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.