the increasingly epic adventures of the flying pedagogues

Las Vegas is a city all about the numbers. The number of hours you can trade from day into night and back again behind blackout curtains and never-fading artificial light. The number of electric megawatts and gallons of water siphoned cavalierly into the desert for the pleasure of the suffocating number of tourists who jam the sidewalks. The number of cocktails one can consume on the house, or on the blistering miles of block between attractions, or before becoming sick or comatose. The number of thousands of rooms in a hotel and the room number someone must remember that matches the nondescript key card. The number of oysters or pieces of sushi on the $50 platter and the number of labels of vodka behind the ice bar. The number of minutes one is willing to stand in line for entrance to a club, the number of inches on the platform heels or barely skirts of the clubbers, and the number of clubbers who can fit in the elevator up the number of floors from the casino to the club itself. The number of payouts so far tonight on the slot machine, the number of coins clinking virtually into its tray; and above all, the number on the craps, roulette, and blackjack table.

Thirteen is an unpleasant blackjack hand to be dealt; it's one of a few on which you better stand if the dealer shows ten and you want to keep the favor of your table-mates. But it's not the worst hand--not as bad as a twelve, so tempting; and not as bad as a hard seventeen, sometimes tastelessly called "the mother-in-law, because you want to hit it but you just can't." All these hands are of course what make the game. No one always gets dealt the delightful eleven or the heady pair of aces or eights; you can't always be in Vegas as a big winner, a blithe twenty-something or a blissed-out newlywed. You can't win 'em all. If you could, the fun would be over. And you can't put much stock in bad omens in a place where luck is as fickle a mistress as she is here. So I was not balking at the fact that this was my thirteenth visit to Vegas.

It was Jessica's first. But in her column, she has lots of experience with the academic conference that brought us here. It was Vegas-sized, for sure--upon arrival at the Riviera Hotel we were swamped by thousands of college teachers with swinging name tags and comfortable shoes. They surged in all directions, some with purpose and some with alarm, through the carnival maze of banquet rooms and casino corridors. Over the next four days some of them would attend fifteen or more 75-minute conference sessions, and others would attend three. The doctorates in my company assured me that either level of participation was perfectly acceptable; nevertheless I'm not going to publicly declare the number I myself eventually did or did not rack up.

At any rate, our first night in town, Tuesday, belonged solely to me and Jessica. We situated our modest but at least sanitary room at the Riviera and debated opening-night outfits as the sun fell behind the Spring Mountains and set the strip facades sparkling. By the time we hit the street is was properly dark, and my plan was to take Jes directly to the next hotel south of us, the Encore/Wynn, for the one fancy dinner in our budget. On the way there, the street was eerily empty and smelled foul. We passed a restaurant called the Peppermill which we presumed to be sort of a truck-stop diner. Then the site of the old Stardust Hotel, which is now a pair of strip malls featuring a Ross, Walgreens, very authentic-looking taco stand, discount tour kiosk, and Denny's.

We crossed East Desert Inn Road and suddenly the foul smell was gone and lush foliage abounded. When Jes observed this I said, "This is the Vegas I was talking about," and steered her down a path to The Wynn reception. The enchantment was immediate.

 

After admiring the atrium and the Parasol Up/Down adornments, I found Mizumi sushi house, and our dinner there was everything I'd hoped for: gorgeous wine, miso, tuna, salmon and the best avocado ever to touch my tongue, tropical fountains and finely gilded decor; Jes was sold. So naturally the rest of my plan, that we'd have a mellow evening back at The Riviera in preparation for the long week ahead, went out the window. "Let's just walk a ways," she said, and skipped across the street.  

