Glad you enjoyed! And thanks for reading. I do find that, as a night of revelry goes on, the mid-way hydration becomes increasingly difficult to hang onto. I think you're right, that part of the problem is that, when confronted with two liquids, one simply water, the other a magic potion, the choice seems obvious. Not that we really choose in the instant to shun the path of hydration. Rather, I think we're magnetically pulled toward the cocktail/beer/wine moreso than toward the humble glass of h2o, because, if it's a well-made beverage, it just offers a lot more breadth and depth of flavor. It also usually contains enough calories to verge on "meal in a glass" status, and therefore wins out in terms of that kind of satiation, too.

For all of these reasons, I recommend drawing the water into rhythm with your libation of choice by viewing it differently: It's not in competition with your Manhattan. It's the negative space in your Manhattan. It's the rest between the trumpet blasts, the palate calming, palate cleansing intermezzo that allows your cocktail to taste, with every sip, exactly as delicious as it can.

Also, from a meditative standpoint, I look at the long, leisurely pull from my tumbler of water as a reminder that the evening is unhurried; that I am incredibly well positioned, and quite blessed, to have delicious and consciousness-altering concoctions arriving before me, say nothing of whatever else will follow. It's the plateau where I lounge and regard from a state of repose the dazzling experiences where are flowing in my direction. And from there, the whole evening opens up, and seems to breathe with space and liberty.

Don't know if any of these mental tricks will help. If not, repairs are always well within your grasp!

Regarding rhymes, and the order of drinking they prescribe, I think they're useful to a point, but (as is often the case with conventional wisdom presented in aphorism) woefully oversimplistic. There are also many different versions, some of which seem in conflict with one another. ( Here's one of my favorite versions, which makes fun of the whole idea of the thing).

There's also the german version, about beer and wine:

"Bier auf Wein, das laß sein. Wein auf Bier, das rat' ich dir"

and the rough translation is so great, because it feels so German to me: Beer after wine, leave it be. Wine after beer? I recommend it!

The simpler the wisdom, the more situations it overlooks. These directives offer a basic starting point to keep novices from erring badly, but those who know the ropes can certainly execute more daring maneuvers, and gracefully. If I had to replace these quotes with something more broadly useful, it would be this: the more different types of alcohol you consume, the greater your chance of a catastrophic reaction. Keep it simple, and in general, work in one direction. Going back and forth numerous times between categories fermented and distilled will probably lead to pain.

Beyond that, there's a nearly infinite realm of personal variance. Gin disagrees violently with some, even those quite acclimated to liquid culture, while it treats others quite handsomely. So I guess the answer differs for everyone, which is why it really is a good to know your poison, which in turn requires that one do as the ancients recommend, and "know thyself." (Only just that?) At any rate, these rules of thumb have helped quite a few people minimize their pain, which makes them alright in my book.

Thanks again for reading!

Very good point! In fact, if I understand the function of electrolytes correctly (and I may well not), one should really try to dose on the full complement of such minerals, not just salt. (Potassium, chloride, bicarbonate ... what else am I missing?) Depletion of any of these seems dire. Of course, they can be consumed in solid food as well, as humanodon mentions, but why not flank the problem?

Other comments offer a wide array of helpful methods. I don't have a solid source myself (nor an I/V setup for that matter) but I have it on good authority from several sources that b_b's saline drip is most definitely the fastest recovery method. AlderaanDuran introduces us to pedialyte (thanks!), which sounds like a more potent and medicinal gatorade, and just a little bit creeperish at the same time. I'll have to give it a try, though I might need some dinosaur vitamins to go with it. I do prefer to glean my remedies in the form of whole and non-chemically altered/isolated foods whenever possible though, which is why insomniasexx's recommendation of coconut water appeals to me so much. It's surely the most pleasurable of electrolyte packing liquids, with the possible exception of her other recommendation, beer, which scratches two itches at once, hydrating rapidly, while also taking the edge off (more on this in step ... 7?)

And for those who would rather get their electrolytes in (partially) solid and savory form, humanodon's recommendation of phở tái is truly difficult to beat. (For those among you not currently eating red meat, Olive and I recently proved the dish could be translated into shrimp and veggie territory to truly delightful effect.)

Thanks, mk, for bringing this up, and thanks all for the array of recommendations. I might have gotten around to covering this, but surely not as deeply as we've discussed it here. And thanks also for the word hyponatremia, which I didn't have stashed anywhere on my person! The symptoms of that, together with hypokalemia (potassium deficiency, yes?) sound like they offer several of the key culprits constituting the elsewise nameless dysphoria of the hangover.

phở tái! This is exciting, even though (or because?) it does somewhat pre-empt my step 6. (Or was it 5?) It's one on a short list I'm compiling of foods most ideal for recovery.

Soda/v8/lime/banana/hot sauce/milk?

Wow. Can't say I'd have put all those together. Still, I can see what each element is trying to contribute. If in extreme duress, I owe it to science and your contribution to try it. MMMV, and I'll be sure to get back to you about it.

I know the feeling. Fortunately, lots of people have gone and been fools before us, and thanks to them, we have ever so many techniques of repair. Hope something in here will be helpful someday!

this is one of my favorite movie scenes of all time. (Yes, including the cenozoic era).

