"What Happens In Vegas" Part 2
Wednesday, Feb. 02, 2011-part 2 of 2
�Fly Me To The Moon and Let Me Play Among the Stars...� (Frank Sinatra)
It was mid afternoon. In a few hours I will be putting more distance between the kids & myself for more days than I am used to . Despite my elation about this trip, the thought of this distance creates a slight tentative reaction , the feeling you have when you are vaguely seeking something that you cannot name. It is part of being a mother that I never could have understood before I had children.
"Pharm-Girl" offered to drive me to the airport for my 4 PM flight. She saw the suitcase and said "Honey what do you have in there? You are only going for 4 days and you'll be naked most of the time."
(She was still trying to talk me into borrowing her white feather bolero jacket, that made the wearer look like a Sesame Street charachter.) . . I got out of the car, and walked around to the back to open the trunk. Loud Led Zepplin music was blaring as she checked her lipstick in the rear mirror, and sped away... with my suitcase still in the car . I tried to run and wave, hoping she would see me in the rear view mirror. But she didn't see me. I called her on her cell. I could still see the car as she screeched on the brakes, dangerously backed up and returned with the bag. I felt relief powerful enough to re-start my heart.
AIRPORT INSECURITY
I checked in and wondered what my personal encounter with the screening and the TSA would be like.. One of the perennial post-9/11 questions is whether we can ever get ahead of the proverbial curve when it comes to counterterrorism. We tend always to be at least a step or two behind. That aside, they have a duty to be hyper vigilant that I not take a tube of toothpaste that is too large or wield a pair of tweezers like an ax murderer.
What will it be? Frisked by a female TSA employee ? Or have my naked body photographed with the see-through camera? I, for one, do not feel much safer knowing that barely-trained high school graduate has the legal right to look at or feel up my womanhood at will.
Though either choice sounded vile , I opted for the naked image .
"Once Upon A Time...."
I flashed back to an earlier time in my life , travelling alone with two young kids! I recall once when they were 3 and 4 and I was having enormous trouble going through security , changing planes and walking to the gate in the terminal hauling 6 carry-on bags, while carrying one sleeping child in a backpack, while the other one was running ahead of me.
People around me Saw the situation in simpler terms than I did.. I kept hearing strangers say : "God! they are a handfull..."
Did they say it to me, to themsevles, or perhaps directly to God , as the phrasing suggests.
Could it be that these strangers had been praying for me?
The Romance of Las Vegas
I sat back in my seat as the plane took off .
I was ready to leave everything behind. I listened to Sinatra on my Ipod on the flight and thought about Jay. I had not seen him in a week . Just the thought of meeting him in Vegas in 5 hours made me smile. It was as if a switch in my brain were flipping and a whole new template slid into place, the action beyond my volition. Just as T cells in the body respond to a pathogen, so a spiritual-type corrective had somehow flooded my system.
The lights were dim. The sun had just set towards the west. There is something so comforting in looking out the window when you are on an evening flight. At that very moment he was driving across the desert from LA to Las Vegas
I looked out and let the weight of countless dazzling stars crush me with their beauty. Grace comes wrapped in the ordinary.
Listening to Sinatra brought up a nostalgic image of Las Vegas as it must have been in the 60 's . It was part of a time period of elegance, when I was a child, when anachronistic martini-swilling cigarrette smoking men dressed in white shirts and ties. T shirts were undergarments. Women wore dresses and behaved with civility in public. There were no tounequette-tight jeans. (you know, like the kind I was wearing at that very moment) Las Vegas took on a mysterious, hip, adult aura as the icon of that to-be-envied �outside world� that took place beyond the sphere of my family�s influence.
Like music itself, or old photos, memory freezes time. Memory turns finite moments into spaces - a thought that we can return to again and again. It gives us a glimpse of the eternal and, like art at its most sublime, a means for transcendence.
