I don't like water. I am sick to death of water. I am really, really, really tired of water.

I don't mind being *in* it since, after all, I'm the one who spent a good number of years (when I was younger and more flexible) upside down in water, wearing colorful bathing suits, nose clips, and enough gelatin in my hair to double as a motorcycle helmet. No, it's not swimming I am sick of. It's the simple taste of the stuff.

I am just so completely sick of drinking water. Give me soda, milk, coffee, even Kool Aid and I am perfectly happy, but straight water just makes my lip curl. Problem is, plain water is best to drink, and because we're on this ongoing quest to be healthier, this means that Richard and I have been eating lots more fruits and vegetables (well, veggies at least - we just won't go into my whole fruit aversion issues today), and drinking a lot of water.

It's not the hardness (or lack thereof). I've been drinking hard water now for over ten years - long enough so that the 'un-fortified' stuff tastes almost bitter. Despite what the bottled water companies would have you believe, there is not one thing remotely unhealthy about drinking tap water (well, okay, at least in my area). Besides, I don't like the taste of bottled water either. It usually ends up with a faint sour aftertaste that sits on my tongue. And don't even get me started on those hideously overpriced bottles of carbonated stuff. That's even worse than bottled!

All the guidelines say you should drink eight cups a day. Ha. Easy for them to say. I've tried disguising the taste with powdered drink mixes, but those just end up making it too sweet, and if I don't use the full mix, then it just tastes too sweet, but watered down, and in the end I'm always back to plain boring icky water. Eight cups a day. I'm lucky if I make that number, although I really have been trying. It's just so darn hard, when you hate water as much as I do.

It's good for me to drink all this water. It's going to keep my body healthy and keep my skin from drying out as much as it usually does, and drinking water will help prevent those lovely headaches I already mentioned, and help promote weight loss and, and, and...

I can tell myself every reason under the sun why I should be drinking more of it. I can fill up my cup from the tap and hold my breath and gulp it down and think wistfully of the days when my normal liquid intake was either caffeinated, sugary and carbonated, or both.

It won't change anything. It's just one more reason why I'm just a little weird.

And I still really really really don't like water.