The icicles are always warmer on somebody else's home.

Sleepless (or near sleepless) night two of three begins.

I am sitting in my ice cold house. The heater is broken and I can no longer tell if the constant shivers and old-man like stiffness in my bones is sleeplessness or the beginnings of hypothermia. The table is so cold, I hesitate to put my computer on its surface. I feel as though I am back in Boston. I remember the night I wore two winter hats, a pair of tights, three sets of wool socks, three pairs of sweatpants, a t-shirt, a sweater, a hooded sweatshirt, a jacket, and three pairs of gloves to bed as a cuddled up inside a sleeping bag blanketed with three heavy blankets.

Then, at 3am, the fire alarm went off. Trust me! Trust me, there is no fucking fire! Nothing related to heat could possibly find an unthawed nook in our giant apartment complex. Finals are tomorrow and I will not leave the room temperature coccoon I've carefully made. I pull tighter into my warmer world where I can pretend it is a December night in Seattle, which would now seem like tropical paradise.

The alarm presists.

Then, the voice of a calm young woman, who obviously is not in danger herself of leaving a freezingt apartment complex to go into a below freezing night that, at 3am, is surely at least 20 below zero. Before coming to Boston, I never believed that there was even a purpose of single digit marks on a thermometer. Negative degrees? That's not possible. Are freezers even that cold? I still don't know. Kind of doubt it.

The woman says, "Floor 9, evacuate at the tone. Floor 9 evacuate at the tone."

I stared at the ceiling where her voice seemed to be coming from. "Don't you dare go down to floor five. If you go down to floor five, I will find you and rip those falsely soothing vocal cords right out of your safe and warm throat."

"Floor eight, evacuate at the tone."

"Floor seven,"

Her chorus dragged on like a blood curdling, sadistic version of 100 bottles of beer. "one thousand people sleeping warm in their beds. one thousand sleeping people. take 100 out, freeze them in three feet of snow, 900 people sleeping warm in their beds."

"Floor six."

I was no longer threatening and it was no longer in my head. Out loud I was praying: "God, you brought me to the fuckng tundra that has been a tundra to me in every sense of the world. It is spiritually dry and cold. It is freezing the life out of me making me hard and tired, and all I'm asking for in return for obediently following you to this wintery Hell is one night at room temperature, sleeping before a final exam. That is all."

God seemed not to care. There was more tundra for me to experience.

"Floor five, evacuate at the tone. Becky Tucker, move your freezing ass outside so that you can be emersed into an ice age at the tone."

I obeyed. I always obey. I talk big but am a people pleaser in the end. Authority runs me like Greenlake joggers run their pit bulls - the dogs may have been ferocious, but love lulled them into compliance and to matching the gate of some silly middle aged man in a bright blue sweat suit listening to sermon tapes from Chuck Colson as he starts his day at God's heal.

Five hours passed - ok 2 - ok, probably a half hour - but it felt like five hours and I'm writing the story so....five hours passed before they let us back in. "It's ok, there's no fire," they told us. I was too cold to be sarastic or indignant. I was too tired to run back to my bed. I gave in. Cold it is. Cold it will be. I give up fighting the weather - but not my dreams of home.

What's the point? I don't know. The table feels warmer now. The temperaturehas hints of a tropical breeze. Harry Middleton and fly fishermen everywhere are laughing at silly men claiming to know an equation for meldeing predestination and free will. Together with them I pitty those poor students who are cramming for their exams.

It could be worse. God has been good to show me the cold so that I can remember paradise when I am near it.

Two sleepless nights will be done in 8 short hours with only one more to endure. Praise God for Sunday night's rest. I'm sure I will meet God there and will have been changed in the compiled hours of deprivation.