She liked hangovers.

But maybe, it occurred to her one day when she flipped through the last packet of glossy black and white photos, her hangovers weren't the quite same as other people's. Not that she liked all hangovers. She could do without the ones that left her queasy and seasick, the ones where she had to grip the slick desktop at work with the tips of her fingers and pray that no one saw the drops of sweat that beaded her upper lip.

But there were also those "hangovers" that seemed to ripple pleasantly through her day, the aftershock of a good night's drink merely fuzzing out the more painful aspects of life. Sometimes she felt a nervous energy circle within her, spiraling up her right arm and along her shoulder, down her back and then around her middle until it swirled in her belly. She felt fragile and hard at the same time, mostly alive but partly dead. She felt there was something tragically beautiful about the most mundane things-- the coolness of her legs against the rumpled sheets before she got out of bed, the way the sun fell in slanted lines on her Formica kitchen table, the tangy soap smell of her shampoo and the soft sound her hair made she ran her hand through it.