A Million Things Inbetween

A year ago I was in Vegas having the time of my life (AKA seeing David Copperfield and inhaling everything at the dessert buffet, shout out to my home girl lemon squares! Y'all a powdery hero of our culture!)

Stratosphere with Cager.

It seems like I lived an entire life between then and now. Thesis, graduation, Italian getaway, teaching, teaching, teaching, South Carolina beach, girl's getaway haircut, snowy Boston, trolleyride in Virginia, the nights it was funny to be up on the toilet, the long stretch of cobblestone it wasn't, my friends hanging banners, my friends with donuts, my friends with wet hair in rainbow lights. I found a page in the back of my planner last night. A pro con list of flying out here for Thanksgiving to audition for The Program. All the realities were once pro and con lists in pencil.

I want to say once you choose, you choose, and the process dissipates. But that's not quite true. Sometimes maybe, but sometimes that one flick of a comment during the grunt work haunts you forever, or you have to consult your high school diary to know what it felt like to win the big meet.

I suppose each day is the important day. It doesn't seem we get the privilege of controlling what will stick, so make it all something you don't mind being stuck to.

David Copperfield at The MGM Grand

When I was 8, I saw a special on A&E about David Copperfield. I was appropriately mesmerized. HOW HOW HOW DID HE DO THAT WITH THE STATUE OF LIBERTY!? This was pre-Internet, so my only resources were adults. I asked everyone if they remembered what happened in 1983. Imagine my insane delight when I found a biography on my grandfather's shelf labeled with my new obsession's name. Written by an author I recognized! Charles Dickens! Cut to me, quite disappointed.

Friday night I saw the posters, and I just sort of knew I couldn't leave Vegas without seeing the man, the myth. Tickets were expensive, so I kind of waffled. Ultimately, I sprung for discounted decent seats at around 4 PM, and I was genuinely excited for the next five hours. DREAMS COMIN' TRUE!

Some Thoughts:

-He's charming, but in a way I didn't anticipate I would find distasteful. I recognize he does the same show three times a day for globs of potentially drunken often non-English speaking slack-jaws, but, come on, SOME of us have been waiting 16 years for you, David. Be cool. #Smug

-Every illusion was so intricate that it actually didn't impress me? It's hard to describe, but...everything was so huge and big that you just KNEW like 60 people were all over making the magic happen. Yeah, there was a trick that involved getting strangers to give numbers to David, and then he opened a locked box that had been on stage to reveal license plates of those numbers...but, all that shows to ME is he has enough production money to have people sweating like mad backstage imprinting metal and shooting it through trap doors. And my bleeding heart liberal side gets concerned with how much gas having a motorcycle appear onstage wastes.

-It's really hard to be impressed these days. This is not David's fault. I literally saw him snap a car into existence, and it took me half a minute to clap. Movies make everything look easy. It's not, but I have to remind myself that.

-Each trick took so much longer than it should have because of the great lengths every set-up involving an audience volunteer takes. David has to spend 50% of his time proving he's interacting with a stranger. Annoyin', but I get it.

-The big man himself was sick. Sneezed, had to blow his nose, rushed through an emotional monologue about his grandfather. It sucks to perform sick, and that might be why he was more glib than I had hoped (I'll tell myself that), but when you perform every single time, you must remember there is someone out there who needs the performance more than how crappy you feel.

-Some racist jokes. Eek.

-Despite all this, I genuinely enjoyed the show. I am extremely happy I got to realize an elementary school fantasy. Life, you know! Life.

Do you believe in magic in a young girl's heart?
How the music can free her, whenever it starts?
And it's magic, if the music is groovy.
It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie.

VIVA LAS VEGAS!

I hate Vegas. I didn't think I'd like it, but I disliked it much more than I had anticipated. The first time I walked to the bus from our hotel room through the casino I almost turned in for the weekend right then. No sense of time or light, putrid carpet, hoards (all carrying slurpees of booze and smoking inside), ching cha ching bling bling sirens sirens sirens. And it was hot. So hot. I sat next to a woman at David Copperfield* who was staying for free at the MGM Grand because she takes so many trips out to the city of sin. HOW people enjoy this vacation is beyond me. I actually loved my trip--but despite the location instead of because.

Ro and Cager felt too nauseous on the Disk-O to ride it twice. But, it was my favorite part of the Adventuredome, so I did. They danced, both their wild hair-dos flying everywhere, at the base of the ride. I laughed when I was spun toward them. I want you to take over control, take over control, take take take take over control. Music is always blaring in Vegz. I closed my eyes as the giant machine whirred on, hitting the highest point, leaving me in freefall for less time than I could measure, but long enough to feel.

Other things:
-The best brunch I have ever had. At the Wynn. Holy lemon meringue.
-Being called a "trollop" by a homeless dude.
-Screaming about scabies in Eli Roth's Goretorium.
-Cirque de Soleil! Flipz! Acrobatz! Dude in a crab costume!
-The final night, as we were falling alseep to The Wedding Planner, a commercial for Vegas Vacations came on TV. The catch phrase was "Living the Dream." We looked at ourselves. I was wearing moose boxers that I had just dribbled water on, makeup all smeared, wreaking of smoke, watching a JLo movie at 2 AM in a circus themed hotel. Is this the dream now?
-Pancakes in Old Vegas at midnight.
-Cager's mystic store/place of employment.
-All the Cher jokes you can imagine.
-New York New York roller coaster and Stratosphere. Cager constantly telling us how all the rides are prone to break-downs. "We might get shot off the top."

Ro and I scurried into the airport at 8. An hour before our flight. "I hope we make it," she said. "Well, if we don't," I reassured her, "it will be because we felt the need to put on temporary tattoos before we left this morning." Mine is a golden unicorn. It's on my shoulder.

*More detailed update on this coming!

Do you believe in life after love?
I can feel something inside me saying,
I really don't think you're strong enough.