pictures | Read it to absorb my awesomeness

Posing on freemont street in vegas

We flew out of Bradley at 9 am and arrived in Vegas at 2 pm (Vegas time). I went outside for the first time and felt what a Nevada heat wave in August felt like. It was so hot that I got chills in the shade. I put a cigarette in my mouth and dug around in my purse for a lighter. A nice airport worker walked by and lit his lighter in front of my face.

“Thanks.” So far, so good. Vegas people are nicer than Connecticut people.

I go back inside for my luggage and see a bunch of slot machines calling out for my money. I become tempted at losing some, if not ALL of my savings at an airport slot machine. I kept my cool and walked on by.

We wait in line at the taxi stand and hand off our luggage to the taxi driver who placed them neatly in the car.

We decided to stay at the Stratosphere.

The Stratosphere

Well, I didn’t decide on anything, my friends decided for me. They booked my flight and hotel room, made reservations for a few show’s and dinner at a fancy restaurant. I did nothing and I feel like a dumbass because of it. Even at the airport checking in and finding the right plane to board, I just followed everyone – standing where they told me to stand, sitting where they told me to sit.

I have the mental out-look of if someone else is willing to do something for me – such as cook, drive, plan activities or something simple like tally up a restaurant check, I let them do it. They obviously enjoy doing these things because why else would they offer?

However, I can’t stay this way forever without feeling the repercussions. For one, I feel completely useless, and another is that when I finally do offer up a suggestion, nobody seems to pay attention. I need to become more of a take-charge kind of girl. I need to travel alone to gain some confidence.

We get to our hotel and check in (I don’t check in, my friends do it for me). We had to get two rooms because there’s so many of us. I was staying with Stephanie and her husband. The other girls got stuck with a smelly room with a horrible view, so they made a $20 upgrade to a room upstairs. So far my trip was not going well. I had on a loose tank top that’s been hanging from me so much that my boobs were practically falling out. I worn this top before without any problems so I wasn’t expecting this to happen. Plus it was so hot and everyone was yapping away. All I wanted to do was change my shirt and find somewhere to buy beer. Beer was my main priority.

I meet everyone downstairs in the casino. They were already feeding money into the slots. I watched them, looked around a little then became bored with myself all within a span of five minutes. I went on the hunt for beer by asking random people where I can get some. They all said the cheapest beer is found at walmart or walgreens, so I venture out with Holly, Stephanie, Brie and Lisa into the desert heat. We walked for about three minutes until the girls got suckered into listening to a sales pitch about free shows and timeshares. I had no interest in hearing their schpeal so I sat down and waited for them to finish. 20 minutes go by – I bought myself a pack of spirits, chatted with the guy selling them, chatted with another guy telling me not to look so bored and that I should sit on his lap. I was about to go inside a bar when my friends tell me they were ready to start walking again. Thank God.

So far my trip sucks. I been there for a few hours and still no beer, still no wild and crazy stories. My mouth was as dry as the desert and I had no idea where I was walking to.

We get to the worlds largest gift shop that connects to a liquor store.

Them – “This isn’t where those guys told us to go. They said this beer is expensive.”

Me – “I don’t care, it’s still a liquor store, I’m going in.”

So I go in and buy myself a 12 pack of bud light. I kept asking everybody what they were going to buy for themselves, but nobody wanted to buy anything. I had a feeling they were going to mooch off of my case, which they ended up doing when we got back to the casino.

We finish my case of beer and catch a cab to Freemont st.

Freemont st

neon cowboy

They sell cheap cans of beer on the old Las Vegas strip and even give you a poor man’s beer-cozy.

Brown bag the can

A million dollars just out of my reach

Yet another beer

The light show on Freemont

Neon cowgirl

We get back to the hotel and all my friends go to sleep except for Stephanie’s friends from Minnesota whom I’ve never met before. They adopt me into their little group for the night and I consume about 19 beers with them and make a complete ass of myself. We were sitting at the lounge in the stratosphere.

The lounge was a circle of table’s and chairs with a bar in the center. The bar had video poker built into it. I walked over to the bar and started humping one of the bar stools, then started to play the video poker game with my breasts. My new friends were laughing hysterically and the bartender applauded me.

We go to a dance club in our casino and I start pole dancing and break dancing. I gracefully fell on my butt. I got Marie, one of my new friends to come up and dance with me. She did a split.

They arrived in Vegas a few days before I did and said that the night I hung out with them was the funnest. Unfortunately I drank so much during that first night that I was pooped for the rest of the trip.

The next day my friends wake up wide-eyed-refreshed and went to the topless pool on the roof of the hotel. I stayed in bed and watched the ‘I dream of Jeannie’ marathon. I was very close to throwing up.