At Treasure Island we were handed two-for-one drink tickets outside a cantina full of spring-breakers, and Jes was introduced to Vegas drink prices--when the big beaker of tequila costs $30, two-for-one doesn't sound like such a deal. We got $10 go cup screwdrivers instead, and proceeded to The Mirage just in time to see the volcano eruption show. By now my platformed feet were hinting that they'd only hold up so long, so I turned us back across the street at the Venetian. We rode the canal escalators outside for awhile, then wandered into Casino Royale to refill the screwdrivers, now for only $4 each--by far the cheapest drinks we'd see all week. Back on the street, a UNLV hospitality student in a suit approached us about freebies back at The Mirage's nightclub. Shit, this is what I had been trying to avoid. "Club! Dancing! Yay!" squealed Jessica, and that was it. No cover charge, and probably not too ridiculous a line on Tuesday, okay, let's get the inevitable club experience out of the way now. It took us longer to find the club inside the casino than it did to wait in the club line, though once inside it was crowded enough. I maneuvered us to a tiny box of space next to a bouncer, and we grooved around to the bad house music for almost an hour. Very respectable, I thought, so when the clock hit 1am and the bouncer decided to start grooving on me I called time.

 

 

On the way home we ran into a 1976-era Elvis impersonator alone on the corner. I wanted a picture and he wanted a tip for it; when I pulled out the only cash I had left--a five dollar bill--he started singing, so I started requesting song samples, and together we serenaded Jessica for five minutes. Then we needed ice cream. Most food vendors were closed by now except Denny's, where the atmosphere was tragic but the chocolate shakes were just fine. We hit the sack at 3, a very respectable start indeed. I awoke for a dose of ibuprofen and a liter of water at 6, then went back to sleep until 10. That was the longest sleep I'd enjoy until I got back to Seattle.

The only conference sessions on Wednesday were special pre-paid workshops and thus not available to us. The late morning's first priority was Jessica's coffee. The room came with a coupon for 12 ounces daily at the cafe downstairs, but that option was rejected as soon as she saw the machine that was squirting out the supposed espresso and the absence of soy milk. "Is there really no Starbucks in this hotel?" Nope. We'll have to try our luck back outside, where I couldn't remember seeing any coffee place in all the blocks we'd canvassed the night before. "There's a McDonalds right across the street," I offered. Rejected. As we walked south in the marvelous 75° sunshine, Jes started asking people where their coffee cups came from. The answers were not promising; the closest Starbucks remained elusive. And my need for food was now almost as pressing as hers for acceptable coffee. Craving Mexican, we popped into the taco stand. It was more authentic than we'd bargained for--the choices were head, tongue, brain, stomach, tripe, shoulder. There was a spicy pork and even a veggie option, but the ordering system was confusing, there wasn't a word of English to be heard in the place, there was certainly no coffee, and our brains were beginning to melt. "Surely there is good coffee at the Wynn," I said, and we soldiered on. Indeed there was, and Jessica paid $8 for it. That seemed to compel us back to the strip mall for lunch, where we finally settled on an Indian buffet that turned out to be great.  

Finally awake and with our wits about us, we toured the conference convention area and picked up our name tags and 368-page programs. We spent the afternoon at the pool along with three dozen other teachers all carrying the same big book with the Hoover Dam on its cover, reading and highlighting, selecting the sessions that would fill our next three days. I chose nothing that began before 10am. Jessica penciled in all the textbook-sponsored parties where gratis drinks and snacks might be available. Around five o'clock there was no lounge chair still with sun on it, and Jes texted a grad-school friend she was hoping to meet up with, to see which of the parties he was planning on tonight. By the time we got cleaned up and through the long re-iterative process of appropriately dressing, grad-school friend Tom was one of the last people lingering at the party in Royal Room 6; the fruit was wilted and the cheese squares were stiff, but we managed one glass of wine before the bartender packed up his tablecloth.

The next party was at the Riviera's Queen Victoria Pub, which seemed dissonant to me, but whatever. Somebody snapped wristbands on us as we waded into the crowd. Waitresses were making the rounds so we pounced on the last empty table and went to the buffet in rotations. It was sparsely decorated with small, mostly indiscernible bites that provided just barely enough padding for the booze. After one free round we were done with our conference name tags for the night.

I was already happy that Tom had become our third. He was clever, genuine and graciously-mannered. He said he'd had breakfast at The Peppermill and it had made a big impression; he was hoping for a posse to return and check out the bar. "The Peppermill?" we said, "That truck stop thing next door?" Turns out our facade-based assumptions were wrong (as they often so pleasantly are). The Peppermill is off the fucking chain.

