It’s a little afternoon. Day three.
Yesterday I woke up and the only quality sleep I got was from about 4:30 AM to about 9:30 — five hours. I’d slept for about 90 minutes earlier in the evening and was up from about 1 to 4:30.
Anyway, it sucked. Got up, had coffee, and the coffee did absolutely nothing.
I didn’t record anything yesterday, but I’ve been thinking about John Wilson — that guy who records his entire life in New York, has that show on HBO. How To with John Wilson. Dude’s a freak, but he’s amazing. If you haven’t watched that show, go watch it.
Anyway. I was thinking: if I could go back to my first time here, pull out those tapes — I remember the general feeling of being a day-two expat. The first time I went to the grocery store just rattled me. It was terrifying. Like I was saying on day one, you feel conspicuous. And here you have to weigh your vegetables and fruits in the produce section and get the tag that they scan at the register. If you don’t do that, they can’t charge you for them. I didn’t know that, so I went to the register without the tags and held the line up. The checkout lady was asking me something — I couldn’t understand a word — and someone pulled me out of line and showed me the routine.
But you have that feeling: what the hell am I doing here? You anticipate all the friction with all the little things you take for granted navigating through the world. Why would I choose this? Why would I adopt that?
Administratively — God forbid you have to call your wireless provider. God forbid you have to call a public utility. It’s the worst part of modern life anyway, having to call your utility. Add a language barrier as robust as the Hungarian language barrier and just forget about it. I have to ask a favor. Ask a local: hey, I need to figure out my cell service.
And when you’re exhausted, jet lagged, sleep deprived, your mind races to all these points of resistance and friction, and it creates a malaise. That’s where I was yesterday. So I didn’t record anything.
But I need to capture those moments — when I’m just laid out with jet lag, the depression of isolation and displacement. It’s all temporary. I know that. But it’s part of it. It was part of it the first time too. I looked back at my journal notes from August of this year and it was there then.
The fact that yesterday was Thanksgiving might have accentuated things. Everybody’s getting together with family and I’m eating a chicken stew on noodles at the little food court by the grocery store — which was outstanding, by the way. But still, it creates an emptiness.
And the other part of it is I just want to get going. I have a game plan. Work I need to be doing, work I want to be doing. And I don’t have the energy to slip into my creative work. It’s the first thing that goes when I’m feeling all these other things. But I’ll try. I’m going to give it a go.
The point is it’s all temporary. One thing I lack is patience. The conversation I could have with myself: don’t worry about anything for the first five days. Just get acclimated. Get your phone, get your local number, start looking into what you need to do — the residence permit, all that. Everything else will work itself out. I can have that conversation with myself, but in the moment it’s not so effective.
So today is Friday, November 25th. I’ve been invited to a Thanksgiving gathering with some friends — some new friends, possibly an old friend or two. We’ll see how it goes. That’s life. Life in Budapest.
The other thing that hit me yesterday was the neighbor’s dog. There’s a dog that just barks throughout the day. He’s not going at it now, but it’s enough to drive me crazy. I have zero tolerance for constantly barking dogs. I envy the people who can just tune it out. Sometimes a ticking clock can drive me out of the room depending on the sound of it — I’m just a sensitive little baby in that regard.
Might look for another place. Seems dramatic. But this is a probationary period in this flat. And if there’s a dog barking constantly at 6, 7, 8 in the morning, that can’t be my writing environment. To be continued.
I feel horrible considering it, given how nice the landlady is here. But it is what it is.
So yeah. Those are some thoughts. I’ll grab more later.
Be well. I love you.
