Online Only: Bluegrass blues

There I was, at the races, trapped in a building where people were allowed to smoke indoors, and Starbucks was a foreign concept. In fact, there was no hot coffee at all. All I could get my hands on to feed my monstrous caffeine addiction was a cold cup of something that can only be described as dirty water with coffee grounds stirred in. \nAhh, the joy of returning to your roots.\nPeople ask me where I'm from, and often I say Cincinnati because I find that it's more representative of where I'm from than Kentucky. I am, in fact, from northern Kentucky, eight miles south of downtown Cincinnati and about two and a half hours due east of Bloomington. Still, I am Kentucky born and bred and almost never say it. Even when I do admit that Kentucky is my place of origin, it's always, "northern Kentucky, by Cincinnati," as if that dying city is better than the Bluegrass herself.\nBut moments like that, when I return home and find myself in gambling establishments surrounded by smokers and drunk middle-aged men with Southern accents who like to hit on blond twentysomethings like myself, I am reminded of the words of Ben Folds (And why not? He is the voice of middle-class white kids): "Try to put it all behind me, but my redneck past is nipping at my heels."\nThere, in the middle of Churchill Downs, I had to suppress the urge to cry out, "You don't understand! I write poetry! I go to the theatre! I spell theatre 't-h-e-a-t-r-e' for God's sake!" I want to sprint to the nearest Starbucks, bang on the doors until they let me in, throw myself prostrate on the ground at the feet of the barista and claim sanctuary. But there was no Starbucks. There was no sanctuary. There was no coffee -- and I was left grouchy, with a headache from caffeine withdrawal. The country music only exacerbated the problem, so I turned to my mother and asked, "Where are we? What happened to civilization?"\nI guess the most embarrassing part of all of this is that I secretly love the track. Horseracing is a pretty baller sport, and I can handicap the horses with the best of them. I've been going to the track my whole life. The truth is that these are my people.\nInstead of trying to reject my redneck past, I suppose I should embrace it. I will always be Jessie Leigh from Kentucky, who grew up at the horse track and saw Reba McEntire in concert at least three times. I've seen Brooks and Dunn, too. I've do-si-do'd with my dad at the father-daughter hoedown. I've been to a motor speedway race. I was in a commercial for a flea market. Maybe I'm the Osmond kids -- a little bit country, a little bit rock 'n' roll. I'm Cincinnati and Kentucky. I'm a Yankee and a Southerner. After all, Kentucky was a border state. Maybe I'm a border person. All that said, though, I still need my coffee. So, Churchill Downs, if you're reading this, get a Starbucks.