Day 3: Hungover on trams

Hungover.

Hungover on trams: second-guessing tram stops and getting off too early - power walking Errol St to make it to a breakfast where (thankfully) my breakfast companion turns out to also be hungover.

I try to make things work with long blacks, but it's the Bloody Mary on gin that gets it done, albeit temporarily. We both just can't even, and I'm warmed by the simple joy and companionship of a silly hungover friend. We laugh at our fucking hopelessness in that way you do when you wouldn't change any of your choices of the previous night. I drank 6 different things and at some incredible fried cheese. She (probably) kept drinking because there was a boy there. We're the same, and we're not sorry.

We wobble home after I gallantly finish her Bloody Mary (on vodka, mind you) to make up for where she failed. We moan while we drag ourselves home in a continuous zombie motion, moans punctuated with laughter at the plight of two 30 year old (almost; very nearly) women who cannot quite nail their shit down.

She goes upstairs to her bed and I lay face down on mine, fully clothed, for 15 minutes. I think about reasons to stay where I am, but the promise of the city (for me, glamorous and not a little fleeting) is too much. I put on mascara in the hope that fixes something about my face so not everyone will know about the choices I have recently made.

I have pink headphones to keep me company during the hours of city. I break up my wanderings with stops to my regular visits; the zine store below Flinders and Degraves where the tiny undergrad Arts students taking Asian Film and Cultural Studies courses let me interrupt and chat knowingly about racist lecturers. I pretend I am also 20 and filled with the idealism I remember from another life I had. 

Hangover persists. I try a cider; I chase it with a phone call from a friend. I buy magazines at Mag Nation and my correct change is the best flirting I can muster for the handsome hipster behind the counter. He compliments me on my something (I forget to listen in the panic of registering a compliment) and I smile-mumble my way out of the store to a cafe to mainline coffee. I try to go to a Bowie exhibit that doesn't start till late July. I find a few beautiful vintage dresses that I don't know how to get around trying on, so I just don't. I'll be regretting this decision even as I'm sitting on the plane flying out of the city.

I eat a burrito and there's so much capsicum in it that everything is ruined. The fact it's vegan makes me feel like I haven't completely failed at this day, but I'm not sure why. There's no fun making healthy choices when capsicum comes and fucks shit up.

I leave the city behind for friends and Japanese and wine and small boys who straighten out my hangover like no-one and nothing else has been able to all day. One of the tiny people squidges himself in next to me on a chair and I don't really read him a book, but we do look at the pictures in a backwards-to-forwards succession that works for both of us.

There's more to this night: there's high school friends and live music and scotch, there's tiredness and chatty cab drivers and finally there's bed. I survive the hangover day with minutes to spare and I lay in my bed put together in a dining room and I am so, so bone tired. I don't even have any dreams on this night.

That's how I got done with my hungover day.