Just a thought.

Wilmington, North Carolina, February 2006. A beautiful place in a time that is slowly becoming beautiful. But there is something fundamentally wrong with it that makes it far more pleasing to be viewed from where I am on my perch seven whole levels of parking above it all. Or perhaps from below ground. One of the underground sandwich shops or bars. Just not ground level. Too many mannequins. Too many plastic sets of eyes. There is a strange comfort in the fact that from here I can only see the ground in two spots: directly below me, and at the corner of the block where the building is too small to obstruct the view. I have been trying to find a metaphor to describe the buildings from this viewpoint. Perhaps a close-up of grains of sand left on a plate after the meal is long gone.

I don't know. I don't even know what I am talking about. Does this make sense?

People with cigarettes look like lightning bugs during mating season. There are only four buildings taller than the one that I am standing on now. One of these is the tower near the Wilmington terminal of the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge. From my understanding it houses nothing but the elderly. An eleven-floor structure that seems to be a not-so flamboyant salute to Florida.