Like Space travel, the image of Las Vegas , be it real or imagined , is kept alive by the human need for magical places or some dream of acquisition. The need is not about the places themselves, but about the transformations they experience . That altered reality lets you escape from the pressures of modern life that are anathema to peace of mind.
.."the bright light city's gonna set my soul, gonna set my soul on fire...." ("Viva Las Vegas" . Elvis Presley)
They say Vegas is the brightest spot on Earth. It is as bright as daylight 24 hours a day . As my flight was landing in Las Vegas I saw a city of luminous understructures sprawled beneath me. It was magical. The MGM was a luminous bright blue. The strip looked like swirls of purple and gold, a more heightened version of the slides of galaxies that I had seen at science museums. I felt like I was floating through my own private portal to the Milky Way.
(At this moment obviously I preferred fantasy to actual thought. I was not even drinking yet !)
As we landed , a drunk chick screamed out "VEGAAAAASSSSS!!! YEAH !!! Vegas baby !" And everyone applauded. This broke my reverie. (I'm not a gambler, yet I would place a Vegas bet that her bra has a quicker release than John Elway.) I was struck by how insightful her screaming comment was. Not for it's inherent content but for the pure value of telling it to Jay later on. We are always scavenging for humorous anecdotes to bring back to present to each other, we love the sustenance of satire.
It was 9:30 p.m. The flight had landed . It had been fast and cheap, which are the most desirable things about a flight (or a person ...)
The plane slowly taxied in. Waiting goes against he impatient grain when you haven't seen someone for a week.
As we taxied in,
I texted Jay from the plane as it came in to the gate.. "pick me up in.....5 minutes! I cant wait."
We had never stayed in a hotel together and I was so excited about this new intersection between his world and mine that I was in an altered state . This wasn't a drug-induced "altered state" . It is the part within of all of us that is genuine and uncomplicated. . This altered state is the true self, the way we were meant to be, free from regimental distortion of everyday life.
I was descending the airport escalator and I saw him coming towards me in the crowd.
(What do you call someone that does not have a specific title , that you've been with for more than 4 years?
Best friend/Boyfriend/ Whatever fill-in-the-blank either of our hearts , minds or bodies were seeking from the other at a given moment? )
In that instant , as we walked towards each other in the noisy crowded terminal, I heard nothing else, saw no one else. All our experiences in the last 4 + years flashed before my eyes, and they felt more solid, right and true than almost anything else that ever came before in my life. In that instant Las Vegas felt like I was returning home. Home is the place you find within.
So synthetic, so indulgent, so tacky, so gaudy ...so VEGAS !
It was 10 PM . We walked through the terminal, where you will see every nuance of humanity represented , playing slot machines , smoking ciggarettes , drinking, while waiting in baggage claim. The airport casino, full of people from Boise or Cleveland who got a taste of life as a freewheeling high-roller. They seem drawn by inexplicable forces that compel them to perch atop stools,in the airport, chain-smoking Camels as gravity tugs their jowls.
Some of them are probably drunk enough to think "I am special, talented, and a Very Important Person". Anyone could feel like a big shot, if only for a long weekend. That is what is so amazing about Las Vegas.
They cling to the slot machines like heart monitors or "casino-issue life support vessels".
Jay carried my overweight overly- pink luggage, without comment about what was in those bags.
He would not let me carry anything . We got into the car , drove out of the airport and took in the sights.
I was told by Pharm-Girl (someone one should never take advice from)that If there's someone else in the car, by Nevada tradition, you're required to scream out "VEH-GASSSSSSSSSSS! Baby." I did what I do anytime Pharm-Girl gives me any advice: I refrained from doing so .
I had been to Las Vegas in the early 80's but there are so many new hotels, replacing the old favorites, so many massive structures and replicas of European cities , it is barely recognizable. It�s a theme park, and the theme is "excess". It was delightful to be there! We went past architectural absurdities such as a pointless massively powerful blue light beaming up from the Luxor into space , a giant horseshoe made from thousands of gold-colored light bulbs , and the fountains and light show at the Bellagiao.
