home is where the what is?

i’m in that weird place between wired and exhausted, hanging out at the gratz park inn, lex.ky. looking forward to an evening of sleep, though, after a full week of semi-debauchery and all-nighters. from pool with theresea to two Bloomington trips, lodge, Lonnie, collin, the binkleys, avoiding duke like an infected sore, and the many and varied exploits therein, i’m still wiped out. and it’s monday.

it’s nice to be back in Lexington, though. it’s so beautiful here; i’d be wont to raise a family here if my travels ever bring my through. the sprawling neighborhoods and compact, cosmopolitan downtown, the great schools and nice people, the fact that this evening i switched the radio station to a will smith song, and the bum on the side of the street was walking in time to the beat, the way the girl at the meeting pronounced spon-tser: all of it amuses me.

i remember so little of it, though, and that makes me sad. granted, i was really young living here, but 10 plus years is enough to get to know a place, regardless. it strikes me how suppressed, forgotten, these memories are. i was driving out on Versailles road yesterday to pick up my colleague at the airport, and it suddenly struck me that the school i went to (TLS WHAT) was right around the corner. intuitively, i knew that. cruising these streets in my royal blue chevy HHR rental, though, i am verging on lost at every turn.

i had a fantastic evening with laura, a family friend whom i have not seen since we moved those 8-ish years ago. fantastic. we went hunting for bridal gowns, and i encountered that awkward sitch where the salesgirls thought i was the bride to be; checked out her home, which is classically beautiful Kentucky home with the beautiful full backyard and sunken living room and good mojo and a happy Buddha garden statue; we had a great meal (ok, i had a great meal, i think hers was average) at bella notte. laughing and talking and enjoying the company completely.

back home, to a meeting (the website was right! quelle surprise!), and here i am. i really want to go out and shoot pool, check out the dame, which looks like a rad-ass indie club, and tool around the streets, but pragmatism kicks in and i realize i need sleep. lots and lots of sleep. on these weird tempur-pedic mattresses here. the bed has no bounce, which is a weird feeling. overall, this hotel is mediocre. more shabby than anything. and the lobby smells like 150 years of someone blowing farts into a bowl of potpourri. the breakfast server was pretty hot, though, in a i-shoot-heroin-and-use-a-bad-fake-english-accent-to-better-serve-you kind of way. ah, hometowns.