Hi Helen,

Of course, the obvious answer to this is another beer, which is to say some have tried to replace this stomach turning thought with the alternative greasy breakfast. I discovered a sure cure while living in San Francisco. The drunken evening prior to the noted “Mourning After” is another story. My brain was dry, stomach bloated and I was shaking, just as pretty as a picture stumbling into the only dive bar in Noe Valley. The bartender, a gentleman wise in his years, poured me a bloody beer. He saved my life that day. The recipe should be on every can of Miller High Life but its not. It goes like this. In a Half pint glass pour the Champagne of Beers almost to the top, add a 1/2 shot of tomato juice and sprinkle with salt. You may need to research the effects of this marvelous cocktail; the salt really helps the brain, tomato juice stomach and the beer, anyway. Here’s another recipe from San Francisco. After an evening tare of the Mission I’d find myself covered in dogs on a friend’s rather unhygienic couch. I awake, still in my sneakers, to find a sparse living room decorated with a giant veneered box TV, stacks of porn, see, another story, and curtain less windows. I’m grateful for the summer gray of this city. Eve rouses my sleeping blanket, to thwacks of tails and kidney punches from two 60-pound dogs. My calm is broken, she speaks to the dogs a bit louder, and every noun begins with a “P.” Eve loves hangovers and there is no reconciling that she eight years younger than me so I do my best to slip into her mindset, which she admits, at times like these is just her pulse. The front gate to the flat slams behind the busy bodies of the three and I. Leashless, I pull the keys from my jeans open the gate to the truck, the dogs follow the cue. This is how our hangover cure begins. A quick stop at the corner store more digging in jeans for the cash for half a six-pack of Tacate and Eve and I are on our way. The fog is pillowing over the Twin Peaks now as I find my way to I-295. Eve is talking about her dog but is still putting “p’s” in her nouns, it helps push the grey matter into the dull state I’m hoping to achieve. She opens a beer as we pull onto Skyline Blvd. The greatest dog park in the world is at Fort Funston. Finally feeling my youth having stopped at the Taco Bell for breakfast and finishing my first beer the dogs lead the way down the sandy labyrinth to the beach. The three of them play fetch with the biggest sticks Eve can find, lobbing them into the crashing waves until none of them can play anymore. But Eve’s mouth still works she continues to surl the morning with sand and stories. She is the sand on the rim of my beer can. I really hope that translates as a complement. The salt air goes right to my head, we finish the six and walk back teasing the Barn Swallows and Bald Eagles.