Steve Dilbeck: I am not sick

Outside it is freezing. Inside you never know. You wear layers, but never seem to get it right, never feel completely comfortable. One minute at the Main Press Center you’re bundling up, the next the air is thick and uncomfortable.
It doesn’t help that most of us get precious little sleep. You work ridiculous hours and eat microwaved pasta at the press venues when you can.
If my hotel had paper walls, it would be an improvement. I can hear the guy next door unzip his suitcase, wrinkle paper, etc. (heavy on the etc.). For reasons only the owner understands, there is a bar under the hotel. Last night it had a D.J. I’m two floors up and my room was vibrating.
The maid starts to attack every day at 8 a.m., and if you just returned to the mountains after covering a night event in Turin, you get to bed a 7 a.m. She loves to play the radio. And every sound from the lobby directly below my room seems actually magnified by the ancient wood floors.
There’s a waif of waitress that arrives every morning to set up breakfast. She weighs maybe 90 pounds and wears flat shoes. To hear her pitter-patter across the wood floors below, you would think she’s 300 pounds and in high heels.
Waitress aside, the hotel generally awakes at 7 a.m., and that means you to, too.
So now I sit in the main press center, with cramps and a headache, and I just can’t believe it. Normally I always have the good professional sense to get sick after I come home from the Olympics.