3-27-11 Lexington, Ky

Never was the world so warm that sorrow and discontent would not grow,
never was the ground so cold that the snow could freeze and linger forever.
I've never been the bud bound to blossom in a crowded room,
never been the one to charm a crowd and lift their hazy gloom.
For those feats lie with another man, and never will be mine to own,
for mine is a path less traveled, a seed less apt to be sown.
Lonesome is the path to walk, which most might fear to tread,
solitude unknown to most, whose path they fear and dread.
But I'll remain, unafraid, to forge my own path through thick and thin,
Knowing only that my one and only strength comes not from without, but from within.

Tonight I said goodbye to and old and longstanding friend, knowing that maybe I didn't mean as much to them as they might have meant to me. When you guard yourself and keep yourself within yourself, you're bound to be the biggest investor in your own personal stake, doomed to fail at social graces, cursed to be misunderstood and dismissed by those around you. Kickin it in the college scene once again served only to remind me how much I really don't belong to the throng, and proved a fateful reminder that people aren't my thing. The casual encounter, professional banter, and so seldom anything more, that's my lot in life, nevermore. Making that connection to others that everyone else seems so easily to be able to make, or at very least to fake, seems so alien and foreign that the bar dwellers and socialite denizens may as well have been speaking in tongues.
Kickin it in Lexington has been cool, but like every other stay, bitterness and wanderlust prevail, and now it's time to leave. No shortage of watering holes and eateries does this town harbor, a short walk yielding intrigue after innebriated and intoxicating intrigue. Like many hubs of bohemian academic centrism and pursuit, indulgence holds sway during the day, and rules by night. Lazy days embroiled in a hangover, burnt off by the most carefree of culinary advent, followed by more of that which crafted the waking turmoil of the morning's first painful light of day. Don't believe me? Try beignets dusted liberally with powdered sugar, embroiled in close combat with fresh fruit, reinforced with a porcine blanket of smokey bliss. Or maybe cajun-laced shrimp, living it large in gumbo fashion atop grits and a duo of sauces better known in meals served much later in the day. The folks at Doodles on 3rd St. dished em out with a smile and inquisitive pride signifying immediately not only quality, but the determination of those on their own path to glory and greatness.

How bout the ability of a college town to push cultural dining boundaries? Some may scoff at the notion, but you can get decent Korean digs in the heart of Kentucky, and the folks at Han Woo Ri, in the whitest looking page out of a Better Homes magazine have meekly thrown down their fermented, and slightly vinegary gauntlet.