Vegas lights

What can I say about Vegas. It is a city of sparkling lights and constant music. It is a city that is always awake and always aware of the people who inhabit it's casinos and nightclubs. It is a city where people go to have fun. It is a city of denial and desperation.

From the moment i stepped onto the strip i knew what i felt. I felt potential. It was the potential of something that does not exist. It was every get rich quick scheme in the world within 5 miles of itself.

I loved it.

I knew i wasn't there to make any money. I was there to have fun. Making money was a side project. I'm amazed i made it out alive. This place is a living breathing contradiction. It says "have fun, don't worry about money" and within the same breath is whipering "You need just a little more for this next roll of the dice."

So without all the philosophy of Vegas I did have a very good time. It is amazing how debauchery promotes clarity. We went to casinos until 5 in the morning, we went to bars and got drunk and met beautiful women. We went to strip clubs and watched some of the most stunning women in the world tease us with something we were not allowed to have. (Though according to one cab driver, some of them would allow anything for a price.) We had fun, we spent money, we ignored any responsibility except self-fulfillment. I understand the draw of Vegas. I hate it because i want it to be "all the time".

In the end of it all, the gambling and the women and the drinking were not what i loved about Vegas. I loved that Vegas didn't care about my problems. I loved that I could be zen without being solitary.

I have never felt as much clarity as that morning when i left the condo alone and went to the Bellagio. I played craps with a table-full of people, some of whom i recognized from the night before. I laughed and groaned and somehow also thought about all my problems, all the things i was worried about in my life, in the reality that existed in CT.

Nothing is over. Nothing is solved. I don't have any money. I have less since Vegas. I have so many things to get in order. But I do have one thing i didn't a week ago.

I have hope.