Vegas.Love.Fire.Uncomfortable Shoes Trips to Vegas have to make the light of blog, its just a rule. Traveling by car from LA, the city of sin is reachable by a mere 4.5 hours or so. When last there six years ago, I was a fresh 21 year old accompanied by fellow brothers of debauchery. A very fun and memory laden trip ensued, as three man-children danced in an adult play-land that was much darker than we knew.

Fast-forward almost 6 years and I was returning to Las Vegas, via Las Vegas boulevard entering the layer of the beast, the beast encrusted with fiery jewels and bright blinding lights that feasts on greed and reeks of lust. We cruised through the strip in a 2007-ish silver Hyundai Elentra, it was Miriam's 23rd birthday.

We stayed at the MGM grand, an average hotel now as Vegas standards go, having aged and been knocked down the list of affluence by other newer, flashier palaces of grandeur. The MGM is still incredible and as soon as I stepped foot inside the expansive marble lobby I could feel the electricity in the air. We had to do some quick uncomfortable explaining at check-in to work the system by getting more than the allowable amount of guests (5) into a room with two queen-sized beds meant for 2. Frugality, ingenuity and smooth talking combined to successfully get our room keys and we left our baggage at the concierge. Vegas had officially begun.

Of course in an eye blink, it was over. It was a quick weekend trip, which really wasn't an issue considering the city should not be endured for longer than four days straight in my opinion. We (about 7-9 peeps, with mostly Ilana and I planning) combined to give Miriam a pretty awesome birthday. I envisioned our hotel room with wall to wall, floor to ceiling decorations. So I went to party city, dropped $60, and made it happen. Some might say buying a helium balloon tank, wrapping its' immense box with paper so as to disguise it, and then sneaking it into an MGM Grand hotel room might be going too far, but I wanted to go big. The funnest part of the night seemed to be the getting ready stage (pre-funk), where Josh and I proceeded to slam tunes and steadily ingest alcohol while the girls primped, beautified, fought over mirror space, and eventually clad themselves as scantily as possible just to the point where anatomy was not hanging out.

Girls from every walk of life shed any kind of modesty in the city of sin. Something in their brains clicks or swells or bursts like a light bulb, and look out as ensembles quickly lose surface area. Clothing all of a sudden fits much tighter (not due to a hasty hoarfing of a McDonald's value meal), cleavages get unveiled, hips get hugged, trunk junk gets accentuated by high heels. I find it an incredible phenomena, not for the hedonism, not for pleasure, but at the change in mental perception. All of a sudden, you take a female who would not be caught dead showing an inch of shoulder on a hot day and you put her in Vegas and just you watch. If she drops something on the ground, forget about it, there is no way she is picking said item up without introducing the world to a whole lot more. As one very refined and classy lady from the trip said, "I walked out of the hotel room feeling so scandalous. When I got to the strip....I felt like a nun," (referring to her outfit in comparison to the rest of the scandalous horde).

A similar change in mental perception happens with money. You hand in your green paper with numbers and dead colonial faces and you get colored, flawlessly symmetrical, circular chips. This is no mystery. After a short period of time you start making bets with those little circles of plastic not really associating them at all with the monetary value dictated by the casino. I will take myself for example. If it is one thing that I hate, it is spending money on unworthy things like tapas or haircuts over $20. I generally get off on saving. In Vegas, I have zero hesitation making a $30 bet on a hand of black jack which is either doubled or lost in a matter of seconds. Yet back in Santa Monica I'm chapped at paying $17 and change for two Thai entrees. Go figure.

It's just Vegas for you, a Bermuda triangle of sorts for the human psyche. A place where morality, romantic judgment and fiscal priority simply gets befuddled. Or for some, those mental capacities can get mauled worse than Roy (of Siegfried and Roy) by his adult Siberian white tiger. The allure lives on in the wind swept desert city with one boulevard called 'the Strip,' and as long as it is there, a place somewhere down in the bed of my unconscious will always long to see it again. Viva Las Vegas.  ¶ 9:09 PM