Hangover

I WOKE up Thursday feeling fresh and invigorated, with no post-scandal hangover. I was one of the 17.5 people in America who didn't watch the Monica Lewinsky interview, and I have none of that sour sensation that follows when you realize you have just wasted hours watching some dumb, over-hyped show. I am not going to read her book or listen to her tapes of sex advice to the lovelorn, or whatever her managers concoct for her next.I realize that my decision to boycott this allegedly momentous interview deprives me of an important currency of conversation: Monica chat.

In Germany it is a katzenjammer, translated as "wailing of cats."In France they say guele de bois, meaning "wooden throat."In Norway it is called jeg har tommermen, which means literally "carpenters in my head."It is the pounding head, gurgling stomach and lack of energy known to Americans -- particularly after tonight -- as the hangover.In 1994, Skyy Vodka bragged in ads that it was a "no hangover" alcohol.The ad campaign was banned by government regulators who disputed the claim, but the ads underscore the fact that more drinkers are wary of hangovers.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- There's a malaise afflicting baseball executives and managers these days. It's called Strike Hangover, caused by many days and weeks of scouting and negotiating with replacement players. The symptoms are depressed spirits and exceedingly slow radar guns and stopwatches.None of that was in evidence on reporting day at the Orioles' Twin Lakes Park camp, where there are no replacement players. New manager Phil Regan strode happily from meeting to meeting in a bright polo shirt and slacks, his smile broad.

The Carroll County Planning Commission cleared the way yesterday for owners of "hangover parcels" to sell those parcels without having to deduct them from off-conveyances, lots that an owner can sell without meeting county subdivision regulations."

Maurice Kanbar has a million-dollar idea that he thinks could clear your head and solve the sales problems of an industry: hangover-free vodka.He says people who drink his Skyy Vodka aren't likely to get hangovers because he has removed most of the impurities that he thinks causes them. He used to get bad headaches when he drank, but not since he created Skyy, he says.But now Mr. Kanbar is getting headaches from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. It has launched an investigation of his hangover claims that could force him to scrap his advertising altogether.

New Orleans. -- Every day since the Republicans won the elections I've woken up with a hangover -- and I haven't been drinking. I keep dreaming that someone turned me in for being an alien. Then I wake up and I remember: I'm not. I'm a U.S. citizen. But just as I relax, I open the paper and see that the new proposals on law and order in the land call for a lot of snitching.Republicans want to force pregnant mothers to tell who the fathers are before they can get an abortion. In California, they are trying to get teachers to snitch on kids that might be aliens.

Carroll County's planning commission is scheduled to hear citizens' opinions tomorrow on a rules change that could increase the number of new houses by the sides of rural roads, although no one knows by how many.The proposed amendment to county subdivision regulations would allow owners of land split by roads that the county maintains, but doesn't own outright, to sell acreage on one side of the road without deducting the sale from their off-conveyances. County law allows landowners to off-convey, or sell, two lots per parcel of land without going through the subdivision process.

Once again, I am presenting my list of New Year's Day hangover cures.I do not know why. I actually have no sympathy for people who drink to excess (unless they invite me along), but as a public service I will share my collection of actual expert cures with you:Dr. Philip Thorek, a surgeon with an interest in nutrition and drinking: "Boy, alcohol really knocks hell out of your liver. And the liver is a marvelous organ. But what do we do to it? We go out and kill off a fifth and turn into bibulous slobs."

Too much alcoholic good cheer can leave an unjolly hangover as a painful reminder the next day.Hangovers -- headaches, nausea and stomach irritations -- result from an overindulgence of alcohol.Hangovers are caused by the undigested byproducts of alcohol, such as acetaldehyde and lactic acid, that build up in the bloodstream as the liver is digesting alcohol.But planning and moderation in drinking can help prevent a hangover.The liver digests alcohol at a slow, fixed rate that cannot be changed.

You don't hear much about mixologists these days, even wit superhits like TV's "Cheers" grinding the neighborhood spa idea into the national mentality.Today's bartenders are likely to be dressy young hunks whprobably know how to make sushi, play hardball, dance the lambada and do quite a few other things.It was different a half-century ago and more. Bartenders were courtly and portly, fatherly types. They always "sirred" the male patrons and never got familiar or chatty unless approached.

