Upon Reflection...

Many months after departing Vegas, I can now look back on my experience with something resembling perspective. I think the funniness of my posts was marred by the fact that they served as an outlet for the depression I was battling at having to live in a place so ill-suited for me. Now that I can view it as the hilarious formative experience it was, I guess I'll start at the beginning, so to speak, and retell the story. After 7 months of having to explain to people "what I've been up to" since graduating Brown I've developed the kind of knee-jerk narrative one needs when justifying how you spend your time to others. Some typical questions I've fielded:

Why did I move to Las Vegas?

Honestly? Because I didn't want to NOT do it. If that makes sense. I have tried very hard to cultivate an image of an impulsive, carpe diem, git-r-dun, life of the party type over the past few years but the truth is, I'm lazy and get overwhelmed very easily. Nobody, and I mean nobody including myself, thought I was actually going to pack up my car and drive across the country to Las Vegas. So, I did it to prove to myself and others that I can make a plan and stick to it and jump with both feet, as it were. It happens that I jumped with both feet into a situation that blew, but at least I did it.

The second reason is that I thought Emily's brother, David, could hook me up instantaneously with a highly lucrative cocktail waitressing job, or at least set me on the right track to do it. This alleged part of the bargain unravelled swiftly, but only in the final 2 months leading up to my move out there (and really only in the last couple weeks) by which time I felt I was too committed to my plan to change course.

What happened to the cocktail waitressing plan?

I first was alerted to the hiring difficulties by Emily, who had arrived there several months before I and was struggling to find a job. This, however, worried me significantly less than her warning that the casinos drug-tested prospective employees.

Now, I think I fall on the eminently reasonable end of the drug-use scale. I am not a saint, however, I also kept up a 3.75 GPA in college and at no point have ever felt like I was beholden to any substances (save tobacco, more on that later). I've never done meth or heroin or crack and dammit, so what if I like a spliff every now and again? Anyways, once I was alerted to the casino drug-testing policy I was abstinent as a motherfucker. However, this news came in mid-August and I was moving there in early September so I wasn't left with much time to get my act together. The killshot came when I learned that casinos don't just drug test, they drug tested hair.

Now, on the off chance that anyone reading this is unfamiliar with basic drug culture (you can't seriously be enjoying this blog), drug testing urine is the golden standard--pun intended. A forgiving procedure easily duped by various potions available for purchase online, drinking tons of water/cranberry juice, and working out like crazy; the urine test is annoying but dealable if given sufficient notice. Even a committed couch-potato like myself could piss clean in a month if I bit the bullet & hit the gym. Marijuana, as anyone who has made weed brownies can attest, is lipid-soluble and thus is stored in body fat. This means that people with low body fat-- men, theoretically-- excrete all traces of marijuana much faster than those with a higher percentage-- women. This has kind of been turned on its ass by the obesity epidemic but it is a fact, nonetheless, that women just have a lot more body fat and probably fail drug tests a lot more often. The glass ceiling rears its ugly head! But I digress... The point is that hair testing is an entirely different-- and much more sinister-- animal altogether.

Your hair (wow, this is turning into a tutorial) is like a fossil record of your drug use. Every centimeter is, roughly speaking, a month. Whatever you ingested, through whatever orifice, is dutifully built into the hair shaft by Mother Nature for Quest Diagnostics to examine. These drug tests allegedly just look at the last 3 months/centimeters nearest your scalp but I'm assuming having longer hair is not a boon in such scenarios. I might note, again, how this procedure in all likelihood results in more women than men failing a drug test but I'll stick to the point. In a blind panic, I read about people who shaved their heads and then had to provide pubes as samples, about the tendency for cocaine, specifically, to "travel along the shaft" of one's hair, making the 3 month limit cold comfort for fans of the china girl-- not that that fact had any bearing on me-- and generally about how impossible it is to beat a hair test. In the interest of someday getting a real job, I will refrain from further incriminating myself explicitly. What I will say is that I had just graduated from college, had had a wonderful senior spring and followed it up with a very relaxed summer working part-time and living with friends. In other words, I was fucked. IF nothing had travelled up any shafts AND my hair grew at an average clip, I could hope to maybe pass a drug test in early November. The other option was to "strip" my hair, a process that effectively gives your hair all the damage of dyeing it without the exciting new color. Needless to say I was underwhelmed by my options.

Another blow to the making-$100,000-a-year-waitressing-in-trashy-outfits plan came when Lehman Brothers imploded and took the rest of the country with it in September, 2008. Obviously, the tourism industry dried up faster than an aging hooker's twat and the odds of anywhere hiring pretty much evaporated. Still... Hooters was hiring.

