Home again home again

I’m back! Hello little blog!

So, okay. Vegas. How do I explain the time Sabrina and I had in Vegas? It’s hard, because again, time means nothing, what day it is means nothing, but I will do my best to hit some of the high points.

And, sadly enough…I have no pictures, because although I love Lady Vegas and all her offerings, my camera was “lifted” from my back pocket (stupid) at a local townie karaoke bar. So please do your best to visualize all such happenings, and weep for me and my camera, and the cool pictures I had taken that someone chose to swipe (stupid).

So, when we first arrived in Vegas we called an old friend of mine who was leaving the next day, he had been in Vegas doing the Second City show there and was all finished. He had had a party the night before, and brought us all his alcohol. Good start. So the first thing that happened in Vegas is that my room became stocked with wine coolers and lime vodka. Blech! But awesome.

He took us downtown to see Fremont Street which was very cool. I’ve never been there and I loved it, all the old glitter and lights hiding behind a covered 3-block-long TV screen where there were little shows every half hour or so. This was on Halloween so everyone was all dressed up, and although we were exhausted (we were running on being up for almost 24 hours at this point) it was excellently cool.

The weather was perfect and beautiful, Sabrina loved Vegas on first sight. We were staying at the Sahara, way far down on the Strip, which at first I worried about and then came to be so glad for. Because why? Because that meant we got to take “The Deuce”. The Deuce is the double-decker bus that goes up and down the strip, its two bucks (DEUCE!) and man oh man, I learned more about Vegas and humanity on that bus than I have ever learned in my 37 years. Some of our best times in Vegas were on that bus. One ride, we had an old timer with his son, son remained silent while old timer regaled us and one other couple with stupidly hilarious jokes and info about Vegas, once we all got to talking and laughing so hard with this guy, one of the other guys says “what we should do is get a jug of wine and all of us just ride around on here all day”. Sabrina and I agreed.

So what did we do? We played lots of penny slots, we saw Matsuri (explained to us as the Japanese Cirque De Soleil, which was not even close) at the Sahara, Sabrina won free tickets….that gave us fodder for the rest of our lives and became a joke for the rest of the trip. We went to the open air bar and listened to a rockin’ chick sing 80’s tunes while hot bartenders spun bottles, showed us their very sculpted chests and poured shots down our mouths, we danced there later, we saw the Second City show and some old Chicago friends there who happened to be in town. We ate buffets, both breakfast and dinners, we peed a lot, we peed our pants a lot, we sat and detoxed at the pool, played Blackjack (never done that before, made 5$). We sang karaoke at the local townie bar (um, can I just say I ROCKED “Fly” by Sugar Ray?), rocked it so hard in fact that the karaoke master kept calling me Hixx every time he saw me and said goodbye to me as we were leaving and he was still singing on stage (see you around Hixx!). We hung out with a friend of Sabrina’s who came in for the weekend and fed her lime vodka from my bar in the room. We won more free show tickets the last night we were there and took the free show tickets even though we couldn’t go because they had coupons for 10$ in free slot play. We walked around in the sunshine and the dry air; we went to the MGM and New York New York. In short, we did everything we could have done and did it well.

By Sunday, we were both so exhausted and yet still so happy. I still have no idea why Vegas makes me so happy, why I love it with such a passion, but I do. I still do. Each time is different, each time I see something new, each time I’m amazed by how many people are there and what they’re doing there. I could go back right now without question. I love the old Vegas and I love the new one, I love all the construction, I love all the people, I love The Deuce, I love my slot machine I found last time at the MGM Grand (found it again, it immediately gave me 50$). I love showing Vegas to people who haven’t been. Erin, girl, I defy you to come with me to Vegas and not have a good time.

There were some people we met up with who didn’t love it there, I just don’t understand, the weather, the freedom, the lights, the money, the people, the employees, the free things, the kitschy hotel rooms, the pools, the pimps, the music (its all 80’s music everywhere, I swear), all of it makes me so happy and as I was leaving, I told Vegas it might be awhile before I can get back, this next year is a doozy, but that I was coming, and to wait for me, that I would be back no matter what it took. And I will, and I love knowing that today, just like last Tuesday, there’s a bajillion people there searching for something or other, and they’ll all be there next Tuesday too.

And all of the stories we experienced, what I explained to you all is not even a quarter of what happened, I couldn’t begin to tell you of all the things that made us laugh or just smile.

And I will not tell you about the footlong hotdog we ate at Slots A’ Fun, because what happens, stays.