Free Writing - Take 67

I haven't had more than ten headaches in the past 15 years. I think I've had one steady headache now for a week, maybe longer. In that time, I have had weird sleeping habits. An hour there, two hours there, the occasional four hour marathon there. Never feeling rested when I awake. The heat from one room dries out my sinuses, while the bitter cold in the rooms I frequent most, has my entire body so tense, my neck feels as if I'm the freshman nerd, getting a Vulcan neck pinch by some senior who is beaten at home. I now feel for those I know who are always cold. It's hard to enjoy anything. Coffee goes cold in mere minutes and food loses it's taste as the warmth leaves and the juices run away, the meat tougher with every chew. I spend as much time as I can, tucked away beneath the sheets. This isn't odd for me, as I've lived in a place for a decade that allowed only for a chair and a bed, the horizontal position being the favored choice. I hated that place, but to step down on a warm bathroom floor, each and every morning. Aaaahhh! The other day, asleep but twenty minutes, I stumbled out of the warmest room, the temperature literally set at 50 degrees, but sauna like in comparison  to the knockout punch of cold I was hit with. My dried skin, sliding across the floor. I could feel myself waking up as I fumbled for the drawstring on the sweats I was wearing in bed. I returned the "heat." Two hours later, I'm sitting at the computer, typing some nonsense about a movie I'd just seen or my gripe of the day. I look at pictures of people all over the world with less and feel guilty that I am uncomfortable, but I wonder how they'd feel. Even in the most grim circumstances, we can find that one thing to comfort us. I laid once in a hospital bed, finding peace in knowing I didn't have to move. I found piece while sleeping on a cramped bus, well trying, in knowing I was joining friends for a night out. Months ago, I slept well, knowing the noise of that slamming door was 230 miles away and the smell of mildew or later, that metallic paint was gone. I am trying to find comfort, but the body doesn't allow us sometimes. I joke with my mind, telling it that it's in my head. A thermometer tells me it's not, as my exposed skin is below the temperature where hypothermia begins. This, not a result of a drunken walk home, but sitting watching television for a mere two hours. I walk into the heated room and start to sweat. Shocking the body into a bit of a malaise. I sleep until the afternoon has arrived. All would think a good night's sleep, but I didn't dose until their morning tea had settled in their guts. Today it gets fixed or so the rumor goes. I am skeptical, but my hopes are higher than one can imagine. My always bare legs have been covered 24/7, for nearly three straight months. The skin is so dry, to scratch an itch makes them look like some primitive cave drawings. I scratch the word HELP, but really I mean hope. I hope things change soon, because the cold is affecting other parts of me and none that a revamped boiler can fix. I thought it would be different this time. Much different than in '85, but it's more of the same and there really isn't anyone to blame, but I'd like to think I'm doing what I can, there just ain't much out there or anywhere that can bring on the change I need. Heat would at least let me concentrate on that. I feel for those who need it more than I and wonder if they'd be able to handle this alone.