These things just happen when you have a fever, I guess…

Came down with a fever today. At about 3pm, I was fine. By 5pm, I was slightly icky. When 9pm rolled around, I was burning.

I figured it prudent to lie in bed. So, I grabbed my book (finishing Neil Simon’s memoirs)(the first book, at least) and started reading. Bandoo (one of my cats for those who don’t know) climbed up and began his snuggle routine. It goes like this: Head on hand. Head on arm. Head on chest with body on arm. Head on shoulder with body on arm. Head on chest with body on shoulder. Until his body is draped as far across me as it can get – you see? This time, he stopped with his head on my chest and his body on my shoulder, with the rest of him reclining on the bed.

Soon, he was asleep. All I heard was his soft breathing.

I whispered, “Bandoolee? Did my breathing put you to sleep?”

And that was all it took.

Suddenly, I was in a very bad place.

It was about seven or eight years ago. I was lying in bed with Rosa. As usual, we were snuggled together, her head on my chest. She’d gone to sleep. When I woke her, she said something like, “Listening to your breathing put me to sleep.” It’s an incredible thing to be so in love, to feel so secure.

I spent only a second in that place. Any longer and I would have begun crying.

How do you go from that place where you’re so in love and so secure to this apartment? She tells you she wants you to find someone else for starters.