It is such a wretched waste of energy, almost as logical as watching an entire nation dismiss everything about fossil fuels and conservation ever said by anyone from Jimmy Carter to Kevin Costner .There is something unsettling about visiting Las Vegas - in this moment of ecological and economic crisis . The entire place is a giant concave mirror reflecting back the magnified truths about this epoch of cataclysmic consumption and hedonism. (But you can't come here as a conservationist.)
There were Escalades and Limos of ridiculous girth, generating the sound of oversized engineering in hyperdrive. Tourists and locals were at the wheel in a state of Freudian neurosis .
A number of stripper-mobiles rolled down the street, some of them were small trucks with huge photographs of call girls with phone numbers. One truck had a Plexiglas cargo area with a stripper pole and a live scantily clad woman spinning around it.
Stripper poles and the strippers who spin on them are a symbol of the gateway to all manner of depravity, or so conventional wisdom dictates. "Wisdom" or knowledge of something can actually mislead because we are conditioned culturally and bound by our time era. In this town stripping and lapdances are really just performance arts. Most dancers are very attuned to their bodies. They are performers and athletes. I was looking forward to one item on my "must-do" list , my Stripper 101 pole dancing class on Saturday. Anyone I knew would think it was a bit vulgar and be a little shocked , but this was Vegas , NOT a trip to Disney World or the Amish country.
Vulgarity for shock is banal. If you want to be depraved, do it creatively, and in a torrent. Do it on a pole in Vegas.
I tried to render an image of what it must have been like even further back in time , in the 60's. 
The Sands, or the Flamingo would always be missed, despite the passing of the years. Those were the classic days when Sinatra, or Dean Martin would be performing in the dark smoke -filled Copa Lounge.
Here is one establishment people will not miss. "The Laughing Jackalope" .
This picture strongly implies that there was once a creature known as a jackalope and that one actually ran a casino/hotel on the Las Vegas "strip!" Taxonimists are studying extinct Earth species based on this new evidence; it seems that jackalopes are not just myths, like unicorns and dragons, but rather were real, and are extinct,
Just like star of Hollywood Square, circa 1970, Paul Lynde, who was appearing on stage .
Here is another "vintage " hotel that will not be missed!
It was 10:30 PM, which was really 1:30 am for me, East Coast time. (Which is practically noon in Vegas time).
* ~* All is calm ... All is bright * ~*
We arrived at the The Wynn hotel, a beautiful and dramatic copper swath of monolithic ego . The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of the time we were about to have, was�I THOUGHT I WAS IN A DREAM. There were so many Mercedes being parked by the valets, that it looked like an SS reunion I Munich., . This was not the sort of tacky Vegas hotel that one would see a Hill-folk couple with matching tattoos.
The lobby was a wonderland of lights color and stony ornamented fa�ades. I forgot until I saw Christmas decorations , that it was actually Christmas season. 30 minutes in Vegas and already I had lost my inner compass. Somehow the interior was insubstantial looking, like it�s all made of gingerbread. I find myself wanting to knock on things to see if they�re hollow .
Out of the hubris....... And into the room alight
He took me up to the room on the 25th floor . I may have audibly gasped when he opened the door . He pressed the button to open the remote- controlled drapes, and the various settings of mood lighting. He had bought my favorite chocolate, and wine, vitamin water and nuts. Something from all 4 food groups. . A huge floor to ceiling window made up one wall facing the golf course and Hotels and casinos on the other side of the strip. Before me, an ocean of lights and glitter . It was hypnotic. .
"Are you tired?" he asked.
"Me? Tired? No ! The "greats" can take it to up another gear whenever it is required," I explained to Jay. "Sometimes it's not about being tired, it's about human will."
Even after little sleep the previous night and a long day at work followed by the 6 hour flight, I was so excited to be there, I was bursting with energy. My goal was to stay out, partying until I had been up for at least 24 hours. I had three hours ahead of me .
