Las Vegas, NV

We drove North on the 15, through Diamond Bar, Barstow and Baker, stopped off for In-N-Out, drove some more, and then the light started to go down on the desert and all you could see ahead was the luminous glow of Primm in the evening sky. Fake Vegas, I always think of it. You see the lights and think you're nearly there but you still have a ways to go. We arrived on the Strip at around 9pm, and it was wintery and empty. Even though the lights still sparkled they lacked luster and sheen, instead seemed tired, faded, on the point of extinction. It felt like arriving to the party a week too late and finding only the corpse of other people's fun, the whisper of laughter, a sad sigh.

The same could be said of The Sahara. The elevator, stripped of advertisements, stinking of pee and stale cigarette smoke, creaked and whined uneasily when it took us up to check in. It wasn't a good sign. This is my mystery location of glamor and beauty. Fucking Vegas. Not only that, a dying hotel, only a couple weeks to go before it gets closed down forever. My feelings of gratitude towards Paul for rescuing me from the stress of evil Italian tenant hell rapidly gave way to simmering resentment. Then I saw the fat people sitting at the slot machines. This was fat that six years in the US had not prepared me for. This was fat whose mean value was probably more than a fucking house. This was fat that threatened to seep across the torn, frayed, stained, smelly carpet, crawl under my skin and infect me too. This was fat covered in gray skin smoking forty a day and chugging another beer as it wasted your life savings on another lot of plastic tokens for Roulette.

Depressing as all hell. I felt sure our friendship could not survive. We'd been happy that day, driving in the sun, but now all I could think was, "When can I fucking leave?"

We wandered around the Luxor, the Mandalay and Excalibur, looking for food. It was eleven, but everywhere was shut. The only tourists left were fat white men in shorts holding bongs of fluorescent cocktails, and Mexican families pushing strollers full of mewling, sticky children who seemed distressed. I thought we'd hit a low when we went into the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner: we hit a new one when they turned us away and suggested Denny's.

In Denny's. "We have a big, big problem," says the Orca Whale behind me, and her three Obsese sisters nod their head and chins in agreement. "We still don't have the Deep-Fried Mozzarella sticks on the table". Oh tragedy! I changed my order from Pie to Grilled Chicken Salad (the half portion) and wondered whether In-N-Out was the dizzy descent to an ass like a Fire Engine. We went back to The Sahara about midnight, and played a listless game of Roulette. I won 75 bucks on the first two tries, and felt so depressed I thought of giving it away to charity. Fortunately I pulled myself together, pocketed it, and slept long and deep, dreamt about smiling corndogs leering at me from the side of the freeway.

Paul wanted breakfast at Hooters because he'd never been there before. Our server was Ashley. She wrote this down on a paper napkin, with a heart, in case we forgot. Paul forgot. Ashley looked like she'd rolled out of bed with a hangover and a meth-pipe, wiped the cum from between her legs, ignored the supine, nameless dude sweating fumes under her duvet, and headed to work without looking in the mirror. I admired her chirpiness in the face of disaster (her own), but Hooters wings for breakfast made me want to puke so we left and headed over to Circus Circus.

Circus Circus was busy. From nowhere, families had sprung up, grimly determined to hunt down fun, viciously harpoon it lest it might wriggle out of their grasp and head for Hollywood. Paul lined up for an hour to check in, and I slept on the floor, surrounded by large Hispanic families, until he woke me up, forced me reluctantly into the fairground section. And there... We had fun!

Circus Circus is the kind of place which makes me cringe and want to hate-screw a rich white man in the Bellagio. And then I saw hook-a-duck, and I knew that I too, could win the stuffed hamburger, and I felt complete. Everyone in Circus Circus was smiling. Everyone in the Sahara looked like they'd been exhumed earlier that day. That whole 'family entertainment' bullshit does tend to translate in my head as obese middle-Americans with man-tits straining to roam free from their 'I love boobs' t-shirts, sporting beer breath and a semi as they stroll down to Crazy Horse after a night with Barry Manilow. And yeah, that's part of Vegas, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't disgust me, because I'm a liberal snob. But then there's the absolute childlike wonder that plastic crap, a few bright lights and going upside down can create. And that's Circus Circus. I think I'd kind of forgotten the consummate professionalism of Vegas because I was so distracted by watching the Sahara rot and die in front of us. And going to see Absinthe afterwards was perfect.

Absinthe was like The Box - except with fat white people in the audience, as opposed to skinny, trendy, name-dropping New Yorkers. One Spiegel Tent, several burlesque dancers, breathtakingly weird acrobatic acts, two crazy comedians MC-ing everything, tightrope walkers, a chick in a balloon, and a bar throughout it all for regular Diet-Coke top-ups.

We left in a happy daze, and went to a bar in Caesar's Palace to meet my old stripper friends Daisy and G-Cup and record some video for Paul's column.

For those of you who were wondering, here's my pre and post stripping pics. It was hilarious and fun meeting Daisy and G-Cup after so long away from clubs. I'm still a mani-pedi, bikini-wax, make-up girl, but tend to slob out in yoga clothes and Bare Minerals these days. No more fake blond hair, spangly g-strings and pancake slap for me. Plus the short hair was a definite post-strip indulgence for me - I'm sure there are guys out there who dig it, but they never walked into any stripclub I ever worked at.





Paul and I crawled back to Circus Circus that evening at midnight and stayed up until 2am, eating Krispy-Kremes and drinking coffee, passing the laptop back and forth to write the HuffPo piece. I think the definition of happiness is caffeine, sugar and talking to a fellow writer deep into the night in a hotel in some strange city. I guess, even with only 75 bucks from a roulette win to your name, you can be happy anywhere. I love Vegas.