I never took Poland seriously, you know? Never considered it much, because I don't know why the hell I would. But, I love it now, because I've spent some time there (this is T.'s place, now) and the people are far smarter than all the douche bags I grew up with in St. Paul.

Did you know this shit? In Poland, Pollock is not a derisive name. It simply means Polish man. That’s not so funny.

Here are some mysteries. I could not find a butcher shop. Paulina claims she knows nothing about any butcher shop. There is a deli, lunch counter where T. said he found a kosher butcher. A whole family runs it and they could be Jewish, but they don't know any English and the momma and daddy and baby I tried to get information from became super charged suspicious when I asked questions. Another thing... what about this sable coat? I went to an outdoor market, Jarmark Europa, in a stadium, which was closed shortly after, where I bought a towel with Kurt Cobain's face on it. I also bought a zippo and could have purchased a bunch of pirated movies on VHS and also guns! But a luxury item like a sable coat? Nothing like that. Paulina told me T. was wearing a giant bear coat that was flee-bitten when she met him (not pretty, not sable). They threw it out while he slept, because it smelled. Here's a question that bothered me. Why didn't T. try to contact me? He said he had to go to the post office to make calls when he first lived in Poland and he didn't know where to call me (Kaatje's cell phone???). So I asked Paulina about the phone. She did not have a mobile phone until last summer. She said she had a mobile phone when Mitsunori was alive, but had wanted to disappear. I did notice I could only make local calls on Pani Jadwiga's phone. I asked her why and she shrugged. So, maybe T. didn't call because he really didn't think he could.

All of the tourist information for Warsaw shows this like Renaissance or Baroque-era square or something, the Old City (which isn’t old at all, because it was put up after World War II – the whole city was destroyed by the Germans). When I went to find T. I didn’t see the Old City at first, I saw these austere buildings made out of concrete sitting greening fields of uncut grass. But in the damn buildings, in the concrete apartments, there's music and cigarette smoke and plants and Persian rugs and books, books, books. Everyone is fucking smart (at least those I've met -- when I comment on it, I'm told there are huge dumbasses in Poland, too -- just like home!). I might move to Warsaw one day. Kaatje loves it here, too. The Poles are exuberant. The Dutch are not.