It's been a few months since I updated this blog. More than that maybe. I think our building is probably gone by now. I visited last Wednesday (Jan 11, 2012) and the CM said they'd have it down by the end of the week. They were working on the 3rd floor, and the 4th floor, my floor, was already gone. I asked the CM if I could get a couple bricks. He was a zealous guy, with what seemed like a subtly ferocious need to get that building down, as if it was his own personal foe, something to be reckoned with and conquered. This hurt me a bit, but I didn't let it show. He traipsed into the site and after a short time emerged with two bricks, assuring me that they were the very bricks from my apartment even. Thanks I said. The bricks are nondescript and clean. They don't look old or worn, they could have been baked yesterday. They aren't from the outside layer, all dirty like I would have preferred, but I didn't reject them. I took my bricks in my bike basket and rode away, trying to figure out if I was disappointed to have missed the demolition of my actual floor, or not. Obviously I don't visit often enough, and they take buildings down faster than I thought. When I go by next, tomorrow maybe, I doubt there will be anything left.
I labelled my 2 bricks. Place and date. While I was packing up to move last summer, I mentioned here my boxes of rocks. Recently I started to label stones and things I pick up on beaches and hikes. I could stop taking souvenirs altogether, but that kind of detachment I don't yet possess. I think the experience of watching my building be demolished might help with that.
