The Queen of Hungary

A queen, he said, touching my face. I bathe it every day in The Queen of Hungary's water because I think I'm special and I deserve beautiful things and maybe they'll make me feel better but they don't much, but that's okay what the hell I still need a clean face.

I keep talking about what great taste I have but I don't think he realizes that I'm talking about him. He's funny and smart as a whippet and I like all of his tattoos but I don't think he really notices when I say nice things to him because when I say salty things they just have more stick. And the things I say that have nothing to do with him have the most stick of all. I assume this but don't really know because I am not him and therefore do not know his mind, also I don't feel like asking because it's early on for things to be hard and there is plenty of time for that later.

Here in Washington it seems like men are pretty good at rolling with the punches. They don't expect women to be all of those old-fashioned things with old-fashioned words like "vapid" and "persnickety". They don't draw their hand back when they feel your hairy leg or bat an eye at your armpit. Back in California, I felt that being real pretty and skinny and witty was a fairly high stakes game, so I wore a lot of makeup and didn't eat and took drugs and read books and I was just as sad as you would imagine.

Now I just bathe my face in The Queen of Hungary's water because IthinkI'mspecialandIdeservebeautifulthings and I eat chili and go to A.A. meetings and read books and I can get used to being respected but I sure can't seem to get used to someone treating me sweet.