Sentence:  It was just me and Eileen getting drunk together like we used to in the old days , and me staring at her across the table crazy to get my hands on her partly because I wanted to wring her neck because she <WSD>was</WSD> so ornery but mostly because she was so wonderful to touch . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)