Dispatch: #$@%#!
I’ve been reading the Internet all morning, and we are suddenly worldwide as the “worst U.S. bridge collapse in more than 20 years.” I am unable to get any work done, and feel an intense need to post here, but don’t really know what to say, and I know you all must be having similar emotions (emoticons?), anyway, about the lucky and unlucky ones. Like everyone else where I work, I’ve figured out the circumstances (closed entrance to 35W at University) and timing (about 20 minutes) that made me one of the lucky ones. Unlike everyone else, I’m having trouble processing this information, ignoring our mortality, and getting back to it. This isn’t a virtue, it’s one of the consequences of having fewer brain filters than normal.
Behind me, traffic on the only bridge left open (3rd Avenue) from downtown to NE Minneapolis is crawling along. In the conference room, my coworkers are bitching about Pawlenty and the legislature. This morning I biked up University Avenue and caught a glimpse of the beginning of the disaster, a section of roadway buckled upwards like it had been lifted up by a giant. Down on Main Street, there is a long line of TV crews, and the entrances to the Stone Arch Bridge, and the 19th Avenue Bridge, and the Mississippi River Boulevard are cordoned off with police tape. I am vaguely offended by these efforts at public safety (and surprised at being offended), but know it's irrational.
If you feel like sharing your experience (or non-experience, as is the case with me), I’d appreciate it. I feel so… sort of unmoored. Anyone for a we’re-alive-how-crazy-is-that drink?