 

The pictures won't do this venue justice, and neither will words, so you'll have to go yourself. Our server told us a scene in the movie Casino was filmed there and that about sums it up. She also offered us a drink that had six different shots and two scoops of ice cream--we settled for Margaritas and champagne cocktails--and brought us little goblets of peanuts which I gratefully inhaled. Then we went to the Encore to drop off Tom's bag. Talk about an upgrade. When Tom heard the conference was at the Riviera, he looked up the closest hotel that had a better rating and found the Encore next door. The difference represents the full spectrum of Vegas accommodation options.

 

It was difficult not to move in with him right then; instead we just generally claimed it as our turf for the rest of the trip. We headed down to the lobby and walked right into a sign for the next three nights of featured DJs at the tony XS club. Friday was David Guetta, the greatest DJ in the world according to Jes and Tom. There could not have been a better show happening while they were here; we planned to make it our capstone. Then we found ourselves surrounded by game tables. Oh yeah, gambling, a favorite Vegas past time. I knew my spending limit had no business at a blackjack table at the Encore, but my crew had nearly no gambling experience and were intrigued. The cheapest minimum to be found was $15. We watched a woman pile a stack of green chips onto her betting circle, glance at five dealt cards between she and the dealer, and in a blink the stack was unceremoniously swept away. Dejected bewilderment washed across Jessica's face and pooled there, but positivity was the only thing in Tom's vocabulary. "Let's try roulette." His easy gusto was growing on me fast.   

Roulette had a $15 minimum as well, but there was a lot more room to spread it around, and the table vibe was inviting, so we sat down. Of course everyone only had a $20 dollar bill, and once converted to chips started plinking all of it down on frantically recalled  lucky life numbers. I showed Jes how to flower some of the bets before the dealer passed her hand over us, but when the ball stopped every one of our chips got swept away, too. $20 each was all they were willing to lose that fast, but I'd only placed 15 chips for some reason, thinking I could bet the remaining five at some other table. Obviously the dealer at the Wheel of Fortune down the lane recoiled when she saw I'd taken roulette chips away from their home. Rookie move, and I was supposed to be the veteran. I was enjoying the night so much I was not even fazed, though; I took them back to the right table, put down another $20 and divvied the 25 chips among us. We didn't have that many lucky numbers between us so were stacking two or three on each spot, and at the last minute--truly--I remembered to put a pile on my husband's birthday, 29. What pocket do you suppose the pretty little ball landed in? When the croupier put the $130 worth of chips in front of me I stood up immediately. "What, no more bets?" she mewed. "You're not going to keep going?" said Jes or Tom. "Not at all. We're going to a special bar, and I'm buying."

On a prior girls trip to Vegas, we wandered from our suite at the Venetian to the Wynn one night and went to two places I'd wanted to revisit for the almost four years since. One was the Mizumi sushi house. The other was the bar at Parasol Down.

So down we went. There was a table waiting for us in a back corner of the tropical lake-side patio. There was a delightful waitress who brought us chocolate martinis and Caipirinhas made to order, and brought little complimentary plates of spicy chips and nuts with them. There was a warm whisper of breeze and rich conversation about dream classes and pop culture criticism. There was a tranquil lightshow on the lake and the big screen rising out of it, and at midnight a wonderfully incongruous animatronic frog rose from behind the screen, dancing to the song "Low Rider." We laughed our way to last call.

 

I wanted it all to keep going this well, and I knew some measure of consistent rest would help ensure that. There was talk of taking a cab to center strip and more economical gambling options, but I insisted they go on without me. I stood firm all the way to putting them in a cab and then walking off, but they would have none of it. The cab followed me. When it became clear that their begging would not break me, they left the cab, steered us into Rite Aid to find a bottle of Korbel, and brought it back to the Riviera room to drink out of plastic cups while perched on the beds. Whether the trappings were high class or low, we were going to make it count. The gauntlet was thrown.

I woke to the roaring air conditioner and the sound of the poolside Musak® through the cracked window. Jessica was pulling herself together in a whirl for a 9am session. I didn't have one until 10:30, so I took a little time coming to life, including a trip across the street to McDonalds--where the coffee may not be up to par but the shockingly sweet tea and greasy McMuffins will stop a hangover in its tracks.

