Downtown Luxury Slum

Hello!

What a surreal week! I really don’t have much more to add as far as thoughts about the images I posted on Monday. If I’m being honest, most of my way of coping with everything is to ignore it and not think about it as much as I can. Either that or using inappropriate humor. Maybe that’s not helpful, but it’s what I’m capable of right now.

I will say I’m extremely impressed by our downtown Raleigh business owners. There are a few a-holes, but I’ve personally spoken to a few, I’ve seen several interviewed during or immediately after their businesses were destroyed, and I’ve read social media posts by a number of them. These business owners have almost always started by talking about supporting the cause and only then, almost as an afterthought, they say that it sucks that their businesses had to get destroyed.

Raleigh had an 8pm city wide curfew for a couple days which seems to have done a great job keeping the protests peaceful. I’m very hopeful that something comes of all of this but I don’t have a clue where to set my expectations.

Without inside info from your future self though, it can be hard to accurately set expectations.

Here are some more recent pictures of downtown. It could be a fun game to guess what business is in some of these buildings.

And in other news, this is what Andrew has been listening to all week. Like 12 hours per day on a loop.

Stay safe and sane,

Diana