The holiday season brings plenty of reasons to celebrate and with them the temptation to eat and, perhaps, drink a little more than is wise. As we all know but sometimes forget, drinking too much inevitably leads to headaches, loss of energy and generally feeling rotten. But there's only one sure way to avoid a hangover, says Tyler Cymet, a doctor of osteopathic medicine and an emergency room physician at Northwest Hospital. And we know what it is, don't we? Is alcohol something that people should avoid?

This was the kind of emotional hangover the Washington Redskins had rarely felt this season. This time, the pounding headache was replaced by a giddy buzz. Redskins@Eagles Sunday, 1 p.m., Ch. 5, 1430 AM Line: Eagles by 7

Sun Exclusives Those Fantasy Guys Week 2 All-Fantasy team. Go to www.baltimoresun.com/fantasy David Steele's blog Hangover for Ravens fans. Go to www.baltimoresun.com/steeleblog Roch Around the Clock Undefeated and unable to relax. Go to baltimoresun.com/roch Ray Frager's media blog Those wacky NFL pre-game shows. Go to www.baltimoresun.com/mediumwell

Ever wonder why some poor sots fall off their bar stools after one drink while others imbibe into the evening? The answer, it turns out, may lie partly in the hangover gene. Addictions expert Ulrike Heberlein and fellow researchers reported this year in the journal Nature that they had discovered it in drunken fruit flies. Now they're working with experts in human genetics to see whether people have it, too. "Firstly we'd have to figure out whether ... people who have differences in their ability to develop tolerance have different versions of this gene," said Heberlein, whose University of California-San Francisco lab has studied loaded fruit flies for years.

Richard Bright lives and dies by soccer. He grew up in Manchester, England, playing what the Brits call football, and each spring he takes the field with Hangover United -- a Maryland team that, despite its name, takes its league games seriously. This year, Hangover United's first game is April 5, and Bright has a problem -- he's "not in shape whatsoever. "With this harsh winter, there was little to no opportunity to get out and do something," says the 38-year-old, who lives near Ellicott City.

REGULAR VISITORS to this space know there is no end to the things I do for my readers. I have stood in test tunnels and endured hurricane-force winds, ridden in the Goodyear blimp (even though I hate flying), attended cat shows (even though I hate cats), endured mimes and accordion players and fat guys in Speedos at health club pools, all to bring the stories to light, often at great personal risk. Then, the other night, came the ultimate sacrifice. I got loaded for my readers. OK, I didn't really get loaded-loaded, because I am 120 years old and can no longer stand to wake up with a pounding headache and nausea and lie on the couch all day whimpering for someone to shoot me. But I did have a few beers in order to test something called Chaser, which bills itself as "America's No. 1 Hangover Prevention" and is getting lots of publicity in the few months it's been sold here.

BOSTON -- Here's the TV image I intend to freeze-frame for my "Summer of '02" album: an earnest George Bush assuring an Alabama audience that "our economy is fundamentally strong" while the streamer below him follows the stock market down the graph and into the tank. Our first MBA president, the man who once thought it was a compliment to be called CEO of the United States, now has a credibility gap on the economy as great as his predecessor had on fidelity. His words have no more impact on folks voting with the remnants of their 401(k)

YOU ARE a true Baltimorean if you remember a little box that used to run each New Year's Day on the front page of The Sun. "If not needed this morning, it may be clipped and saved for future contingencies," the box advised, and it went on to list the ingredients that "would sober a patient in 5 to 35 minutes." This is the recipe: Into a highball glass pour the juice of half a lemon or one orange. Add one-eighth of a teaspoon of salt, two teaspoons of brown sugar and enough ice water to make 8 ounces.

If some rogue nation - Canada, let's say - wanted to pick the perfect day to invade the United States, today would be the day. Today is the Day of Digestion, the traditional soporific "work" day nestled betwixt holiday and weekend. A day when 9-to-5 becomes 10-to-2 and the most complex chore is reorganizing the Rolodex or unwrapping a turkey sandwich. If anyone says they're working the day after Thanksgiving, they should probably make those little quotation marks people do with their fingers.

I WOKE up Thursday feeling fresh and invigorated, with no post-scandal hangover. I was one of the 17.5 people in America who didn't watch the Monica Lewinsky interview, and I have none of that sour sensation that follows when you realize you have just wasted hours watching some dumb, over-hyped show. I am not going to read her book or listen to her tapes of sex advice to the lovelorn, or whatever her managers concoct for her next.I realize that my decision to boycott this allegedly momentous interview deprives me of an important currency of conversation: Monica chat.