My energy was surprisingly high throughout the day. I wasn't going to run laps or anything, but I was present enough to enjoy, among other sessions, a talk by John Carlos about his life surrounding the silent protest of his raised fist on the medal stand at the '68 Mexico Olympics, and one by Yvette Johnson regarding the class project that turned into an award winning film about her uncle's life in Jim Crow Mississippi. In the middle there was a quick lunch at the casino food court and later, time in the room to check email, put out various student project fires, and even take a power nap. Then it was another hour of primp and prep for party round three.

Around seven we met Tom by the parking lot and boarded a bus to the Bedford party at the Stratosphere. The throng of us with our swinging name tags were ushered in a back door and tagged with another wrist band, then frisked before we could enter the elevators that shot us 869 feet up to the observation deck. It was three levels of deck, actually, all reserved for our party. There were so many of us it was hard to get an unobstructed picture of the vertigo-inducing view, but there were plentiful bar stations offering a full selection of which we took full advantage, and a variety of repeating banquet stations--Mediterranean, mixed mac and cheese, asian fusion--of which we generously availed ourselves. There was nowhere to sit and eat, but we just kept walking the full circle of the 360° view, plates balanced atop cups, until one of us reached her acro-claustrophobic limit. Back at street level, we happily got in a cab headed for downtown, where the next and considerably more exclusive party was waiting.  

Fountain Press knows how to do it. They commandeered the second-story, iron-railed roof deck of a fashionable bar called The Commonwealth, and installed an old-school DJ, as well as a table full of un-wilted fruit, un-stiffened cheese and cocktail shrimp. There were only about thirty people on the deck when we arrived, and the bartender was happy to serve us any top-shelf drink or wine we desired. The breeze was a warm whisper again, the music was familiar and the dancing was spontaneous and sincere. Jessica found a few other old friends to connect with while Tom and I continued our run of banter both like-minded and challenging. When a favorite song came on, we sang it. Shots were done. Weed was detected. At 11 or 12 the bartender began charging people and we left while we were ahead.

Jessica and Tom decided to start speaking manic French to each other as we spilled onto the Fremont street experience. I found myself balancing two full cups of whiskey--one in frozen form--and the camera phone, as Jes waltzed with old dudes in zoot suits and rocked with the crowd circled around a drum show. She wanted to ride the zip line but the ticket was exorbitant. I finally got them into Binions, found my happy $5 card table and made my blackjack budget last almost two hours. They were still weary of cards, but astonishingly outlasted me with a similar budget at a roulette table across the pit. Jessica had mastered the flower bet; pink chips were scattered everywhere. We may never have dragged her away, but for the familiar pull of the 2am snack attack.

We searched for deep-fried Twinkies or any pizza on our way to a cab, to no avail. Okay, time for a meal at the Peppermill. The restaurant side looked just like the bar side. It may have been as sad a scene as Denny's had been two nights ago, but the lighting was much too dim to expose it, and the crowd much too large. We drank quarts of water and ate half of our obnoxious portions of nachos (bowl of beans on the side!) and biscuits and gravy (tray of hash browns on the side!). We packed the other half in boxes since Jes and I, not in a nice enough hotel room to even have a mini-bar, thus had the advantage of an empty refrigerator. The leftovers would be lunch tomorrow.

There was much singing in the street as Tom walked us home, and though I was asleep before he even texted to tell us he made it safely back to his own room, the following morning required a lot of will power. I was to be at a Penguin literature focus group at 11, and I may not have made it without Jessica's cheerleading. She brings out the champ in me, that's for sure. Good thing, too, because the focus group had pitchers of iced tea on the table and a fun opportunity for the fourteen invitees to go at a new anthology table of contents draft with our collective red pens.

I ran out of steam after a few hours, though, and back in the room I told Jes they should go to the big David Guetta show tonight without me. She was thinking she might not be up for it herself. Just then Tom texted to say that he could get VIP no-line passes for the club and was about to pull the trigger on the tickets, his treat. Jes replied expressing our hesitancy. We'd been going strong for three nights now, and the reserves were rattling. His response came back all sad faces and question marks, and we caved immediately.

