Tuesday Headache

I'm such a whiner. Feel free to stop reading now. Consider yourself warned.

Here it comes again. The Tuesday headache. It will now begin developing into a sickly feeling in my head and stomach that will have me waking up before dawn tomorrow. I will try to ignore it, to bury my head further into the pillow, to turn it over to the cool side, over and over, until there is no cool side.

Tuesday is not a hard day for me, in the grand scheme of things. It signals the beginning of my very short week, the beginning of my weekly stay in Bemidji, the beginning of the shuffle of bags and books and computers and clothes, from house to car to dorm to car to house (and to office and back in between).

But it always ends with this headache, this tightening of bands around my head, my shoulders, the taut cables running up my neck behind my ears. Tuesday isn't really the hard day. Wednesday is the hard one.

I have no classes on Wednesday. It is my homework day, my wandering day, my thinking pondering day. That part I like. But it always starts early, and with a battle. These headaches make my eyes hard and shiny, small and slitted against the light. My jaw is forever clenched on Wednesday. I am not myself. I am brittle.

There are some things that help: shopping at the thrift store, lunch with friends, a walk along the rocky little path on Lake Bemidji's shore. These are the therapies I use (along with copious amounts of Exedrin Migraine and my heated herb bag). Sometimes they work. But sometimes I just get tired of preparing for battle.