I went to Las Vegas for the very first time last weekend for my friend (and boss) Robin’s wedding.
My co-worker and co-wedding guest Heather and I could only afford flights at ungodly hours, so our plan was to meet at JFK at 5:15 AM. I can never sleep the night before a flight — I’m too worried that I’ll miss my flight, that the plane will crash, that the person next to me will have brought food from home — so at around 2:15, after a particularly touching episode of Roseanne, I decided to just shower and head to the airport. How strange to start your day as everyone else is ending theirs; the drunks looked at me with pity right before they fell and hit their heads.
You’d think airport security would be a breeze at 3:15, but the line was shockingly long. After a few moments a TSA lady came up to me and asked, “Are you alone?” My god, is it that obvious? I thought, checking my face for fresh tears, and she clarified, “Are you traveling alone?” “Yes and yes,” I replied, and she whisked me off to what I hoped would be a fabulous singles-only line but was instead the employee security line. I took off my belt and shoes with the Hudson News ladies and the guy who buffs the floors. Take that, paired-offs.
Breakfast at 3:30 in the Jet Blue terminal (that is turkey sausage, not a pickle):

On the plane Heather and I took a Valium and two valerian root, respectively, and tried with minimal success to sleep. After a while we gave up and flipped back and forth on our TVs between Paula Deen stuffing butter into potatoes and the Detroit Humane Society rescuing abused dogs. The girl in the window seat brought — you guessed it, say it with me — FOOD. FROM. HOME. A Ziploc baggie full of pretzel bites and a Bosc pear, a fucking Bosc pear that she chomped and slurped and nibbled at until it was seeds and a stem, and I’m convinced she only stopped there because they turned the lights back on. Shortly after that we landed and, with about eighty minutes of sleep between us, hit Vegas.

We stayed at the Luxor, an Egyptian-themed hotel at the south end of the Strip that was shaped like a pyramid and as ludicrous as we’d hoped. The world’s brightest light beam shoots up from the pyramid’s point, presumably so all of the people stumbling around the lobby drinking margaritas out of helmets on their heads could find the hotel.

Other hotels had headliners like Elton John and Rod Stewart; ours had Criss Angel and Carrot Top, enough to turn your sex organs into Sylvia Plath. In line at the Egyptian Starbucks we overheard people complaining about their pyramid rooms, so when we were offered an upgrade to a room in the newer tower annex we took it, and it was actually very nice.
And look, so you don’t spill your drink:

I was grateful, having left my martini helmet at home. Getting ready for the wedding:

Robin and John were married at Aureole in the Mandalay Bay. It was beautiful, and I don’t have any pictures of it because I was too busy crying. After the ceremony we had cocktails and climbed into a 24-person limo that took us to the Las Vegas sign, where a jester was officiating a Renaissance wedding:

And an Elvis was officiating a wedding that will surely be annulled by the bride or the groom’s parents:

Just to put it out there, I got the bouquet:

For the next two days we explored. We wandered up and down the Strip, stopping in each casino, putting a dollar or five into a machine. I got fifteen dollars back at one point and, even though I’d put more than that in over the course of the weekend, it felt like winning. Evening penny slottage:

Morning penny slottage:

Context is roundly discouraged. It’s entirely possible to spend multiple days indoors, and if you miss daylight there are plenty of hotels that simulate it on their ceilings. And if you’d like, giant conveyor belts can carry and your margarita helmet out of a hotel, up and over the highway, and right into another hotel, which is playing the same Not Quite Katy Perry music as the last.
The Paris:

New York New York:

The Chandelier Bar at the Cosmopolitan:



(The Cosmopolitan was a bit much.)
Waterfall (!) at the Aria:

Gondoliers at the Venetian:



This is indoors:

I took many more pictures inside the Venetian until I remembered that I WAS TAKING PICTURES OF FAKE VENICE.
Fight Night at the MGM Grand:

Hourly volcano eruption at the Mirage:

Gorgeous Bellagio fountains:

Chihuly flowers on the Bellagio lobby ceiling:

My favorite casino by far was at the Monte Carlo, which, compared to the smoky-trashy Excalibur or the thumpy-flashy Caesars Palace, felt positively subdued:


We visited a majority of the casinos on the Strip, but to the Monte Carlo we remained true. The air was scented, the penny slots were always open, and their dancing ladies seemed the happiest — perhaps they’re getting business-management degrees debt-free, and I’m sure the Monte Carlo will help with job placement, I just got that vibe, I love you Monte Carlo:

The mayors:

We saw formal trackwear. We saw a man using his drink as a cane. We saw Elvises, Freddie Kreugers, Spongebob Squarepantses, storm troopers, Mickey and Minnie Mice, and Zach Galifianakises. There was always an oxygen bar, an aqua massage, and secondhand smoke within immediate proximity. We could get a steak and a martini before we could get a newspaper (which, by the way, was fine by me). At every street corner a minimum of twelve men and women thrust strip club flyers at us. A man with snakes in front of the Planet Hollywood scared me, and then the Planet Hollywood scared me. A showgirl posing in her skimpies on the sidewalk asked a mother and father how old their son was — “Oh, mine’s three,” she then said, “he’s always going for my camera, too.”
There was a marine ball at the Mirage, and a marine asked me if I wanted to buy him a drink. At first I was tempted, since many gay porns commence in such a manner, but so do hate crimes so I pretended not to hear him.
And the buffets — oh, the buffets. We ate orange chicken amongst Egyptian ruins and snow crab legs in a French town square. At a crazy-expensive breakfast buffet I filled my plate with pumpkin pancakes next to Not Quite Kardashians whose leopard-print dresses from the night before could no longer contain their pumpkin pancakes.

On our last day we took a bus to Fremont Street to see the old Strip and the first casinos, and on our journey we saw a slightly different Vegas:



I really loved Fremont Street:






On the red-eye back to New York we again tried to sleep — no dice. I didn’t have headphones so I watched The Smurfs without sound and, man, can that Neil Patrick Harris wear a pair of Dockers. Oh, and guess who sat in the row in front of ours? Bosc Pear Girl. Thankfully she hadn’t brought any food from her goddamned hotel, and she ate Terra chips at 4 AM just like everybody else.
As we took off into the night I looked out our window and could see the lights from the Strip, including, yes, the douchebeam from the Luxor. I kind of loved all of it, I must admit. But three days was enough for now. The simulated times of day and conditioned climates may have fooled most of me, but my eczema, ever-intuitive and opportunistic, exploded around my ankles and elbows. It knew the simple arid truth, that underneath it all Vegas is a flash of pleasure, a furious quench of thirst in the middle of a desert.
