Unfortunately I have a bit of a drinking problem: my brain has no sense of thirst. I have to remember to and force myself to drink water on a regular basis or I get really dehydrated.

It’s all too common for me to have a headache and that’s my first sign I haven’t drank any water in a day or two.

That happens less now, because I’ve worked a glass of water here and there into parts of my routine.

And that’s not all there is. For months now I’ve been having nightmares about running around a sort of endless maze in the dark. There are enemies all around me, and my only weapon is my teeth. Mostly I have to hide. It’s terrifying. I wake up drenched in sweat, my heart pounding.

Anyway I think I’ve been losing too much water from the cold sweats in bed because I have the dehydration headaches after I have those dreams. Then I have to spend a day just chugging tasteless, bland, water. Like zero pleasure from drinking the water. I remember when I had normal thirst, it was like heaven drinking water when I was really thirsty. I can remember that pleasure, but I don’t remember what thirst felt like.

And then I get a temper, too. From the pain, but I also just feel like there’s less … webbing around my mind. It goes zero to sixty in seconds and I just want to rip someone’s nose off.

I’ve been to the Kaiser clinic down the road already. They tested me for everything but they screwed up the test. Sent me out with paperwork for malaria, covid, rabies, and cat scratch fever.

Did you know that’s a real thing? Fucking cat scratch fever. I didn’t know bedbugs were real either until I was like 28. The scratch fever must have come from that cat that attacked me in the parking lot outside Dennys a couple weeks ago. I wonder what bedbugs taste like. Gotta be nasty. Apparently, even though the scratch totally healed healed up, it left some kind of bacteria-virus thing in my body and that gave me cat scratch fever that somehow tears positive for rabies and covid and fucking malaria.

But they said that was a bad batch. They’re gonna test me again this week.

Oh yeah that’ll be fun. I can’t stand the hoses. All the hoses running everywhere in the hospital. Every instrument, connected by a hose. All of them sucking fluids away or you or pumping fluid into you. I’ll ask them for a different room this time. I didn’t like that room they had me in last time.

So where am I going with this? Well, it is apparently novel writing November now so maybe I can get a novel out of this before these headaches get any worse.

Dehydration man. It sneaks up on you when you don’t ever get thirsty. It sucks. I look like the fucking raisin I’m so wrinkly these days.