here's life

So, I met some friends at the little coffee shop in the historic section of town and we headed off on tour of the local art galleries.  We walked to the first one, a third floor room with items made of "Welded steel and Mixed Media" as well as "Paper and Mixed Media".  Stencils, cut paper and guys with gas masks were the main themes.  The welded steel was folded zigzags.  I went around admiring the artwork until one of my friends quietly confided to me, calling the bluff of the emperor. It was harder to pretend that these were grandiose works of skill and talent after that.  The next place was pretty cool. Here they taught various forms of art, but I went up to the top of the building where the glass blowers were working.  Those refractory furnaces are hot.  But the glass blower was so comfortable, working near things that were at about 2000 degrees.  It was fascinating to watch as he expertly blew and collapsed, colored and melted, shaped and twisted, cooled and heated the glass, to make a glob paperweight with internal swirling colors and a few bubbles.  Clear glass is unique when it glows.  Being colorless, and transparent, the light comes from nowhere to light up the goo.  I want a furnace---the materials they are made of!  The furnace of liquid glass. they had a pool of it...
We walked back to our cars and drove to the next place--they had "acrylic/gouache on birch panel" as well as other things--woven stuff, undefinative fiber-based collages.  Actually artful. There was a guy playing a odd guitar---all neck, many strings, no strumming---just tapping the strings at the fret to make enough vibration for the pickups to amplify.  Used both hands to deftly pull huge amounts of music out of these strings.  Turns out, one guy in our group knew him from highschool. We sat and listened to him until the place closed down. 
What was left of our group wanted to stop by a local food/drink place and grab a bite to eat.  I figured I'd go along, found out where we were going.  Well, I found the place. and a parking space, and wandered about a bit and didn't see my friends' vehicle.  So I waited, still nothing.  This was not the part of town that I feel comfortable wandering around at night, and really didn't feel like walking in without my friends.  The group of people standing in the shadows outside the tattoo parlor next door also made me uncomfortable.  I drove around a bit, still couldn't spot their car, and after checking back where I had left them and finding nothing, I turned for home.  I pretty much freaked out and ran.  I'd go to a place that looked like that, if I were with people I knew, but I was not having fun, so I left.  I called my friends and left a message on his cell when I got home.  The city is no place for me.  During the daytime, and if I choose what places I go, it's ok,,,but I just don't feel at home there.  If I need to go into intercity ministry, God and I will have to figure something out, but until then, give me a grassy knoll and some trees.  I just don't feel like sitting in a smokey bar surrounded by people who want to eat my brains, listening to music I don't like, eating food I don't trust.  So, how can I bring usefulness to my friends' lives without judging their preferences? Jesus didn't run from the "scum of society" like I did this evening at quarter-to-eleven.  And I made that determination without even going inside.  I was too "better" to associate with the creeps I imagined seethed inside this restaurant and this part of town.