from The Fishbreath Files

honest

you know, i always have this weird feeling that i am not being honest. oh, not about facts or anything, i am being honest enough... but about how i really feel. i try to dig down, well, as far as i dare, anyways... yah, there is that "dare". how far do i dare.

i'm a fucking saint

so this teeny skinny little hungarian oldlady now lives at my place, in the extra room. and it's 9 short blocks to work. has been living here for what, three months. at first i had found her a sublet but then that was over and so i figured, what the hell. she has her room done up hungarian oldladily, in embroideries and stuff. the rest of my place, of course, is done up in doghair.

junkie

perhaps it is the scent, the i-am-strong scent, the i-save-me scent. the lie that is not. i understand nothing. these then be my brothers in un-understanding, my brothers in the lie that is not. this be that deems me trustworthy, worthy of pain, my very untrustingness, the scent of death, the flower in my hair.

hungary

i am thinking of going to hungary... i got this here grant to do a cd-rom of various thingies i do... and now i am thinking i might go to hungary to do the thing i have been wanting to do for ages.

the pissing wars

when i arrive, i will spend 3-7 days in budapest, depending on when i can find a ride up to transylvania. since i have all this baggage, i might encounter grief on the bus... but if there is no ride, bus it will be. 12 hrs of it. 3 hours at the border, while the guards studiously examine ones canadian passport back and front only to occasionally glance up at glare at you with utter hatred. then they charge you $32 for a visa.

then off to the horrid gas station where you have to pay to piss. and get glared at some more.

transylvania

so i went up to him and asked him, what. what, i said, why are you looking through the garbage. a toy, he said. i'd like to find a toy. he was looking to see if he could find something. he had found two plastic boxes so he had them in his arms.

vasarhely

day before yesterday, while tooling around in attila's car... he tries to show me all the nice buildings and stuff... he jokingly made like he was gonna hit a dog on the road. so i broke down crying. poor attila... he had no idea, he thought he had insulted me or something. but it was just... those children. those children are on my mind an awful lot.

jealousy

one day, when the children were at the playground, a hungarian man came out from one of the houses and beat them with a whip. stinking gyspies, he said, get away from here.

mihalyka asks if children are beaten in america. i say, no. but i also say, your mother is just tired.

invitations

well, things are looking up... a friendamine in budapest is a reporter or some such thing on hungarian radio... she says she will send me a letter of invitation for a reportage on my magnificentness which would entitle me to an airfaire ticket from the art-benevolent organization.

jewness

oddly, i have no so called jewish culture... few hungarian jews do. the hungarian jews were, and still are, very assimilated. i know no jewish language, only hungarian. the customs were not in evidence at our home, as whatever my parents religiosities were before the war were lost in consequence. they ceased to make any sense. my mothers family upheld certain traditions but she lost her faith in gods and such bigtime. she would, however, light a candle on fridays, but as she said, it was only in their memory. and she would try to fast on that holiday when you are supposed to pray for the dead.... but then she'd say, i think i have starved enough in my life and then she'd eat something. 

if god wills

all churches are whores. they take the money and paint themselves.

all the churches around here are freshly painted.

the poor can go to hell barefoot.

i need some help

okay, so some of my friends probably think i am a bit nuts to get so involved... but ya know, it's like this. i am like this: things need to be done and i will do them. or at least try. cause like my father used to say, well, the very worst that can happen is that someone says no. and no one's ever died from that.

katika in the ady quarter

she's losing hope. she has come to the edge of no-more-hope. as she grows up she looks around. this is what i say to the grandfather: you know how they humiliate gypsies over there, because that's what people do to you, i say. well, it hurts, that, and twists people hard.

not being white enough

so yeah, i have this, i dunno, thang, about racism and how it makes holes in people. seeing as i have a great big hole in me. i simply do not know who i am, really, i mean, you know, looking at the ancestors, granny grampa who-am-i, the lineage, man, i have no lineage, all alone, no past, no future, genetically speaking it's all over, boohoofuckinghoo. it's not all that bad really, i am thus forced to contemplate the present, a luxury few can afford, what.

worse than you think

the voice of all my fears. must always keep the worst in mind. and i'm not being snide. it's a good thing.

just found out

well, they did it. the romanian government and the romanian hungarians are in the process of forging an agreement whereby only people who are members of the rmdsz, the romanian hungarian political party, will be eligible to get the all-important id documents.

piano

if i ever enthuse about playing piano... you may hit me on the head with handy implement of torture... and i would be grateful if you would effect major damage. you know... where the protagoninst(a) of the weekly tv horror show spends a happy hour learning to blink an eye for the yesandno... and sundry realtors clap tearfully... soup flowing rivulets into commercial break so the colostomy bag may discreetly be emptied into the alley. lulled by the scent, a passing junkygirl falls off her bicycle. but that's next weeks scene.

passport

but me, i'd give it all away. if i could. that talent to make people weep.

i dreamt

and then icecream cones appeared in their hands, in every little hand, all around the room. and i remember feeling very happy, just before i woke up.