The skies threatened to open and flush the world clean. I hadn’t seen a storm cloud in many days. This adventure started in a soggy, humid Louisville. En route to the city now 35 days later, nothing had changed.
I headed down Eastern Parkway to Bardstown Road. It was 3:30. I parked on Bonnycastle and walked to WHYLouisville. I grabbed at some shirts and it started to rain. I sat down at the end of the counter and struck up conversation with the girl who was working, Stephanie. She was blonde with a fresh tattoo that extended across her shoulderblades. I mentioned howI must have brought the rain with me. She laughed at this notion and said that the area has needed rain, it’s not such a bad thing. We got to talking about my previous trip to Louisville and all the different people I met. She asked about my impressions of the lifestyle and culture here. I told her that it’s very rare to find a metropolitan area with such fervent pride for their peers. Coming from a place like the New York area, where the level of competition is unhealthily high, Louisville is an artist’s paradise.
The conversation shifted to writing and school. Stephanie is 25, she studied massage therapy in a two year program. She works at the store when she’s not building her private practice. She confessed that she didn’t really know what she wanted to do. I told her how fascinating it is that pretty much everyone I’ve met in the past 5 1/2 weeks that’s in our age bracket has confessed to feeling lost. A vast majority of our generation either doesn’t have any drive, or their ambitions involve the arts, an area of concentration that makes eeking out a living nearly impossible. Stephanie mentioned how a lot of negative attributes are also placed upon us. We agreed that in certain instances these slights against us are warranted. There’s that whole MTV and media-influenced lust for material posessions, the latest fashion trends, etc. After assuring me she’s “definitely not conservative” she talked about how on her walk to work today she came across a group of young girls wearing underwear as outerwear and felt disgusted. Although unable to estimate the percentage of our peers that subscribe to these pop-culture fallacies (ie. dressing like a whore), it’s a large enough number to inspire disconcern.
From WHYLouisville I walked to the guitar emporium and got some acoustic strings. The guitar sounds like someone left it in a car trunk all summer. Oops.
I went to a few record stores. Nothing struck my fancy. As it approached 5:00pm, I went into a Heine Bros coffeeshop. I completed the Tuesday Times crossword puzzle and waited for Brooke to call. She called just as I was finishing my coffee, gave me directions to 3rd Ave. Cafe and I was on my way.
to be continued…