He said "I'll open the wine . Would you go into the hall and get ice from the machine?"
I said "oh honey, machinery? No! "
(I was spoiled already! )
We had a drink and then he left the room for a little while, to gave me some time alone to upgrade my image from "Aisle seat coach class " to "Vegas Cocktail Lounge".
. "VIVA LAS VEGAS"
11 P.M. I looked around the room. The bed was huge , with a down comforter so plush that it was probably going to feel like a shallow grave when we sunk into it later. The sheets had a trillion thread count, and there was a dock for my iPod built right into the wall. This trip is going to cost him more than my entire net worth.
After I changed clothes in the ridiculously huge bathroom that was as big as a studio apartment,I sat in a chair that was half wing-chair and half throne and looked out the wall-to-ceiling window. It was a rare moment when I was unencumbered by housework , the job and responsibilities.
I put on my sparkly Monica Lewinsky lipstick that Pharm Girl had given me as a going away present (she said " I think you're going to need this".) Life is at its best when it surprises you.I would never remember the exact day , years ago when I felt a hint that there might be a path through the wall of unlikelihood that would lead to our being together like this. It started out as a flirtation and ended up meaning everything in the world . I called Jay to come back and get me.
"Some day, ... When I'm awfully low, ... When the world is cold, ... I will feel a-glow just thinking of you ... Just the way you look tonight." (Frank Sinatra)
An empty lap is the Devil's playground !
Right in the hotel lobby there was a club called Blush that "Pharm Girl" says is her favorite bar. That was the most glowing critique one could bestow on a bar. (Like Julia Child saying "Great cook book") We sat back on the couches under the rotating colored lights which moved to the beat and ordered drinks .
We had chemistry -- a chemistry that wrapped a tight nest around us and kept everyone else out the sparks between us practically visible. It sometimes led us to be conspicuously inappropriate. This was not the sort of place where anyone would mind that we had our hands all over each other. I slung my leg across his lap. He had his hand on my thigh. We could 'round a few bases' right here and no one would notice a thing. Take me out to the ball game. We were once kicked out of the waterfront Cafe for that same public display of affection after someone complained. A cop in Charlestown kicked us out of a parking lot for what he considered excessive "making out" . Twice.
No one cared here. We fit right in. In fact we made the place look even better.
I love dance clubs but I told Jay I like to watch, not dance. "besides I am not drunk enough yet, to consider dancing" I reassured him confidently.
These are the things you say in Vegas.
And if that doesn't make sense to you ... Well, you've never been to Vegas.
We saw women dancing with women, some in an awkward cougar dancing ritual. Some were wearing skin tight $200 jeans and silk blouses , diamonds . They towered over me in spike heels. Some were crammed in cocktail dresses four times too small gleeful exhibitionism.(Not everyone should try to pull off this look. They should not force it. Someone needs to get the word out. This has to end.) There were flashy girls kissing each other, wearing low cut short dresses that were so tight they looked sprayed on . I joked that some of these people looked like they could be carrying various STDs that I'm not even sure have been diagnosed yet. "Can I catch anything just by looking at these people?" I asked Jay. " Nobody knows". He said.
IN THE ROOM OF ANCILLARY DREAMS
It was 2 a.m. ,and a pivotal moment had arrived. I had achieved my goal of being up for 24 hours . We went up to our room.
I should have been fading from the lateness and the comedown of adrenaline. Instead I had a reserve of energy when we got into the bed with at least 6 inches of down , covered in cool sheets. I was so strongly drawn to a kiss, a touch, and the scent of his skin when my face was pressed against his neck. Was this because, as science suggests, he smelled to my unconscious like perfect symmetry of unknown provenance ?
At best it was a dream come true and this is the best relationship I've ever had....at worst I was indulging in a harmless fantasy. Later on I fell into a narcotic-like sleep with the person I hadn't ever had the grandiosity to dream of being here with.
