I'm Leaving Las Vegas

I’m leaving Las Vegas in April.

The longest I ever planned to live in this stationary gypsy camp - filled with entertainers, thugs, hustlers, whores, addicts, lawyers, gamblers, thieves, and Mormons - was two years. In April, I’ll have been here for two years and five months.

Wow, that went fast.

My first weekend here a friend told me not to lose my dignity to all the shiny objects of Vegas that would be dangled in front of me. “Ohh! So shiny! I want!”

I responded: “Nah, I can always get my dignity back once I leave Vegas.” Well, hell, the time has almost come to pick my dignity up, dust it off, and see if it still looks any good on me. I doubt my dignity will fit anymore, but once I break it in, I think I’ll be able to make it look cool enough when paired with my fancy, expensive, Vegas shoes. What’s that saying? “If you love something let it go…”

But losing my religion was worthwhile because: I wrote a book, of which I am proud, that’ll be out this month; went to Costa Rica to became a yoga instructor http://www.froglotusyoga.com/retreats/retreats.htm; went to three of the worlds best EDM festivals http://electricdaisycarnival.com/ http://ultramusicfestival.com/;  dated a Jersey Boy

 (which I’m pretending is as cool as having dated a Thunder From Down Under boy)

(It’s not.)

I was on a Penn and Teller Showtime pilot

And I took two road trips with my friends to the Grand Canyon.

There are other great and terrible things I did in the neon darkness, but you’ll have to buy my book if you want to know about those. I hope you do buy my book. I’m not very good at much else other than writing… and there’s still a long way to go to be as good as I’d like to be at writing.

These are the things I’ll miss about Las Vegas:

1)   The Facebook President of the World

He makes the crushing poverty of Vegas look like fun. He supports Palestine, Occupy Wallstreet, whistles, bicycles, and dry humping the air. I’m a big fan.

2)   Movie night.

Every Tuesday at 11:30 pm, I watch movies with a group of dirty silly bastards in a wicked cool mansion.

We tell horribly offensive jokes, eat food that’s really bad for us, and stand in a semi circle. I make the popcorn when Perry isn’t there. 

3)   My girlfriends.

They’re amongst the coolest girls I’ve ever met. They’re beautiful, crazy, hilarious, intelligent freethinkers… I love them so much. Anything I did in Vegas was made better by their existence.

4)   Tourists

What you do on your crazy once-in-a-lifetime vacation, I do on Wednesdays. Having the option to do whatever I want with people I’ll never see again with no consequences to my day-to-day existence is a terrible influence on my behavior, but also pretty amazing. I don’t know any of their names, nor do I care, and they think my name is Molly, but damn we’ve all had some really terrific times together.

5)   Pretending to be a VIP

Being a young girl in Vegas is better than being a rich old dude in Vegas… and being a rich old dude in Vegas is freaking awesome. During the week, I can go to any nightclub for free, or even get paid to go to a nightclub. People have even given me money to gamble. The amount of free stuff I’ve gotten is in the 10s (if not 100s) of thousands of dollars (Unfortunately most of that money is made up of party cabanas, bottle service, and other VIP meaningless glitter crap – I still have to pay my own rent).  
Don’t worry, I wont be young forever. Someday, I’ll need to have a good personality. But… not yet.

6)   My gym – LVAC

I’ve been a yoga instructor for almost two years now. I teach at LVAC. Yoga has changed my life in the most wonderful unexpected ways. I am a better person for my yoga practice, and I hope there’s never a time in my life when I’m not teaching yoga. LVAC is THE BEST. I love it there. I’m obsessed with the steam room. I go there pretty much everyday. I have a blog about the steam room that I need to start up again before I leave. http://todayinthesteamroom.blogspot.com/

Also, I have a free gym membership, free towels, and a discount at the gym smoothie/juice place. Namaste.

And these are a few of my favorite things. I’m sure gonna miss this stinky hell hole.