more lecherous company but at least did me the courtesy of seeming interested in the things I had to say. I can remember their names and everything. See, perfect gentleman, me. (Well, all right. There’s one I can’t quite remember the name of. But I’m not convinced I ever knew it in the first place, so I think we can let me off on that count. Also it was very noisy, and I was very drunk.)

The basement location of aforementioned bar precluded any possibility of drunk livetweeting the evening, which is probably for the best. It also prevented drunk texting and phoning, also probably for the best, though I can’t recall a time I’ve ever actually phoned anyone when drunk. (People phone me, though. The words “Lana no sleep!” and the sounds of the person in question frantically scrabbling at their front door attempting to get in and failing still haunt me to this day.) I am occasionally guilty of the odd drunken text, however, as that previous post will attest.

In fact, the whole evening was thoroughly pleasant—no-one got into a fight, no one pissed anyone else off (or if they did, the one who was pissed off hid it well) and no-one made too much of a fool of themselves. Everyone made it back to their respective sleeping quarters safely with no “unexpected guests”. And no-one was sick.

Until this morning, of course, when the hangover came. I can’t speak for my companions but if they felt anything like I did when I woke up at 8am after about 5 hours’ sleep, I sincerely pity them for having to be up, about and ready to be driven to the airport.

The trouble with a hangover is it takes time for you to work out its severity. When lying down, you might be able to judge that Today Will Not Be A Good Day. Standing up is the next text, as is attempting to walk to the bathroom. Breakfast offers an additional challenge, carrying the risk of your stomach going “AHHH. NO MORE. SRSLY” when confronted with… well, anything, really.

And all the while your brain is going through a constant cycle of thinking “Please don’t be sick. I won’t be sick if I don’t think about being sick. But trying really hard not to think about being sick is making me wonder if I’m actually feeling sick. And wondering if I’m actually feeling sick is making me think about how far it would go from here to actually being sick, and if I can make it to the toilet if I do suddenly feel sick. And oh. I feel sick. BLAAAARF.”

Sometimes you can overcome these urges, of course. It would be ungentlemanly of me to reveal whether or not I succeeded in this, however. You’ll have to make your own mind up.

#oneaday, Day 179: Back to…

Evening all. After the considerable amount of depravity that took place last night I’m pleased to report something of a return to normality, though my head doesn’t quite believe that yet, still wobbling a little bit as it is. I’d also like to assure everyone that this post is written entirely by me and no other drunken people passing my phone around and sharing their pearls of wisdom with the world.

On a side note, whoever wrote this:

This is going terribly badly, but it pretty much sums up how tonight is going with the drink flowing freely like paradise city if the drink flowed freely instead of the girls being pretty.

I actually love you. Well done.

It wasn’t me. I don’t think. I’d remember coming up with something like that.

Anyway. Today has been largely wasted in a hung-over haze. We didn’t get home until well after 5 in the morning. The sun was rising, the birds were singing; it would have been quite beautiful were we not all quite so obliterated with the incredibly strong vodka we’d been plied with. Still, despite five completely necessary yet discreet early-morning trips to the bathroom that I am assured no-one else heard, we all slept very well. Admittedly, most of us not in our own houses. But we slept well nonetheless.

A little too well, in fact. Despite waking up repeatedly for aforementioned bodily cries for help, I fell asleep until well after lunchtime. There was no sign of my previous night’s companions, and a croaky-voiced shout of “anyone up yet?” outside the bedroom doors didn’t elicit any response. So eventually I figured enough was enough. I shouted a crackly “goodbye” and staggered out into the street feeling more than a little bit shaky. I realised that I wasn’t quite sure where I actually was in town, and the battery on my phone had died in the night.

Luckily, it wasn’t difficult to get back into town, and I plied myself with a coffee and a bacon sandwich that I ate very, very carefully. I managed to make it home without succumbing to the hugely lazy desire to get a taxi for a trip of less than a mile. When I got back in, I slumped on the couch for a bit and stared at the wall, half-asleep. But there was work to do; I have a job interview tomorrow, and there’s a presentation to deliver as part of it.

Trouble is, this job is in a field that I’m sure I could do but have little to no experience in. I’m not a marketer, though I’ve written stuff that could technically be classed as “PR” in the past. I know my way around social networking and know how to promote things; but at the same time I don’t want to become one of those douchebags who describe themselves as a “social media guru”.

Nor am I particularly enamoured with the idea of wearing a suit, which this job sounds like it will require. Suits look great on the right person, sure. But particularly in the summer months, there are few things more unpleasant to wear than a suit. Heavy woolen trousers and jacket? Shirt that seems to get sweaty pits as soon as you put it on? No thanks.

As you may have gathered, for a variety of reasons, I’m not feeling particularly fired up about this interview. I’m not sure why; ever since the company first got back to me and expressed an interest it hasn’t felt quite “right”. Initially, this was because of the prospect of having to move to a new city for it. I’ve kind of accepted the fact that that is going to be pretty much inevitable now, given the startling lack of any jobs that are the slightest bit interesting in Southampton. But even accepting that, things still didn’t feel quite “right”. It doesn’t feel like the right fit for me.

The advice of friends has convinced me that I should go anyway, see what the company’s like, scope the place out and get a feel for it. If it turns out to be awesome, great. If not, 1) it doesn’t matter because I have other prospects lined up and 2) it’s good experience.

A job’s a job, I know. But there are other prospects on the horizon that, while they pay less, offer the opportunity for much, much more in the way of happiness. And at the end of the day, I think that’s the most important thing.