There's nothing quite like the feeling of waking up together in Vegas and having absolutely no idea what time it is. I thought : "Is it 1:00 in the afternoon? Is it 5:30 in the morning? Is it Tuesday? Did I just sleep through the WINTER ?" The room was dark, the bed was amazingly comfortable, and the feel of him next to me with his arm around me , my head resting against his chest made me want to stay there all day. I smiled . He smiled. He looked at me with that look of boyish innocence and pure good will in his eyes. I looked at him and wondered if he could sense what I am thinking , which was simply; " Thank you. Never in my life have I felt as content as I do now." And there is nothing else that needed to be said.
I checked my cell phone . Nine o'clock. That means I had just had 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I dont even get that at home.
What better way to begin the first full day in Las Vegas than to go back to bed for another hour of post coital languor...
At any hour of the day or night, Jay is spontaneous affectionate and sexually uninhibited . In a professional setting, he is the soul of polite restraint. The contrast made me feel as if his lust for me was just that overpowering, but maybe it was just his nature. It was clear he 'd learned all the tricks he needed to know in his past years studying physiology and anatomy .
All I knew was, I was the object of his desire. Forget the casinos! I had already hit the jackpot.
We finally got up and got dressed . I said "I only have one question: Where is the nearest Starbuck's?"
We went out and walked to have breakfast in two stages. Starbuck's for the first cup of coffee. He didn't even break a sweat when I ordered my complicated Starbucks drink: "a grande half-decaf, half caff , 2% milk , vanilla double shot ginger bread cappucino , extra dry, with whipped cream, and two sugars, sprinkled coaco powder plus one half shot of caramel".
This being our first trip together, I took a risk here: If I appeared this much of a control freak over a cup of coffee, he might be a little worried about how freakish I might behave over something more important,... like PASTRY ! 
We walked past the Faux Eiffle Tower to a boulangerie inside the Paris Hotel for breakfast "Partie deux". The interior was replica of the City of Lights complete with , A Louvre , an Arc du Triumph , and shops on the Champs Elyssee, beneath a realistic " sky" ceiling that always looks like a sunny afternoon.(By the time we finished our breakfast it actually was a sunny afternoon.) I had a creme caramel .It was �caramel unbalanced� for most people's breakfast palate. Whoever made this couldn�t possibly know that , for me, there was no such thing as too much caramel. The theoretical imperfection was what made it so perfect . So happy...so delicious.
I picture-messaged the office girls and said "A Fake Eiffel Tower and Starbuck's ? What more would a girl want?". Pharm Girl wrote back "Percoset and a big dick".
(I smiled and thought; "I don't do percoset. I have the rest of it covered.")
"What happens in VEGAS is disgusting in Vegas
We walked all afternoon, in and out of opulent hotel lobbies with water shows, designer boutiques , ice sculptures , casinos with pole dancers on the table tops. It is one of the few places in the US where you can drink on the street without disguising the liquor in a brown paper bag. So at any given hour you can walk down the main strip watching people proudly displaying their super large glasses of various cocktails/ beer. It produces a bizarre counter culture of reckless freedom.
Yet, despite all the reckless freedom, I am astonished by how clean the main drag is, putting Boston utterly to shame. Everything looks perfectly groomed. Las Vegas is the adult perfection of tacky ideas, centered around luxury and indulgence, making an entire lifestyle out of a playground.
Stimulation, lights sparkle. Animated billboards; hustlers lining the sidewalk . On every street , men were aggressively pushing cards saying "nude girls direct to your room" with photos of naked women. They click down the cards on the pack and hold them out to every man who walks past . The sidewalks soon become littered with discarded pornography.
Vegas is all about raw sex, but it not true eroticism. Vegas is a mirage, a patently false and inferior imitation of the real thing. Somehow in its bizarre juxtapositions, the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, Venice and its canals, a Sphinx,the amazing Bellagio fountains- it is all captivating, enchanting and magical.
