Exercise: rewriting lean and mean?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Just in case you want to try it, here is Nancy Kress's sample paragraph. Go ahead and try rewriting it, remembering her advice about strong verbs, precise nouns, light on the modifiers, controlled pronouns, careful conjunctions, adjusting the prepositions, and the proper use of interjections. A little later this week, I'll send out her corrected version so that you can see one example of editing lean and mean.

Jane walked with awkward slowness into her lavatory and put cold water on her eyes. She was tired and had drunk too much the night before. Barry had been buying her drinks and wouldn't take no for an answer. Jane looked at herself and, pretty upset, closed her eyes from the mirror. She looked and felt terrible. Maybe she should take something to help, but she didn't think it would. "Rats," she said dispiritedly.

Poor Jane. But you can do something to help! You can make her paragraph sing. Go ahead, you know you want to rewrite it.