Damn you, Aquaman
There is a kind of hunger for free time. Real free time. Without the damn dishes, the weekend laundry, or any chores whatsoever, without feeling pressured to write by my own OCD mind and just read any of the books I feel like reading, or paint. Or write. Or all of the above.
There is a kind of hunger that makes me jealous of Aquaman. It’s a desire to swim without breathing air, to swim all day long, to explore the sea alone. Damn that guy.
There is a kind of hunger to eat pizza and cheeseburgers all day every day. Only I can’t. If I want to know my children as middle-aged adults I will have to know cheeseburgers and pizza a little less intimately.
There is a kind of hunger that grows as you get older. It rises from your stomach, telling you to finish those lifelong bucket list items and do it soon. Checking off the list becomes all you think about. Write those five novels you’ve fleshed out or die.
There is a kind of hunger for acceptance, but only kind of. We all accept in one way or another, just rarely in the way you hope. You can try to tame them, steer people into accepting you in the way you want them to, but you end up being the weirdo, the misunderstood understand. It’s okay. Just accept it.
There is a kind of hunger for death. When the kids are old enough. Or when the grand kids are old enough. That hunger is for life’s goals to lose their luster, for acceptance to go to hell, for there to be as much free time as you would know what to do with (maybe sell it?), and best of all, maybe I could BE Aquaman.
Patrick Whitehurst 
I hunger for more literature about Aquawoman.
Could be a new Strayed novel. Should be something Bukowski was forced to write about. One line. Every day.
Aquawoman hunted by the FBI on the PNW.
Aquawoman. Just can’t even. Because seahorses.
Of course. What was I thinking? 😉
Sheesh. Sheeshes with Aquawoman emoticons if there were any.
There totally should be an Aquawoman sheesh emoticon. I’d use it all the time.
I may just use it today while I am out and about. “Aquawoman sheesh” and assume everyone will get it.
I await a report on that experiment.
Perhaps I should save it for when Hillary visits Salinas on Wednesday and use it there.
Oh yes. That sounds like the perfect place to use the Aquawoman Sheesh.
I’ll have to think of a way to introduce the phrase then. Maybe jumping up and down?
Maybe standing on a chair while wearing snorkel gear?
That’s actually my super power and costume combined.
Mine is very similar only without the chair and the snorkel gear. 🙂
Yours is word power! Pollineighbor, etc.,
Hey! That’s cool. Thank you for that, Patrick. My last comment was just a ridiculously spontaneous response. I hit send and was like, “Whaaa in the hell does that mean?”
And I like totally answered.
I love that you answered. 🙂
Me too!