There was a huge multi tiered waterfall fountain of melted Chocolate , that appeared to have Non-Newtonian properties. We went to two original art museums in the Bellagio and saw original Picasso and Degas painting. There was a Lamborghini dealership in the lobby of the Venetian. The sight of it made me want to climb into the Lamborghini Murci�lago and drive through the desert 100 miles an hour while shifting 40 times, and feel our heads float back from the g forces.
We came back to the room, I went to the spa and worked out for a decadent hour, and then we got ready to go out.
�What happens in Vegas is happening in a weird parallel universe"
I poured myself into my "Marliyn Monroe Dress" a sleeveless stretch long black dress that made me look just short of "sex-kittenish". Being 50 something, I was actually a tad past "kittenhood". My biological clock had probably already ticked it's last chime, but I was never one of those women with a myopic memory that sentimentalized my youth. I can honestly say that these are the very best days of my life.
The very last bit of advice from one of the older women in the office was : Wear sensible shoes. You'll do a lot of walking." I thought about that as I put on 4 inch ankle strap stiletto heels that make any woman feel like a graceful dancer filled with stealth. Wearing them is sensual like nothing else.
Foot comfort is NO reason not to be sexy as hell.
Being with Jay had a salutary effect on me. When we stepped off the elevator together, it made me feel like we were the most glamorous people in the City. The Wynn was built near the site of the old original hotel, the Desert Inn. We were like the embodiment of Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra, sex goddess of the 60's and the man with the famous blue eyes walking through the Desert Inn Casino in 1962.
We went to the best restaurants and had some of the best food I had ever had. Here is one place where we ate.
This was a place that we did NOT eat at.
We had tickets to see Andrew Dice Clay deliver his retro -foul-mouthed -sexist -hillarious-comedy routine.
(Why do make comedians imitate women with a lisp. I dont know any women with a lisp.)
He was never so eloquent as he was that night: He won me over when paid me the highest compliment possible. He yelled at us publicly as we walked to our seats, a few minutes late. "Hey YOU! Hey you ovah there wit' the young wife! Hey, BIG SHOT ! You poppin' Viagra ? Or Cialis?" His routine may be profane and crass but at that moment he was a statesman enough for me! It is indisputable that the man has excellent taste but he may be a tad myopic. (We will ignore the fact that my glory days of youth ended in 1987 , when I turned 30. Coincidentally that was the same year that Andrew Dice's career was at it's peak )
We went to the Palm Casino Resort and got "All Clubs " pass. I dont get overly excited with celebrity sightings but I couldn't help but be impressed that this was was Paris Hilton's and Brittany Spears' favorite hangout ( or anyone elses' who does not care about mortgages or a keeping a job) None of these exactly add up to the Rat Pack, but today's pop culture embraces B- and C-list celebrities, to. I dont name drop , at least not since Bob DiNero told me not to, but there is no better way to choose a dance Club than to go with Paris Hilton /Brittany Spears recommendation. As Paris/Brittany go, we follow.
We entered a tunnel of mosaic gold tiles, flashing with a rainbow of strobe lighting that lead to RAIN . Inside was water with dancing fountains surrounding the dance floor. Fireballs and fake lightning shot from the center of the light display from the ceiling. Sensorially bombarded The music was so loud I felt like the bass was originating from my thorax. I was afraid if I gyrated wrong, my ribs would crack and stab me in the pericardium . The music commanded me to move to the beat. The unambiguous urgency of its attention led us right past the bar and straight onto the dance floor. I dragged my good-spirited Jay by the hand behind me. (Points for that! What man willingly allows himself to be extemporaneously foisted onto a crowed dance floor without benefit of a few cocktails first? )
Possessed by the music , vocalization pulled me up as surely as my muscles� efforts. I felt like a hot young dancer in a rap star's video and he was like a rock star. Our bodies never completely broke contact. We were a hotbed of erotic creativity , completely uninhibited in the middle of the dance floor. It was transformative. I suddenly remembered every single word to all the songs by Beyonce, Shakira, Rhianna and other uni-named performers. My singing was probably awesome, but that is supposition, since it was impossible to verify over the decibles. As we danced our way from one club to the next , Jay said with straight faced satire "Didn't you say you don't like dancing?. ."