I managed an almost two-hour nap while Jes edited a grant proposal, but then it took us another two hours--a record--to get ready. I knew what the women at this club tonight would be wearing, and knew I had not packed anything even close, did not own anything even close. I knew this was the kind of club famous people patronized, and I was an English teacher at an English teacher's conference; but again, my cheerleader made me feel like a star. We grabbed sustenance at the food court and arrived at Tom's opulent room around 9:30, not wearing tiny skin tight dresses or Louboutins or false eyelashes at all, but nonetheless assuredly hot, and maybe more so for our authenticity. That word and its inquiry would become the theme of the night.

Unaffectedly charming Tom underscored it with a bottle of very nice champagne waiting in his ice bucket beside three glasses. He toasted our superb posse and cued his iPod to all the songs we'd sung in the street the night before.

It was an awesome pre-function, so awesome that I missed a quick window to meet up with my old friend Jenny who had arrived at the Wynn this evening. Her texts were enthusiastic and I was wistful, but we had to be at the club by 11 to get in the hotel guests' door and beat the line, and the time had come. We slid between the two ropes, handed the guy our tickets and got not one but two stamps in precise positions on our right hand. Then were inside one of the most decadent spaces I ever hope to see. The club had a vast mirrored lobby, and past that a cavernous two-tiered dance floor ringed and peppered with plush booths and tables set with ashtrays, ice buckets, and carafes of liquor, juice and water. The show tickets had only cost $30 for women and $60 for men; I was guessing the biggest tables were reserved for around $500. I was wrong.

We knew David Guetta would not go on until 1 at the earliest, so we took our time exploring. On the other side of the cavernous room was an acre of patio, which was actually the Encore's adult pool during sunshine hours. Now it was a sea of shallow rivers, artificial lawn, and soft lighting, more reserved tables every few yards, and a gazebo bar with a dancer on it and a craps, blackjack and poker table behind it. I loved it out here; I never wanted to go back inside. We ordered more champagne and took our people watching to the only free seats available, a cement partition that held back the shrubbery and designated the club's perimeter. Completely great seats, except that we were scooted down a few feet by a bouncer, so that a guy in a hazmat suit could come clear puke from the shrubbery where we had first settled.

That's when the real entertainment began in the mind of my personal party. There were millions of dollars being dropped here  tonight for people to be seen and sit down and hook up and get obliterated and maybe not remember any of it. Over the next few hours I would be aware of many people puking, slurring, fighting, stumbling, and falling down in their designer shirts and dresses and impossible shoes. By 2am most women would be carrying their shoes. I grew more comfortable by the minute. I loved my company, and between us we mingled with a few cool people from Brazil, Canada and the UK. I dared to stub out a smoke at one of the reserved tables, full of men, and was told it would cost me a dollar, then a kiss, then just a beautiful smile. Bingo.

All but one of the men dispersed immediately, but one wanted to talk to me about Harry Potter and other such literary phenomena. He complained of the absolutely stupid amount of money the night had cost him, mixed me a drink from his various table carafes, and once I confirmed that he was in a serious relationship and not looking to score, but just along for the ride on his boys' vacay, I settled in. Eventually the music volume increased, the lasers went wild across the pools and the patio, and Guetta took the stage to a chorus of screams. I realized then how huge the crowd had become, and of course, Jes and Tom were racing into it. They were on fire, and I knew they wouldn't stop until they were face to face with their DJ. I kept up with them for about 15 minutes, pushing and being pushed into a tighter and tighter, more and more frenetic sea of bodies, until we came to a deadlock about ten layers of body from the stage. I moved with the surging sea for a moment and thought, somebody could very well die in here. The vibe was joyous for the most part, and I wasn't panicking, but I knew that would not last. I yelled to Tom for them to keep going, don't worry, everyone has a phone, and rest assured that I would be super happy back outside. And he did, and I was.

