Big Lights, Big City: One
I have returned from a nearly four-day adventure with Mak to Las Vegas. Today no sidebar appears on my blog. I hope this is due only to my work’s primitive and spotty computer system. My return to work also brings me the news that I must be tested for TB every October, instead of only before beginning work here in the hospital.
No-boundary Las Vegas. The first day Mark and I found ourselves up in the air three times. Three times my stomach left my body and I felt strange: the airplane trip there, the glider ride, the amusement rides at the top of the Stratosphere, the tallest building west of the Mississippi.
1. The airplane ride there was uneventful but long and our stewardesses were cold-demeanored. What I realized about flying: airports without fail incite my bowels, and plane rides without fail make me sexually aroused. I must learn more of the deeper psychological causes.
2. Mark’s dad bought us a glider ride for Christmas, which we had wanted to do in Utah, but since we were going Vegas, Boulder City worked just as well. Upon deplaning we rented a car, Sylvia, a new silver Neon, and drove to Boulder City. Mark and I went up separately in a little airplane that went the speed of a car, which each of us got to steer. Our pilot, Eugene, was awesome, a Polish guy about waist-height to me. In the air, he cut the engine: float. He explained all the instruments of the plane and the history of sites we flew over. He also rolled the plane three times for me, i.e. we were up in the sky and facing the ground, hovering, and it felt great. Great enough to make up for the enduring queasiness brought on by random lifts caused by hot air pockets we passed over.
3. Big Shot and X-Scream are rides at the top of the Stratosphere, big needle stretched high into the sky. The Big Shot, a sort of needle encircled by chairs, shoots—without any kind of "are you ready?"—people up fast into the sky, then drops, then shoots. Up there, for a moment gravity-less, all I could see was sky and lights—no building, no ground. It was night. It was great. X-Scream, like a teeter-totter, tips back, then tips forward off the edge of the building. Not as scary as it might sound. The seats were high and if not in the front you cannot see off the edge you’re tipping over. Why weren’t we in the front? Because a selfish woman who had already been on the ride 16 times that day wanted to be in the front. She’d already been in the front each of those 16 times, but not yet at night. She must have grown up an only child.
The mountains in Nevada excite me. Every time I saw them, which, since Las Vegas is surrounded by them, was often, I pointed and smiled like a puppy spotting food. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve lived in the Midwest and now east coast all my life, or if it’s because the terrain is just that fascinating to me. Even though I can see it and touch it, I really can’t believe that the land can move into those formations. The land looks alien and divine to me, teary-eye beautiful.
No-boundary Las Vegas. The first day Mark and I found ourselves up in the air three times. Three times my stomach left my body and I felt strange: the airplane trip there, the glider ride, the amusement rides at the top of the Stratosphere, the tallest building west of the Mississippi.
1. The airplane ride there was uneventful but long and our stewardesses were cold-demeanored. What I realized about flying: airports without fail incite my bowels, and plane rides without fail make me sexually aroused. I must learn more of the deeper psychological causes.
2. Mark’s dad bought us a glider ride for Christmas, which we had wanted to do in Utah, but since we were going Vegas, Boulder City worked just as well. Upon deplaning we rented a car, Sylvia, a new silver Neon, and drove to Boulder City. Mark and I went up separately in a little airplane that went the speed of a car, which each of us got to steer. Our pilot, Eugene, was awesome, a Polish guy about waist-height to me. In the air, he cut the engine: float. He explained all the instruments of the plane and the history of sites we flew over. He also rolled the plane three times for me, i.e. we were up in the sky and facing the ground, hovering, and it felt great. Great enough to make up for the enduring queasiness brought on by random lifts caused by hot air pockets we passed over.
3. Big Shot and X-Scream are rides at the top of the Stratosphere, big needle stretched high into the sky. The Big Shot, a sort of needle encircled by chairs, shoots—without any kind of "are you ready?"—people up fast into the sky, then drops, then shoots. Up there, for a moment gravity-less, all I could see was sky and lights—no building, no ground. It was night. It was great. X-Scream, like a teeter-totter, tips back, then tips forward off the edge of the building. Not as scary as it might sound. The seats were high and if not in the front you cannot see off the edge you’re tipping over. Why weren’t we in the front? Because a selfish woman who had already been on the ride 16 times that day wanted to be in the front. She’d already been in the front each of those 16 times, but not yet at night. She must have grown up an only child.
The mountains in Nevada excite me. Every time I saw them, which, since Las Vegas is surrounded by them, was often, I pointed and smiled like a puppy spotting food. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve lived in the Midwest and now east coast all my life, or if it’s because the terrain is just that fascinating to me. Even though I can see it and touch it, I really can’t believe that the land can move into those formations. The land looks alien and divine to me, teary-eye beautiful.
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