We were so caught up in the music and the surroundings that we actually forgot to drink at any of the 4 clubs. We returned to our hotel, and the staff in the lobby was so low-key in comparison to where we had just been, they appeared anesthetized . In the room, the exquisite quiet was an oasis . Getting into the cool sheets together was paradise.
"The way you hold your knife
The way we danced till three
The way you've changed my life
No they can't take that away from me" (Frank Sinatra)
We got up the next day and began the last 24 hours in Vegas. We checked out of the Wynn , went to Starbuck's. To enter the Palazzo and the Venitian is to enter a world of "La Dolce Vita" . We checked into the Palazzo, for our last night. It is the second-largest building in the Western Hemisphere, and the decor could give the Basilica of San Marco and the Palace of Versailles a run for thier money.
We got lost in the vast maze hallways trying to find the room... So opulent , so beautiful....I may have taken this "royalty delusion " too far.
Jay asked me to go online and check the East Coast weather..
I said " You want me to DO something?...That sounds complicated"
.. "That's Why the Lady is A Tramp"..
I spent the afternoon learning to do a proper lap dance, and swinging around a stripper pole without peeling off several layers of epidermis..
Bad news: I was probably the oldest woman in the class.
Good news: No one would have thought that I was the oldest. In fact my prime pole swinging days may not have eluded me. I managed the forceful flexions and extensions of the upper body, and semi-controlled contorted spins around the pole and backward drops to the floor with the best of them.
Best news: I have a honorary Nevada stripper's license. ( It is good to have a vocational back-up plan in case the whole "Boston Real Estate Magnate " thing does not pan out. Although admittedly , there may not be a huge market for a 50 something stripper , no matter how talented she obviously is)
That night we went to see Matt Goss in Ceasars Palace , doing some of the Rat Pack classic songs in the same room where Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darin had performed years before. We walked around the strip for hours afterwards. Luckily we are not the gambling types. So we didn�t experience it's desperate side of losing money.
Accustomed to smoke-free Boston , we choked on the strata of cigarette smoke hanging in the windowless casinos.
The largest, most lavish and garish hotels can be found in Las Vegas .
Each casino has varying degrees of luxury and debauchery. Some casinos are on the cusp of tacky. Some of the older ones are Ultra-tacky, over-the-top, gaudy, wacky, bizarre , designed by someone with questionable taste. I love that! .
�. A tubby man sat at one of the tables, �Oh yeah ! oh yeah ! hit me oh yeah , gimme a big one!� .
I heard two women exchange: "Ohmygawd, YES, let's go to the Venitian. For drinks . .....I could SO USE a cosmo. Now!.. . Don't they have a Venetian in like, Italy or something? I bet it's JUST THE SAME. ... Awesome, because we're gonna be hanging out at this place, and like, we know where the ORIGINAL one is".
Walking through The casinos was like coming in through the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant: You never know what you will see and you may wish you had not seen it.
We walked for hours, hand in hand, me in my 4 inch heels, until we could walk no more.
Back in the room, I saved up enough energy to test my new lap dance skills on a most accommodating volunteer.
LEAVING LAS VEGAS
Art Garfunkle said "The endings always come too fast. Ending always come at last. "
On the last morning , in that place between wakefulness and dreams, I found myself in bed , his hand on my bare leg and my head on his chest.
It went by too fast. One minute we were just arriving. ....And�the next minute , it had passed. I think the key to happiness is to learn that idealy one should not form TOO MUCH ATTACHMENT to any given moment; enjoy it while you have it, but soon it�s gone. If you trust and expect the other great moments that will perpetually follow, there�s no greater joy than living in the present. As was the case then, and as it has always been in life, everything is part of a continuum. One thing gives away to another.. It was never going to end. The good times we had would become indelibly etched in our minds, and a part of us us . I tried to keep that in mind, as I packed .
