grüzi.

My arrival in Zurich was timely, inasmuch as it coincided with the highest point of my physician-sanctioned drug trip. Plagued with claustrophobia and a general fear of fun, I load myself with sedatives any time I need to spend more than an hour aboard a plane. For international flights, that means usually about 3 doses' worth of Happy Fun Sleepy Time. This flight, though, I mistimed, thinking it was longer than it was. So, one minute, I was happily stoned out of my mind, watching Avengers: Age of Ultron and wondering if a dose of Valium would maybe mellow James Spader out a bit; the next, I was expected to disembark a plane (!), navigate the Zurich airport (!!), get through customs (!!!), and locate my CFF in Ankunft 2 (!!??!!). Sounds impossible, I know, but you know what? MADE IT, SUCKERS. Can't keep a good dog down, not even with a healthy faceful of benzodiazepenes.

After a really revolting welcome-to-Zurich-I-like-you public makeout session, K hauled me back to his apartment, where I performed the ritual post-international-travel showering that feels just slightly holier than a baptism, and then fell asleep and drooled all over the bed. I awoke to K shaking me in a companionable manner and demanding to take me grocery shopping. The grocery store in Zurich is a wonderful place full of ice cream and bread; we collected delicious goods, went home, ate tremendous sandwiches, and went to sleep at an outrageous hour.

At this point, I made what is surely the first of many revelations of this three-week period of companionship: K snores like nothing of this earth when sleeping on his back or RIGHT side, but only produces a sort of quiet, whuffling hum when on his LEFT side. That being said, who cares, because he refuses to sleep on his left side for longer than a few minutes. I've just had to start pretending I'm in bed next to a Mastiff with a head cold. As soon as I think of him as a dog, I stop finding it irritating.

Yesterday, K went to work, and I was SUPPOSED to work from home and make mac and cheese for dinner. Instead, after K left, I popped into the shower, where I noticed a mild pain in my head. I shrugged it off, dressed, prepared for the day, noticed the pain was intensifying a bit; laid down in bed, picked up my phone, looked at the screen, and experienced a sensation not unlike having a javelin thrown into my right eye by a screaming jungle pygmy. I carefully set my phone back down, closed my eyes, and slept the sleep of the migraine-damned for about six hours, plagued with dreams of killing people I loved, waking periodically to pain that was worsening rather than improving. It was, I was quite certain, The End.

K got home around 7:00. Ignoring my pleas to be left alone to die, he forced me to take Advil and drink water, then rubbed my back and told me stories until I was capable of sitting up without vomiting or screaming. Since mac and cheese was a lost cause by then, we settled for more sandwiches, somewhat smaller in scope than the previous night, and a liter of ice cream split between us, eaten methodically, yet companionably, in silent reverie on the couch, with our legs over one another's, just to maintain connection.

Again we stayed up too late. I awoke at 6:30 AM with K wrapped around me like a cozy, friendly python, and pondered my personal circumstances, feeling lucky, seeing life spread out in front of me like a patchwork quilt.

Today we ate French toast and bacon for brunch, and when I say "we," I do mean I ate bacon. It was delicious and sustainably sourced because this is Switzerland and I regret absolutely nothing because daaaaayuuuuum it was delicious. We laid down for a bit, talked comfortably about uncomfortable things; and then it was now, and now I have to make macaroni and cheese, finally, because there's not a lot that's nicer than cooking for someone you really really really like.

I am glad to be here.

jet.

Into an airport, checked in, through security, and to my gate in 20 minutes. I do believe that this, fellas and dames, is a personal record.

It's also more than likely entirely attributable to the fact that this is PDX, the tamer, more civilian-minded cousin of SEA, replacing SEA's fast-striding Business Swagger with a relaxed, it's-8-AM-but-sure-the-brewery-is-open-I-mean-why-not stroll. I used to work at this airport, 12 years ago, at the ripe old age of 16. Back then, TSA was more an afterthought than the wacky, lurching hybrid of rape and inconvenience it is now. I worked for a company called Huntleigh Dispatch. We formed the First Line of Defense in front of the TSA goons' scary monitors, and our sole responsibility was matching people's IDs with their boarding passes for eight hours straight. Three days a week, from 4AM to noon, I stood in sensible shoes (Reeboks, now classic, should've saved them) and scratchy blue polyester pants, admiring the passports of beautiful, tired people from exotic locales, wondering if I'd ever be slick and dangerous enough to get a hold of one of those puppies for myself.

I'm pleased to report that no matter how you parsed that last sentence - whether it was one of the passports or one of the people I was so eager to possess - I have, at this late stage in my irresponsible life, ended up a proud owner of both; though one of the two would probably prove somewhat more retaliatory if they heard me refer to myself as such. (Yes, I have a very aggressive passport.) Indeed, it's because of my passport and my tall, eccentric, yet compelling reason to use it that I'm currently at this airport, breathing its unique fragrance (huurgh) and wondering why the F I'm always either so early or so late and can never just be on goddamn time for once.

YES, you heard me! IT'S VACATION and I'M GOING TO EUROPE AGAIN. Probably for the last time in a while, as K has once again caught a bad case of wanderlust and decided to pursue his unique destiny in New York City rather than in the quaint, yet somehow sterile confines of overpriced, underwhelming Zurich. Because he has not yet done all the traveling his bizarre amalgamation of personality traits demands, he has invited me to come hang out with him and tool about the country for a few weeks. I have agreed to do so, because I find him good-looking and charming, am consistently impressed by his banter, and admire his exquisite taste in restaurants.

We will spend a few days in Zurich after I arrive, me more than likely refusing to be extricated from bed except to watch Adventure Time and consume ice cream and liquor, before visiting Amsterdam, where I will snicker self-importantly at their oh-so-fancy "legal marijuana" and probably fall into a canal. Then it's on to Vienna to visit the world's oldest zoo, admire the pandas in all their sexually insufficient glory, and sweat nervously every time I see someone who looks like someone I might have known from Salzburg. Finally, we go on to Budapest, to bathe (separately, PG-ratedly) in what I've heard are some sort of famous baths, and probably go clubbing until our eardrums fall out and our legs turn to string cheese. Then we finish up in Zurich, taking a weekend to recover and regret everything before K heads to Belarus to reclaim his ancient birthright as its ruler (or visit family or something, whatever, I don't know) and I return to the great state of Washington fragmented into a million jet-lagged, emotionally-perilous pieces and attempt to go to work the morning after I fly in.

It's gonna be damn great. Stay tuned.