Various Water

Wake up and have a glass of water. Make it a cold one, make it at least cool. I want you to continue drinking water throughout the day. It doesn't matter what kind at this point. Cold water, hot water, tepid water, like I said it doesn't matter. The important thing is to keep the body hydrated. When you feel yourself getting thirsty you're already dehydrated, you've failed. Call it whatever you want; agua, l'eau, wasser, voda, whatever you like. Just make sure it gets in there. We are mostly water. We must keep it so.

Now, let's talk about aqua vitae. I'm bringing this up because agua and aqua are very similar in spelling, and I'm not going through this mistake again. This is distilled spirits. These are all right to have, but I'm asking you not to make it a regular thing. Not as regular as water. If you do imbibe (a special phrase reserved for spirits) with frequency, please do your best to hide it. We all appreciate it, and thank you in advance.

Aqua fortis is nitric acid. Don't drink that. Or be very careful if you do.

Aqua Velva is a fragrance you can put on if you want to smell like your father, or if you want to send your mother down memory lane. Maybe one will accomplish the other.

Aqua Velva is also a cocktail. Please see above.

Let's see, I've lost my train of thought.

Ah, yes! Over the Atlantic, Pacific shores, the mystery of the Indian Ocean, these all mean the same things to me. Raindrops and Antarctica, my tip of my own iceberg, tears rushing down. Sweating after you're in from the heat, after you're done running, with cool air coming but still more and more sweat. A watched pot never boils but a boiling pot can't happen in an instant, so it's all right to watch it for a while. An ocean liner! How romantic. I would like to travel across some great expanse on an ocean liner, around the bottom of South America, around the Horn of Africa, just like they did in the old movies I love so very much. I wonder if there's room. A barge through the Panama Canal, a makeshift raft down the Mississippi. That place between the land and the sky that goes on forever, and you can see it moving, breathing, living, stretching out into itself, becoming nothing and everything.

We are mostly water. We must keep it so.