My Dream of Drinking Water
I went to bed on Labor Day feeling like a old, sun-soft bag of New York garbage. My body is desperately clinging onto fluid. Everest climbers could hang from my love handles for support. I am puffy. I am broken.
This isn’t just a Labor Day thing. This is every weekend. It’s every goddamn day. As I am crawling into bed I run the same diagnostic check: how much water did I drink?
Normally, none.
I want to be a water drinker. I will give up pieces of my current identity to gain this new identity. I will feel better. People will respect me more. I will go to bed not feeling like a mobile dead body.
I think it starts with the water bottle. I have to have a water bottle. It’s very important to carry a water bottle around and drink water from it while people are talking to me. My eyes are wide so I can see over the brim. I nod. I nod because I am a listener. And a water drinker.
I am struggling with how I don’t lose the water bottle. KWP (keys, wallet, phone) is all I can really handle. Anytime I try to add something else it gets lost. Sunglasses are a nice thought. Shoutout to the 72 pairs of sunglasses that used to be mine that are now sitting next to dumpsters around America. If I keep losing my water bottles I am going to give up on the idea of water and be back to where I am now.
I don’t know how not to lose things. My first thought would be to buy an expensive water bottle. If it is expensive it would suck to lose it. However, I have lost items of all prices. I don’t discriminate.
I would say to make it sentimental so I can’t put a price on it, but how? Put, like, stickers on it? Name it? I named my car and I treat that car like shit.
I think the only thing that would keep me drinking water is having a clear vision of what my image would be if I became a water drinker.
It begins with the skin. I would have glowing skin. Skin that tells you I am financially good to go. I am tan. I got a little sun in Bali. Have you ever done yoga in Bali?
I take a sip of water. You have to get out to Bali.
I feel like I have a set of necklaces. If I have a water bottle that I haven’t lost, I feel like the dam will break and I’ll be able to have other things in my possession. I’m thinking the necklace pendants are like little Tibetan promises? Like, promises from Tibet? I have heard people who drink water say something that sounded like “Tibet promise”. I KNOW they are leather and I KNOW the little piece on the end is gold or wood.
My clothes. Water drinkers have this gift of wearing clothes that look both unpretentious and personally curated to fit their bodies and auras. Any shirt I bought would have a story. The story would not be “I bought it at Target”. The person who made my shirt would be someone me or my wife had sex with.
My stomach is flat. The handles on my back are now unreliable to climbers. I would have a little hair on my tummy. Not a lot. Just enough to be dangerous.
I wouldn’t own a slack line but if someone was doing at the park. I would know, and THEY would know I could step on at anytime and hold my own.
Most important: I’m drinking water. You are talking. Mid-conversation I am unscrewing the cap to my water bottle. Again, nodding. Listening. I take a sip. I don’t ever need to chug the water because I’m never thirsty because I drink this FUCKING SHIT ALL THE FUCKING TIME.
When this conversation ends, I give you a hug. When I release from the hug, my hand is still on your shoulder. I keep eye contact with you for a while. My eyes are blue in this scenario. I smile. I let go. I leave on a motorized scooter but you never see me pay for it.
You think, that guy is an asshole.
But your eyes linger on my girthy water vessel. You know I feel good. You know my body is perfect, and I treat it perfectly. I am your dream.
Hydrate.
