The Day After My Hangover

Well! That was some hangover! The kind that starts out gently, just a little thirst, a little off balance, a little sluggish. Gradually getting worse until you can't even stand up for more than 2 minutes without getting dizzy. My skin felt like paper from a lack of hydration, a situation I sought to remedy by drinking buckets of wonderful, ice cold water.

There was a lot of eating involved in my hangover yesterday. Like anything that I saw that looked remotely appetizing, I had to eat. There are no cupcakes left, my emergency supply of KD took a hit, and the Pot of Gold was also called up to service.

By the time I rolled into bed at 9.45 last night (don't worry, I didn't go to sleep right away. I sat up and read until the ungodly hour of 10.30) I felt like I'd destroyed the promise of 2011. Less than 24 hours in, it was ruined. Disgusting.

I attempted to remedy the situation today. Yes, I slept late. But that's only because at first I really couldn't face the remnants of my ravenous hangover day. When I was finally able to crack the door it was only to skim my eyes over the bowl of leftover Doritos, various glasses containing varying amounts of water, wrappers from a Lindt chocolate frenzy (I wasn't alone on that one- The Boyfriend totally started it). Action had to be taken.

But first, I had to finish my book. I don't think that I could have chosen a better book to start the new year with. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is exactly what I needed to read to start the new year. Come on- if Francie Nolan's family is able to hack it going hungry for days than surely I can clean my apartment.

I finished my book over a bowl of cereal (I accidentally glanced at the milk's expiration date and decided that Dec 31st wasn't that long ago that having some would kill me) and then? We got to work. All traces of my hangover eat-a-palooza were removed, the dishwasher emptied and reloaded, the counters wiped and scrubbed. If you could have smelled my kitchen when I was done- well with the delicious scent of 'green' cleaners and winter sunlight streaming in through the windows...it was a little bit of heaven.

We de-Christmas'd the apartment today too. De-NYE'd as well. We took down the NYE banners and packed away the hats and noisemakers for another year. We removed the lights and garlands, put away the ornaments and card holders. We took everything out of the spare room closet and condensed what we had. We resolution-ed the hell out of this place (even though I don't do resolutions strictly speaking).

A more auspicious start to a new year I have never experienced. My apartment is clean, I'm no longer hungover, junk was removed, and I'm off to work again tomorrow. All in all, I'm thinking good things will happen in 2011.