las vegas
bodies
breasts that are not prized for nursing
bikinis
dry heat. my skin was dry by the end of the trip. when i walked i felt instantly parched.
103 degrees. the next day: 103 degrees.
at night it is 80 degrees, cooling like a desert. bodies flood the sidewalks.
the casino-resorts are a mirage upon a mirage: larger than life, they seem so close, but it takes ten minutes to walk past just one. give yourself an hour to walk past six buildings.
they purposely flood the casinos with extra oxygen to filter out the smoke and keep you awake. there are no windows in there so you don’t know that the sun has risen. no clocks. wake up, head downstairs at 8, and people are drinking, smoking, and gambling in their fancy clothes.
flooded with oxygen, you walk out of the building and are assaulted by real air, real light. i was left out of breath instantly, gasping for the oxygen i need these days to just walk slowly.
i felt like an outsider. it is dangerous to feel this way. i want to see the humanity in every person, but this city asks for everyone to be skin, thin, tan. my face is not the right type: too angular, not smooth with big eyes and a baby chin. my hair not blonde enough, my skin too pale. at the pool, we were two of only a few people dragging our chairs into the shade.
not that everyone here fits that type: the city seemed as multicultural as new york. though i tried to pretend i was in new york at one point and i couldn’t: people moved in circles and curves in las vegas, not straight lines. they wore comfortable clothing for the most part. if they were dressed up, it wasn’t to be posh, it was to show too much skin. people walked around in bikinis.
you could buy a drink and take it out into the street. they sold some beer by the yard. a man threw up in the pool. the ambulance sirens sounded all day and all night.
there were a lot of people in wheelchairs. it felt like going to venice with a stroller, which is impossible. similarly, las vegas is not pedestrian friendly. everything is too big to comfortably walk. and there are escalators, but there are stairs that you have to climb to get to them.
food in las vegas is expensive, but it should be. the only thing they can grow is cows. there was beef on every menu. but any food was imported, nothing was local. i ate scallops and greens and nachos and ice cream. they import their water, their building materials, their people. nothing is environmentally sound. the only reference to the environment was the cheap one they have in hotels now: to save our earth (i.e., to hire fewer workers), they will not wash our towels or change our sheets. fine. but don’t turn off any lights or make any windows that crank open to catch the night air.