The death knell of my plan to work in a casino (it was pretty well maimed already) came when I attempted to apply to work at Hooters. I drove down to the strip, parked in their lot and went inside. After wandering the casino floor for 20 minutes in a daze, searching unsuccessfully for a helpful sign saying: "HR Office" or something of the ilk, I finally asked a Hooters girl where I could apply. It seemed to me that given the job's requirement that you fill out their shorts 'n' tanktop getup nicely, it would be to their advantage to conduct hiring in person. Not so. Like the other mega-corporations populating Las Vegas Blvd., everything was done online. I managed to make it through the first ten pages-- yes, that's the first 10-- without losing it. I gave them my SSN, detailed a 10-year work history (not an easy feat considering this meant accounting for every month of my life since I was 12) and thought I was cruising to the finish line when I ran headfirst into the References page. I needed to provide no less than five professional references with complete contact information. Now, given my scholarly ways, I haven't had a ton of bosses since I was 12 for fuck's sake and generally, when applying to other jobs, I tend to list at least a few professors. Oh sure, I could list five people alright, but could I live with the knowledge that they very well might receive a call from Hooters asking about me? In my imagination it went something like this:

"Hello?"

"Hello, I'm trying to reach Professor Smith."

"This is he."

"Hi Mr. Smith, this is Judy from the Hooters Hotel & Casino calling in regards to a certain Lucy ___? She put you down as a reference on her application to be a Wings-n-Pitchers Wench."

"Hooters, eh? *jots down my name with note: NEVER WRITE LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION, (PROBABLY A CRACK WHORE)* Go on."

Needless to say, I didn't complete the application.

It Came From The Puppy Mill...

The first few weeks I was here:

I dog-sat for a stripper named Jessica. Her pup was called Sadie and was maybe my least favorite dog in history. This is coming from someone who as a child (just ask my parents) would approach and pet the most disgustingly flea-ridden, one-eyed strays without hesitation. I'd run up to snarling dobermans and rabid-looking street dogs in Greece and try to hug them. At age 8, I practiced my piano every day for a year to get my doggy Rosie.

I. Love. Dogs. And I fuckin hated this one.

The thing weighed 5 pounds and would yap and sprint about the apartment hyperactively if I ever even reached for my purse or (God forbid!) put on my shoes. She couldn't sleep alone and would batter the door of our laundry room if I tried to make her sleep in her doggy bed. The one charm she offered was her puppy-pad training, which, frankly, did not impress. And I was instructed to microwave her food and only serve bottled water. If I hadn't been paid $150 for 5 days of work I might have quit. As it was, I was happy (nay, elated) to see her go. See picture below. Deceptively cute, no?

The Office: Las Vegas

The people at my work:

First off, there's my boss Joe. A balding lawyer from Baltimore who struck gold here in LV, married a woman (I won't say stripper yet) by the name of... wait for it.. Mysty.

Mysty!!! How is she NOT a stripper?!?! Apparently she's a lawyer as well, but based on that name (and the fact that, according to my co-workers, she has the most flagrantly fake-looking implants ever) you'd really think she earned her way humping poles for dollar bills.

Montse, a 20-year-old bilingual daughter of very conservative Mexican parents who kicked her out recently because her little brother tattled on her for meeting up with her ex-boyfriend. Her mom called her a "puta" because of her indiscretion. She just moved in with a friend.

Janyne, a __-year-old with braces and blonde hair who answers our phones. She's a total sweetheart whose first language is Spanish but whose English rivals many native speakers I know. She loves my hair and is constantly patting me on the head because I haven't dyed it in 6 years so its really soft. Her heels clack on the tiled floors and we have developed a rapport due to our close proximity in the office.

Alex, an attorney who is in the process of divorcing his wife and recently joined our firm. Joe constantly gives him shit for being slow and fucking shit up but he's a smart dude. He went to Hastings and got a 175 on the LSAT yet is fighting for custody of his 7-year-old daughter with his wife of 8 years. She was a stripper before they married, so in a less-than-appropriate moment I said: "at least she has something to fall back on!"

Fuckin funny, if you ask me.

Donna, a 30-something (I think...) who wears the most trashily work-appropriate clothes I have ever seen. She wears frosted lipstick and dark lipliner, (obviously) dyed blonde hair and drinks Jose Cuervo and grapefruit juice.

Most American City?

I can't do this.

I'm sleepy and watching the Daily Show, nuff said. After dog-sitting for a stripper and sitting on a corona-soaked rug, I guess I know I'm in Vegas. Either there or Mexico. I work in the heart of the Mexican ghetto for a law firm that specializes in DUIs and quickie divorces. How Vegas. When I arrive in the morning I hear roosters crowing in the neighbor's yard.

I still think I would be happier in another state/city but now I've learned to accept my surroundings. Vegas, I realize, is meant to be viewed from a moving automobile.

Every day I drive down Pecos Ave to get to/from work and certain highlights have emerged. Every morning when I'm busting my ass to be less than 10 minutes late (I haven't been on time since day 2) I look to my left and see the horses in their lovely gated community. Initially when I saw the signs and the gay-ass bronze horse statues outside I was like: "I swear to god, if this is a cowboy-themed gated community I'm gonna fuckin' kill myself". But then I realized there were actual horses there! In the morning they draw close to their scallop-edged fences and crop the grass nearby, some of them are dappled gray and remind me of my cats.

