Brooklyn Woman

A Publication of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

JAN. 10, 2002 issue

The World According To Me

By Ryn Gargulinski

THE HOLIDAY HANGOVER

Now that we have gotten through this season of indulgences relatively unscathed (i.e. we still have all our limbs), it’s time to recover from our terrific hangovers.

A few things about hangovers.   First off, why are they called “terrific” when they are precisely anything but.  The latest issue of Glamour magazine even proposes a “hangover party” for the day after to help ease the pain.  They recommend dragging a giant mattress into the center of a room, fluffing it with crisp linens, and inviting all your pals over to sit Indian-style eating syrupy waffle and bacon sandwiches.  Where you would get crisp linens and the energy to drag a mattress across the room on January 1st is a little mystery they do not, however, clear up.  Perhaps in their February issue.

The second thing we must know about hangovers is that they are all not brought about by downing as much as booze as the East River could hold.  Some of the worst hangovers I have ever experienced do not even come from drinking at all.  They come from the excess -- of anything.  This holds especially true in the wake of the holiday season, which contains too much glitz, too much glimmer, too much stress and too much gluttony.   There is a lot of over-eating, under-sleeping and maxing out your charge cards going on.  I am personally also suffering from excess of Lestoil, the cleaning agent I decided to pour all over my kitchen carpet to clean up a coffee stain.  Glamour, where’s the answer to this one?

For fear of sounding like Dear Abby or good ole Ann (the sister I actually prefer) I am not going into a whole litany of sure-fire remedies for the aftermath of excessive behavior.  Mainly because I do not have any.  But I will share what I have tried to combat suffering.

You gotta be a dog.  Not a seeing eye dog and not a hound dog, the latter of which you may have been acting like complete with lampshade on New Year’s eve... but a guard dog.  It comes down to watching your behavior, monitoring it, taking note where you may have been going off the deep end.  Since it is virtually impossible to simply STOP doing what we do not like, we can start easy by merely NOTICING it and saying to ourselves “Wow, I really should stop this.”  I find when you get sick enough of saying “Wow, I really should...” with a certain faux pas, you will automatically start to change it.  

For example, a friend of a friend’s sister’s aunt who I am sure you will never meet used to have this real problem.  She would live in this fantasy world that she were some kind of Wonder Woman who could not only save the world while looking great in a red, white and blue leotard, but she thought she could do anything and everything.  Not only that, but she agreed to have it all done by yesterday. 

She was under the frightening illusion that she could control time and destiny.  When the ends of her days were met with frazzled nerves and bulging eyeballs, when she started losing pages from her date book as well as her mind, when her hair started falling out in massive clumps (or at least it felt like it was), she finally said ENOUGH.  

Sure, it took years of self-abuse, which is also known as perfectionism, until she finally wore herself down enough to cut it out and try to live more simply.  She began by accepting the fact that she is human and not Lynda Carter looking leggy in stars and stripes.  She now takes on tasks more suited for human beings rather than demi-gods which has helped quiet the cauldron of chaos in her brain.  Ironically, she is also getting more things done since her energy is not flailed in so many egregious directions.  At the end of the day, she is sometimes even unwound enough to get some decent sleep. 

Yes, my friends, she has started living that nasty, 10-letter word: Moderation.  Are we ready to do the same?  It’s a hard pill to swallow, but perhaps not as difficult as that aspirin with soggy waffles that was slated for January 1st.  Give it a whirl.  It’s not easy and it won’t happen overnight.  We will always want an excess of SOMETHING.

But if we are to have excess of anything this year, let’s hope for an excess of accomplishments, an excess of success and an excess of rest and relaxation (if there is such a thing).  As for the over-kill of Lestoil permeating my kitchen, I shall just keep lighting an excess of vanilla-scented incense.