We took photos of ourselves in the room to remember how beautiful it was.
As we walked out I realized that we never once put on the TV.
"Like painted kites, those days and nights - they went flyin' by
The world was new, beneath a blue - umbrella sky" (Frank Sinatra)
When we left Las Vegas I breathed deeply and looked around me, trying to memorize the things that I would miss. Driving out of town, my sense of elation and omnipotence that I felt since I arrived was losing momentum. We could see some of The parts of Las Vegas that don�t make it into the promotional brochures interested in the glamour of the Strip. We saw hillarious implications of the human wreckage coping with grim realities beyond the neon lights. I needed some humor .
"...AS I WALK THROGH THE VALLY OF DEATH ..."
We drove from Las Vegas to LA , through Death Valley. It is hard to get too enthused going to any destination that has the word " death" in its name.
Jay was on the phone with some suprisingly uncooperative family members , trying to arrange a ride from the airport . One person didn't want to get up that early. Another didn't want to drive in the rain...It was annoying to hear the dynamic, and of course absolutely none of my business. He deserved better. I'm just saying..
The desert is stark and quiet and is immense, as Las Vegas disappeared in the rear view mirror. Tombstone-like rocks stud the undulating lines of the hills, as you follow the white line of the highway , behind the wheel. So much of the appeal of this drive on the road to LA�lies in its latency�the lure of the unknown of Death Valley and the aura of ominous possibility . It is not just the trip from point to point. It is the process of observation and wondering about the austere lifestyle of the residents of any of the Godforsaken towns along the way.
I forgot all about his transportation woes when we saw Baker Ca. from the highway. No connection. One of the lower priority things on my list of things I wanted to do on this trip was to see the world's largest thermometer. I just love any ridiculous landmark , especially "the world's largest " anything ,which always has the ability to make me laugh.
Thrusting out of the sand like a huge phallic mirage from a dream that Maria from the office would have, it records as high as 134 degrees. Jutting towards the sky it is proclaiming itself as indeed the largest in the world.
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The sign at the bottom of this monument boasts that Baker is the gateway to Death Valley. I found it a far more interesting point that this beast is located right next to the Bun Boy Motel.
. Who names a motel "Bun Boy? We have a pattern emerging: Phallic monuments, a Motel named Bun Boy, and the little bun boy is holding a rather large red arrow, pointing up . I saw an arrow and a for sale sign in front of absolutely nothing, pointing at nothing whatsoever. Stretching all around us is a vast expanse, of nothing. If we find interesting funny things in Baker CA, we could see the whole country as an oyster for us to open; and the pearl was there if you had the imagination to see it. We took some photos and bid farewell to this eccentric little town and headed into LA for our 9 p.m. flight.
We finally sank into the plane seats together I could hear the engines in the background, working relentlessly, with repetitive noise like a metronome. We slept on an off , leaning against each other, knowing that when day broke and we would return to everyday life . It had been 5 days , but this was one of those times when the passage of time was marked not by the hands of a clock, but by all the things that happened as I passed through one man's life. Journey's end. And what is a journey? Is it just distance traveled? Time spent? No. It's what happens on the way. It's the things that shape you. At the end of the journey, you're not the same.
"What Happens in Vegas ..Follows you home"...
When we landed ,at 5 am and we got into separate cabs. There were no parting words , no eloquent summaries or long good bys. That's not our style. There were volumes of words unspoken and a palpable wonderful feeling , knowing that we loved every minute of the most uninhibited fun we 'd ever had.
The sound of the door of the cab as it slammed closed broke the spell. I turned back and looked out the rear window of my cab and caughtone last glimpse of him , as the two cabs drove off in different directions into the cold pre-dawn .�
Don't feel sad for me: Five days later we were in South Beach.
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