I really wasn't, I must say, encouraged in school or at home to explore other cultures. My mom isn't exactly a world traveler so I don't think she had much to contribute there, and the only "cultural" stuff I remember learning in school was really horrible stereotypical stuff and false history. I don't even remember doing any school-assigned reading about things like how western expansion was really massive genocide until I was in college (and even there I think the textbooks and things toned it down from the true horror of the situation). I never had real "ethnic" food -- not even real Mexican -- until I was 18-ish, and I've relied heavily upon friends to kind of steer me toward new experiences in that vein because it's difficult to even know where to begin. To an extent I think that's why I'm struggling so much now, is because I don't feel I have my own cultural experience to relate other people's to.

but I know it's not a bright line; and that you would get lots of answers from people you asked inside the cultures in which you take an interest.

I think you're right, but I also know that the very idea of asking is mortifying; I would feel like ten kinds of douchebag if I managed to find an appropriate authority to bring this question to, because when you come right down to it, the question is, "in what ways is it acceptable for me to lift from your culture without context?" and the answer of course is that there isn't any way that that's acceptable. Like I noted even when I asked the question, this is one of those questions you already know the answer to. :D I think I just wanted somebody to tell me that I wasn't being paranoid.