In the afternoon/evening when I drive home on the opposite way on Pecos I am always listening to GirlTalk and once I hit Sunset I roll my windows down. In the evening cool (only 70-85 degrees F!) the air smells so beautiful I almost want to pull over and take it in. It's like how I remember Berkeley smelling from when I visited as a kid. Maybe Eucalyptus trees? Who knows. Its like licorice and balsam, a rare fresh scent in this desolate desert. I'm like a dog craning its head out a window snatching a noseful. Of course it's all due to totally un-sustainable landscaping practices but hey, its Vegas.

The palm trees and grass seem less mocking somehow. I'm sure its largely due to my acclimatization to this place but I've started to not mind them. I learned that the Joshua Tree is actually native to the Las Vegas area which is sweet because it looks like something out of Dr. Seuss and thus is totally appropriate. Its strange to be in a place entirely fueled by man-made entities: AC, electricity, the Hoover Dam, gambling, prostitution, etc. That's the reason I came here, well, not the hookers or gambling, but really because Vegas, I thought, was the most "American" city in the U.S.

I'm not sure I'm wrong about that but I now think its emblematic of all the shitty things about America, not the cool ones. Its a desolate landscape-- dominated by highways, absurdly pedestrian-hostile streets, strip malls, gated communities and parking lots. In between stretch vast expanses of dirt, awaiting construction crews. Unlike older cities, that expand outward from an urban core, Las Vegas is a random smattering of development. A Jackson Pollock-style approach to urban planning that renders life without an automobile an impossibility. In addition to its geographic, climatic and infrastructural woes, Las Vegas is hugely hispanic, totally lacking in political consciousness, largely filled with the intellectually un-curious and generally a place of apathy and soullessness.

There is beautiful decay here, like the Neon Museum with its lot full of gorgeous giant casino signs of Old Vegas and Fremont street with its Wedding Chapels and ancient motels, but Las Vegas doesn't seem to value its history. The Neon Museum and the Liberace Museum are fine examples of historic preservation but they are the exception rather than the rule.

The core of Las Vegas is hollow, its famous establishments seem bent on self-evisceration. Every decade or so the Strip is completely transformed, for better or for worse (usually the latter), without so much as a backward glance. Aside from the cloying unoriginality found in the more pedestrian architecture-- in my gated community stucco reigns supreme and beige is the preferred color for pretty much everything-- the casinos themselves are really just huge shopping malls with hotels attached.

Wandering the beige-tiled halls and fugly wall-to-wall carpeted casino-floors of these establishments, obese American tourists waste their money on craps, get shitfaced and generally act like irresponsible retards. Between the tribal-tattooed, sunburned Brahs at the Hard Rock leering at me and my friends like we're for sale and the sad, be-stretchpantsed senior citizens pumping their retirement funds into slot machines at the Flamingo, Vegas manages to attract and showcase a diverse array of revolting examples of human behavior. They are pathetic caricatures of human weakness-- succumbing to the O2-saturated, perpetually 5:00 PM atmosphere of every casino-- and vanity-- paying upwards of a thousand dollars for a couple of bottles of booze and the privilege of sitting down in a club... If this is the most American city, then our future as a nation is pretty fucking grim.

Fear & Loathing

I tried to be more original with the title but the words of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson more or less sum up my feelings about Las Vegas. As my first week of gainful employment comes to a close, I have settled into a kind of uneasy complacency about my fate. One week ago I had packed up some boxes, Google-Mapped a route to Portland via Sun Valley and was set to depart on a month-long road trip through the Great West. Its a confusing feeling to be both crushed and elated at the same time but that's how I felt when Joe "El Pelon" Scallia shook my hand and said "welcome onboard!" after our 5 minute interview had transpired. So close!

Many people have expressed surprise that I am working at a law firm, and, after nearly completing the online application for the position of "Hooters Girl" I'm inclined to agree.

Among my other comical job search efforts:

I applied for a too-good-to-be-true job on Craigslist. $60,000 a year, 4 weeks paid vacation, full medical, and use of a company car just to answer phones and greet clients?!?! How could I go wrong? Well, I learned how about 30 minutes after I sent a lengthy and well thought-out cover letter with my resumé attached. I received a one line reply:

"Would you work topless?"

'Nuff said.

A second demoralizing experience was interviewing for a full-time position making $7-$10/hr as an "Assistant Florist" at Little Chapel of the Flowers and not getting the job. While this stony bitch shot me withering glances, I tried (unsuccessfully) to sell my background in Art History and Visual Art as a helpful aid in creating lovely floral arrangements. As she put it: "When you don't hear from us by Thursday, you'll know to continue your job search." Burn.