That night we went to see a show called Thunder from Down under.

The long haired one on the left kissed me

I got pulled up on stage of course. I liked the guy with the long hair, and because everything works out for me, he’s the one who pulled me up on stage. He sat me in a rolling chair and gave me a lap dance, spun me around and ran my hands up and down his sweaty chest. Then I flicked his nipples a few times because I didn’t know what else to do with them. My friends said that was the best part. He kissed me on the lips and he tasted like cherry chapstick. I silently wondered if it works as a herpes blocker from all the strange girls (and guys?) he kisses in his act. Can cherry chapstick count as an STD blocker? I hope so for my sake.

At some point that night I spun a huge slot maching and won $40.

I don’t know what else happened that night. I went to bed at a reasonable time and woke up early enough to join my friends at the topless pool. All but two of them taken their tops off, and since I have a stigma about following the herd, I taken my top off as well. I taken it off slowly trying to soak up the last few moments of feeling my shy girl inhibitions. 30 years old is a good time to let it all hang out.

Being a massage therapist makes me feel like everyone has the same parts and there’s no good reason to hide them unless they are horribly disfigured or gangrened. If I didn’t take my top off, I was afraid people would think I was hiding gangrene boobs or a fourth or fifth nipple.

It was actually fun! It wasn’t weird at all. There wasn’t any ogling men by the pool side that creeped me out. However, there were a couple old guys with beer bellies sporting little tiny penis slings. I don’t know how else to describe them. They are more revealing than speedo’s – having just a string up their butt attached to a ‘penis hammock’.

We stayed in the pool for a very long time. I floated around drinking beer and talking with people.

I forgot which day it was, but we went to see Zumanity. It’s a Cirque Du Soleil show. A very sensual Cirque Du Soleil show. Mostly everyone was naked during it. A very funny transsexual was the host. It was absolutely hysterical! If you’re having trouble deciding on what show to see in Vegas, I highly recommend Zumanity.

These two women did some crazy back flips inside a tiny fish bowl.

What else can I say about Vegas?

We ate at this fancy restaurant called the Bouchon at the Venetian. Holly knew someone who knew someone that worked there so we were able to get free champagne and an appetizer.

The Bouchon in Vegas

But figuring out who owed what was still an ordeal. I had someone add up my portion of the bill, it’s less confusing for me that way. And I wanted to leave the table before any tempers flared.

figuring out the bill at Bouchon

The painted ceiling at the Venetian

Fancy, fancy hotel lobby

After dinner we wasted $14 on a gondola ride that I knew was going to suck. Our “Italian” guide had on a cheesy red and white striped shirt and sang to us with a garbled larangitis voice. He drifted us around a small pool for five minutes. At least there was a duck.

My last night in Vegas was the worst. We spent most of the night trying to figure out how to stay an extra day which made one of my friends very upset because she just wanted to go home. It was horrible! This was another instance in which I felt completely useless. My friends were talking non-stop, making plans, talking to airline people and front desk people while I just followed them around helpless. We couldn’t switch our flight without doling out an extra $240 each, so we said, “fuck it.” Then we went to eat fatty food at McDonalds at 2 in the morning. Everyone went to bed except Kristina and I. We played blackjack, I lost $30, then I bet my remaining $35 on black and won.

I forgot to tell you about the homeless man at the bus stop. I was sitting on a railing by myself while Kristina was off to the side talking on her cell phone. A homeless man walked up to me and asked for a cigarette. His arm was all wrapped up in bandages and a few of his fingers were visible. They were swollen and discolored with rotten fingernails hanging off. His face was the scariest. He had a pushed in nose , he didn’t have many teeth left and his skin was red, scaly and oily. He wouldn’t leave me alone.

He smiled at me and called me beautiful. This was a destitute guy who had nothing to lose – hanging on his last thread of life. Fight Club popped into my mind. When Ed Norton beat up Jared Leto because he felt like destroying something beautiful. I hopped off the rail because I thought he might push me off. He finally sauntered off without ever touching me.

I’m beat. I haven’t been home much since I got back from Vegas. Today I went to lunch with Brie and Holly, then to Cheshire coffee with Kristina and Brie for about 6 hours, now I’m at Dan’s house with Kristina. She’s cooking me dinner again. She cooked me dinner last night. And in about an hour I have to catch a late movie with Oriana to see the Expendables.

The WordPress spell check is acting weird, I can’t check my spelling and I’m tired. Sorry if this well-anticipated Las Vegas post didn’t live up to expectation, but I been a little distracted while writing it.