happy hour

I drink water all the time these days and I don't know why.

All my snarky comments about equatorial weather, before I left, were really just for effect. I knew that Rwanda's weather compares favorably to almost everywhere else, but I like to make dramatic statements regardless of their veracity.

The weather here is, in fact, lovely. It is never colder than 65 and never hotter than 85 (these numbers are based on my internal thermometer, not on any actual statistics. Who believes statistics anyway. Not me.) It sort of briefly rained one day so far. Today was as bad as the weather gets: it was overcast and only 70.

Plus, I never do anything very strenuous. I get up, sit on the balcony and drink coffee, drive to school, sit in a classroom and videotape children, drive home, sit at a desk and compress video, go downstairs, sit on the balcony again and drink beer and watch birds, go upstairs and compress some more video, and go to bed.

So I don't really understand my unquenchable thirst. You might be tempted to blame it on all the coffee and beer, but why would that suddenly cause me to drink two gallons of water a day? I am only exaggerating a little tiny bit. Right now it is 6:38 and so far today I have drunk five liter bottles full of water. Plus some glasses of water too. And only two cups of coffee at 8:00 this morning: not that much!

Partly it is probably because I am not drinking any milk. AT ALL. Normally I drink about two gallons of milk per week, all by myself. I think I would drink more than that if someone else were in charge of grocery shopping, because I also usually run out of milk a couple of times a week and have to go to the liquor store on the corner to buy more. And they only sell whole, which is delicious, but unhealthy. Or so I've been told. I buy it anyway, I need the milk!

One time when I was in college I tried to drink a gallon of milk in an hour. I couldn't do it. Then my challengers gave me another half an hour and I would still retain my glory. I couldn't do that either. I made it to maybe one glass left in the jug and then I threw up. A lot. It was disgusting.

I didn't die, though, or have to be rushed to the ER for lactose poisoning. Which convinced me that lactose poisioning was all just a lie invented by Keith to start an argument with me. I'm not sorry, though, because in the end I got a fair amount of glory out of it all anyway.

During the whole episode, a lot of discussion was had about how much of various liquids various people had consumed and/or seen other people consume. And someone claimed that drinking too much WATER would give you "electrolyte poisoning". I semi believe this, because "electrolyte" sounds scientific.

Based on these facts, I am going to switch from water to beer now. I am only trying to use preventative health care skills! I don't want to get any electrolyte poisioning!