have i e) ver felt that way? ----------------------------------------------------------------- yes, a) when i was sick, yes, before hospital, just so. i thought i lived in a place where i was the only human and that everyone else was old people, not really people, only automatons, replacements, replicants, place holders for drug dealers and retirement and nursing care defrauding purposes. and the flowers and surfaces were all sun-faded sickly yellow plastic. and all culture, gone. and i had to restart culture. with yogurt and seville dining. so i went out and ordered deepdish spinach pizza and juice and another juice and another, and fried chicken strips at a nearby italian pizza place. and i made extravagant flowering and flowing gestures and made silent elegant mental conversation. sad cultured talk. and i studied the beautiful patterns of the white paper napkin. and for a meal of 28.something i tipped 20 in one bill. my last cash. and i asked to take to go the food that could go. my waiter was a diminutive and polite asian-american woman, i'd say wholly filipina or in part. i remember them being unobtrusive and prompt. the place was nearly empty. of course. automatons don't eat. i have not walked in again. but i did go back to the nearby grocery to pay back for the coke that i took with permission when i did not have money and ran in from the street from the taxi in my b) very white cotton underwear and my sister's not land's end dark green gift of an acrylic sweater. not being able to find my wallet and having spared my jeans and my medicine bag the trauma after having hailed the cab. amazing what one can do without any money when one is white in a good neighborhood in chicago. i wonder how it works in yours. anyway the cab vanished even though i asked the cabbie to wait for me to come down with money. he left before i could pay. i brought my checkbook then had to take it back, but i am honorable: i came down again with my adobe illustrator 7.01 license and a plume of 23cent stamps taped to it. fair is fair. i think the office manager has it somewhere. the doorman says that it would be impossible to find the cabbie. yes. he said: that's impossible. impossible?... i don't think so... in the cosmic (e very day) scheme of things... in my a coincidence is no coincidence scheme of things... yes that cabdriver is my future payment received. the doorman and the maintenance man must have called the cops i surmise, yes eventually, to check up on me i guess. yes well we have now returned to our regular relating. it is all tacitly forgiven and understood. things happen. i pray for you. andsoon. the cops of course took me in a paddywagon. a surprise. after politely suggesting, at my place, that i go with them. i guess i, i naively assumed a crown victoria. oh i am a dupe and tooo polite. i have since resolved to c) harden. maybe. dear me... i have been on the inside of a chicago paddywagon... i have seen the clean wall-attached mouthpiece of the lord... lying next to me. O my dear, have no fear... have you ever imagined what it might be like to be on the inside of a chicago police department paddywagon? it is truly psychedelic, it is the ultimate 60's retro experience: the sounds distort and swish on by. i am guessing this is caused by the soundproofing and the clever shiny round grid of the metal-padded interior. ahhhh... all the easier to hoseyoudown, after you, my little hood... no worries, as the kiwis say. i behave okeh? okeh! the grille roundness... it's maybe on purpose. it's maybe for safety. it's maybe to disorient -- keep occidentalized? you know: docile. it's maybe d) all of the above. i am what i am and a man i am and so is lola. though i'm not (that kind of a man). and this is the best e) ride i have ever got in disn e yland. and i should know cuz i am an e) mail man. i am the e) man. i'mnot the g) man. i might audition for the walrus. i hear he gets the f) wives... Marek Lugowski 30 March 1998 Chicago, Illinois