Drink More Water

Okay, so even though my little one at home is the most important thing in my life, and that's all I really want to talk about sometimes, I'm not going to do that.  No, I think that that would be alright, I guess, if I wanted to do that.  But I want to shake it up still.  This is not a single-subject blog.  So, expect the occasional Posts About Babies, but I'd say they will be about as frequent as they were when she was in the womb.

That being said, I want to talk about water, and more specifically, your recommended daily intake of water.  As I grew up, I learned the importance of getting that eight glasses of water every day for essential well-being, or whatever.  I heard that stat over and over, and somewhere along the line I decided that I should probably follow that guideline.  After all, they don't pound that sort of information into your brain for their health. It's for your health, ya turkey.

I recall my brother going on a diet where he cut out soda pop and some fast food, and started pounding bottles of water.  He lost a good amount of weight just by doing that.  Well, I started pounding that water like my brother did, but never got the dramatic results he achieved, although I did notice a marked increase in energy level and all that jazz.  I fall in and out of love with water drinking, mainly because water is sort of, well, boring.  Drinking water, while good for you, doesn't always satisify the pallet quite like a delicious coke (or diet coke, or whatever drink you choose for that matter.)  I think it's because I was brought up drinking flavor instead of water that I get bored with water.  But as an adult I know better than to just drink for pleasure.  Water is pretty important for your body to function properly.

But what happens if you don't drink your recommended daily water amount?  I knew a girl that I used to work with that never, EVER, drank water.  It was pop or juice or coffee or milk or beer but never water.  How can this be?  I mean, they say that you must drink water to function, how did she not keel over and die? I mean, you get hydrated from other liquids, I guess, but it's ain't water. She couldn't stand the taste of water, as crazy as that sounds.  Well she functions just fine with out H2O, so what's with this "you must drink eight glasses" business?

I am a proponent of drinking your daily 8ish glasses, because it makes me feel better.  Hydration is the most important thing you can do for youself, mainly because if you don't get it, you will die.  You can survive without food for much longer than water.  You need water to live.  Bottom line.  So go fill that cup up right now with some nice, cold water and think about how good it makes you feel later.  But I guess you can drink whatever you want and you won't explode from dehydration...So maybe get a glass of apple juice if you don't like the taste of water.  

Reality Check

Well, I haven't written in over a week, and I told you I probably wouldn't.  However, I only said I wouldn't be writing over the weekend, where I had an amazing time back home in the great snowy north.  But then I didn't write all week either, and there's really no excuse for this, except I was pretty lazy.  Well, I'm back to tell you all about it, whatever "it" happens to be.

No matter how much fun I had back home, the whole thing gets put into perspective when you get news that a good friend has come down with a serious illness.  My dear friend Chris was diagnosed with Meningitis, which last I checked, can cause serious, long-lasting physical harm, and can even cause death.  I was always aware of the sickness, but never really knew much about it, and to be honest, I still really don't.  The first time I was made aware of the severity of the illness was when I was reading the extremely depressing website called www.mydeathspace.com.  On that site, there was a Myspace of a young man, I believe he was a college student, that had died very, very suddenly from Meningitis.  This shocked me, because he was just sick, and no one would have thought it was as serious as it turned out to be.  Just a healthy dude, and suddenly sick, and suddenly dead.  Scared the shit out of me.

Well one of my close friends lives in Lansing, MI, where they are starting their family together.  When I got home from my vacation, or maybe it was when we were traveling home, I was informed that he has Meningitis and was in the hospital.  They didn't know if it was viral or bacterial at the time, and I knew from that research before that the viral one was the deadly one, but that either way, this was not a good thing.  All of a sudden, everything I had just done, all the good times I had just had back home was absolutely secondary to what the young Wright family was going through.  What I'm ashamed of is my immediate non-response to the situation. You see, we're all connected from everything like Facebook and Twitter, all the way down to good old text messaging and phone calls.  There is no excuse for me not to send my best wishes and thoughts and prayers to Chris or Cindy.  What the fuck was I thinking?  I think part of me was scarred shitless about the whole thing, so I froze.  I don't know, but I felt/feel badly.  I'm sure it doesn't matter, as my response is the least of their or my concerns.  But I still feel like I want to do something.

What I really want to do is give Chris and Cindy and Vada a huge hug.  I want to be there with them to help out, even if I don't know if there's much I could do.  It just makes you realize how lucky we all are to have friends and family and health and happiness.  It's yet another reminder to never take life for granted, because things happen out of the blue.  The fact that Chris is up there in some hospital, not really doing all that well, it makes me so sad to think about.  How can Chris not be his normal self?  It's so scary.  This was my best friend for years and years.

I don't know about God and all that, but if there is a god of some sort, please, I beg you, be nice.  If there isn't, I don't know who to look to.  We all feel like we need a higher being to take care of us in these situations.  I guess that's what we all need sometimes, to know, or hope, that this thing we cannot control is being controlled by someone that has the power to make it right or at least make it comfortable.  I thank the doctors that are taking care of Chris.  I don't know all the details, but I assure you, whatever they are doing to help him, they are truly wonderful people who get to save a life of a friend and a father and a brother and a son, and that's their job.  My job consists of doing nothing and getting a paycheck for it.  These people have made a decision to save lives on a daily basis.  That's pretty fucking sweet.

I don't know what else to say, but I think we should all pray for Chris and Cindy, for whatever good it may do. They are going through a lot right now.  I just want everything to be normal again, and I'm sure they do, too.  I hope that day comes sooner rather than later.