1/18/09

My mother asked me yesterday if I actually had a good time in Las Vegas, or if I found it campy and silly. Really, it was both. It's the kind of place you have to take at face value and be willing to act a little silly to accommodate. It's got hookers of both genders and all sexual affiliations and Elvis impersonators and Hen parties and washed-up performers making a last stand and celebrities and weddings and everything else. If you take it too seriously, it loses its charm and magic; it's a place where you can pretend to be anyone you want for a weekend, and everybody will both at once believe you and think you're a liar. They always say that you should dance like no one is watching, and Las Vegas is the one place where such a thing is always possible, and in fact encouraged. Because tomorrow, nobody will remember who you are or what you look like or where you come from, and nobody cares if you made a fool out of yourself or not, so you might as well have. The city is what it is, and I had a blast pretending to be whatever it is that I want to be...

The lion outside the MGM Grand

One of the statues outside the MGM Grand, looking forlorn

The only picture I took at the aquarium at Mandalay Bay (the US' only predator-based aquarium, apparently) that actually came out... a lion fish, gotta love lion fish!

The fountain outside Paris! As are all the rest...