(no subject)

[nora_bean]

yesterday afternoon a building down the street from our apartment caught fire. the doorman said the fire started at three in the afternoon, but the flames were high when I came home at five, and they didn't go down til after dark. we watched it from our balcony, eating dinner. I'd biked home and seen the smoke before I'd seen the source -- the building is tiny by chicago standards, maybe five stories, but the smoke was huge and black and expanding into the sky over Wabash and Balbo. our television is in front of the window, so inside we watched the reporter on the news tell us that the firemen out on the street couldn't go inside the building because it was too old, and that they had to fight it with hoses from the outside instead. this morning the smoke was gone, but the hoses were still going.

today on the way home I saw people collected at the fence across the street from the building to watch the cranes pick at the shell. it was like a date: people in their office clothes met each other, stood over their bikes, leaned on each other, stood off by themselves, and nobody moved or looked like they had anywhere to go. we were there, it was the main attraction, watching the crane reach over and pick off bricks from the top of the walls.

also, unrelated, but I don't want to forget: the night before last I dreamed I was on a campus, watching a man walk a lobster. I have been dreaming a lot about campuses lately.