Oh man. Great thread! Fun poems, all. As for my own, I'll just go ahead and waffle. The short list includes Milosz's Ars Poetica, frost's Accidentally on Purpose, Borges' The Suicide, Bishop's One Art, Bukowski's Something for the Touts, the Nuns, the Grocery Store Clerks, and You, and Stevens' The Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock. Lately, I've been blown away by Averill Curdy's Song and Error (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/236832), which I first heard on poetry foundation.org's poem of the day podcast. Still, I think the top spot must go to Rilke, for this one:

The Man Watching

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes that a storm is coming, and I hear the far-off fields say things I can't bear without a friend, I can't love without a sister

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on across the woods and across time, and the world looks as if it had no age: the landscape like a line in the psalm book, is seriousness and weight and eternity.

What we choose to fight is so tiny! What fights us is so great! If only we would let ourselves be dominated as things do by some immense storm, we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it's with small things, and the triumph itself makes us small. What is extraordinary and eternal does not want to be bent by us. I mean the Angel who appeared to the wrestlers of the Old Testament: when the wrestler's sinews grew long like metal strings, he felt them under his fingers like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel (who often simply declined the fight) went away proud and strengthened and great from that harsh hand, that kneaded him as if to change his shape. Winning does not tempt that man. This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings.

If we needed any further evidence that the institution of the university has morphed into a staggeringly overpriced vending machine of social viability certificates, while the true form of the university has quietly vanished and reappeared elsewhere, I guess this would be it.

That makes me happy, my friend. I'd like to think it makes degroff happy too, but I don't presume upon his happiness. We'll just have to try the white rabbit #2 on the next occasion! No regrets regarding our heavily leaning upon st germain and grapefruit based concoctions. I have a st. G based variation on the French 75, btw ... Cheers!

This is great (And of course, awful). Thanks for sharing it.

I do believe that we can change much in this world, and running is only one of many strategies, and if we align ourselves with powerful positive forces, then the change can be powerful and positive. The belief that such a disposition is naive (which is a rather ubiquitous belief) is a self-fulfilling prophecy that tragically lets the would-be doers off the hook, encouraging fatalism and apathy and the perpertuation of many awful situations. Of course the changes we can make are very often not the changes we want to make. We can't make changes for other people, at least not where their own agency is required, and changes are most often not grand. So we must approach change as a way of life, not as a series of things to be crossed off a list. We can collectively tear down mountains this way, the way wind and water do.

In another note, I'm never surprised (often saddened but never surprised) at how much nastiness there is in this world. The only broadly uniting value of the society in which I live is self-interest, and self interest when unchecked always leads to horrendous abuses. Why wouldn't people be constantly doing awful things? One of my own personal mountains to build is something better than self-interest to unite us. Who's in?

Despite the many tempting rabbit trails, the only coherent message of this fun comic is this: political slogans equivocate. Choice is something no one wants to do without, yet no one can deny that unrestricted liberty on the part of others might lead to catastrophe, and social collapse. This should surprise no one. These terms gain prominence precisely because of their grandiose and non-specific framing. It's all very convenient and self-flattering, on the one side and on the other.

Well, I'm by no means an expert in either Rumi or Bly, but I'm very happy to offer my thoughts. Explication of poems is always fun work, even though (perhaps because?) it's inherently inconclusive.

(here's a written out version, for reference: http://pathtowalk.blogspot.com/2005/09/rumi-edge-of-roof.htm...)

The speaker in this poem, possibly a version of Rumi, possibly a projection upon someone else, is badly out of sorts. In a new place where he doesn't know anyone, I imagine, and based upon lines 3 and 4, probably stranded apart from his beloved. It's impossible to tell from the verse whether the new place is really so awful, or whether it's just new and strange. I myself have been acclimating to a new city and other strange life shaping events over the last five 8 months, which is one of the reasons this poems speaks so strongly to me right now. I've been dealing rather continuously with what I call, the Doors phenomenon, i.e., that people are strange when you're a stranger. And the speaker in Rumi's poem may be enmeshed in the same.

Either way, the speaker indulges in scathing attack upon this new place (well, dismissal, really), to which he attributes his unhappiness, going so far as to imply that it lacks any spiritual dimension, (lines 5 and 6), which is clearly a part of what would make a place worthy, in Rumi-land. We see similar allegations leveled against places/times in the work of other poets, who each find fault with a lack that they would consider appalling. Wallace Steven's "The Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock" comes to mind, in which he paints a sad picture of a place or culture lacking in all imagination.

In the fifth and sixth strophes/paragraphs, Rumi is taking someone to task. I'm not 100% on this, but I think it may be himself. (His desire body, he's just addressed in the 4th strophe, would be a personification of his pining. Alternately, he may subscribe to a belief in the very real existence of this projection, something akin to an astral body. I'm not really at all sure of Rumi's cosmology or metaphysical defaults). Either way, I think it may be this version of himself that he scolds in the final two strophes of the poem. He is scolding himself for pursuing ephemeral, insubstantial pleasures, which may have brought him to where he now is, where "i don't like it here," and where he is apart from his beloved.

Imagine a guy in a strange town who gets loaded and sad and lonely and misses his girl, and suddenly everything around him seems unbearably strange and shabby. I guess, in a single sentence of reduction, that would be my overview.

But how about you? Does any of that sound like a good fit? Any idea who he's referring to as "the great Chinese Simurgh bird?"