I pushed back through the crowd with blind confidence and emerged outside with an almost ecstatic calm. More than one dude was bent over on the cement bench with his head between his knees. My Harry Potter fan was still at his table so I went straight for it. He refilled the drink I'd been milking and went on to educate me all about his beloved cats and the sad financial state of England, and eventually departed with his restless friends. Fantastic. I stretched my legs across the expensive couch as the early morning pulsed on. Guetta's set lasted almost two hours. A trashed kid collapsed at what I was now calling my table. I went to the bathroom, pleased to find the men's line longer than the women's. The women's line was its own marvel. In a room where a sweet lady at the sink handed you a paper towel and offered you candy or gum, an array of hairspray or lotion for touch-ups; a room where earlier Jes had seen both cocaine and ecstacy being passed freely; was now a line of women all with bloodshot raccoon eyes, disheveled hair, elicit skirts scrunched dangerously high, expensive shoes in their hands, toilet paper streamers stuck to their bare feet, so wrecked they could not even find their own way into a stall when it opened right in front of them. I couldn't have loved being a married, almost 40-year-old, relatively sober English teacher more.

 

I had texted Jes and they easily found me at my table when the show was over. They were buoyant, the show had been amazing, the DJ so exultant and generous with the crowd. The club staff swiftly descended and began to clear tables and pressure-wash the ground, bouncers roped off one section of patio at a time, forcing the dwindling crowd closer and closer to the casino doors. We got the hint, but were not ready to be finished. Sunrise was a mere two hours away. We stopped back up in Tom's room to rest Jessica's feet. He was staying in town an extra night, until Sunday, and gave us a room key to come back after our Riviera check-out tomorrow, since our flight didn't leave until 5pm. So very thoughtful. "Anyone for a brain taco?" he asked, because he'd braved the authentic Mexican place next door on his way home from us the night/morning before. The girls were still not up for it; we scarfed down dinner leftovers instead.

Then Jes wanted to see Circus Circus, right up the street. Unfortunately all the campy attractions at Circus Circus are shut down at 5am, even on Friday. The place was kind of bereft. I wandered around looking for my favorite slot machine, I Dream of Jeannie, which I had last played in this very casino, but Jeannie was gone, I fear discontinued. Jessica hovered dubiously over a couple of roulette tables but it was too depressing. We moved to the strip mall casino next door and played a game of regular old pool. We talked about finding some karaoke, but Jes and I could barely keep our eyes open so we gave up and ambled to our room; passed on the way by conference people in running gear or carrying crap coffee and US News saying good morning to us. Meanwhile trooper Tom got a muffin and watched the sunrise from his glorious room.   

The wake up at 10:30, to pack for 11:00 check-out, was rough. The incredible line of seemingly half the conference attendees at the reception desk was rougher still. Exposed in the the unforgiving noon glare of the hottest day yet outside, hauling our luggage down the sidewalks to the Encore was roughest of all, but well worth it to be able to flash Tom's key at the elevator, slink into his pitch black perfectly temp. controlled room and snooze a bit longer before wandering down to the transformed adult pool to bake in the blaze for an hour, then find lunch at a cafe. Tom had accidentally revealed the night before that his birthday was Monday, so after our salads we got him a mammoth piece of strawberry shortcake and sang him one last song. Then it was time to go, and it really was, but it was a real drag.

I know it's not everyone's story, but I swear Las Vegas has never let me down. The cadence of this trip was almost unbelievably strong. The bed-times got progressively later, the book parties got progressively classier, the conversation got progressively more intensely great, the whole string of days progressed like a perfect crescendo. I don't mean to just drop the word perfect, but in this case I must. It was the kind of week where on the last morning you sit around and quiz each other about the best moment, the best line, the best meal, etc. It's hard to narrow down, but if I must, my winners were listening to John Carlos talk story, fantasy-editing a Penguin anthology, eating sushi, drinking sunshine and palms, hitting 29, pretty much everything about being with Jessica and the double-bonus of Tom, and seeing the glory on these friends' faces when they emerged from the Guetta show on Saturday morning.  

I could itemize all the things we meant to do but didn't, but they really don't matter (though I do regret missing Jenny). All in all what we did and how it sang was way beyond what I would have predicted, it was just sublime. And that's why they call it gambling. Predictions and odds, ritual-obsessing and playing it safe will only get you so far. Thanks to four Cs, one J and one T, thirteen turned out to be a very lucky number.