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Had that somewhat dazed and shattered feeling as I made my way across town from way down south where we'd stayed up late celebrating Bruce's 40th birthday, unusually warm so I spun 45s on the back deck until 2 am. Connie drove me to lightrail in Columbia City and lent me $3 for farebox, then I transferred and waited at the wrong bus stop for a long time (where the 5 only comes by during rush hour). Not quite hungover but hollowed out, the gentle morning-after you get from having stuck mainly to middle shelf or better booze; neither altogether unpleasant nor debilitating even though the Manhattans had gone down like water. I don't mind waiting in the wrong place. Call me a hick but I'm still impressed by skyscrapers. If it'd been raining hard I would have drowned as I gawked slack-jawed with head thrown back. My appreciation has grown since I learned that by some definitions a skyscraper is any building where wind load is greater than gravity's pull. Now I just imagine the pressure exerted by the wind on the surfaces and the complex engineering solutions used to compensate. A new tower in Chicago is both beautiful and functional in its response by using irregularly shaped contours like fins to confuse and dissipate the force of wind. |