This is really disgusting. Not only am I still sick, staying home from work, watching the gloom of a rainy day, but I spent an hour working on a post and when I went to save it as a Draft, it disappeared into cyberspace never to be seen or heard from again. Shit! So…let’s see if recall is available today or if it’s unavailable due to SICK.
BEGIN RECALL***
Whatever the hell this little nose/throat/lung bug is, it should be immediately vaporized and sent into the Netherworld. It sucks. I never get a cold. Yeah…right! I have something right now that is beyond belief. Bordering on pneumonia, sinusitis, and any other affliction associated with the respiratory system. My solution – other than taking amoxicillin – is to sleep as much as possible. Sand is on back order right now because one of us has been tapping into Sandman Land too much.
Since I’m not at work and I’m really not awake and I’m definitely not well, I want to chase a thought – I’m not sure if I can field it so chasing is the best way to get into it.
At least once a week, I hear this at the table, “I love visiting Vegas but I could never live here.” – “This town will keep you broke.” – “There’s nothing to do here but gamble.”
My first trip to Vegas was somewhere around ’84 or ’85. I came with two girlfriends and we did the romp-stomp thing. We never slowed down long enough to sleep but we did manage to take a shower every day. We stayed at the old Castaways on the Strip, played some poker there but also played at The Golden Nugget – it was THE place in those days. Of course we all lost money.
In ’87 I dealt the last Grand Prix Tournament the Nugget had. It was a nightmare. I knew how to deal all the games but had never dealt to raging assholes that hated me just because I was a dealer. More about this in the book I’ve been writing for over a year.
For the next two years I made the trip from Montana every time a big tournament was held in Nevada with another dealer/boyfriend – that considered himself to be a player and always kept himself broke – and we worked Tahoe, Reno, and Vegas.
When we hit Vegas, we picked a weekly rental for the best room rate; it seemed forever before I figured out where the grocery stores, drug stores, and laundromats were as everything was so Strip oriented. I can remember thinking that real people didn’t live in Vegas.
In ’89 I moved to Vegas and opened The Mirage, along with 6,400 other people. Hello Fright Night! The first few years there were beyond debilitating. The job in itself was horribly demanding and I was going through a personal hurricane of emotional stewing and brewing. I’m not getting into a Dysfunctional Buffet but believe me when I tell you that there was too much going on for any person to handle alone.
I played poker every night after I got off work. Usually the Gold Coast. My association with the Gold Coast was my oldest son, Dan. He worked there on Grave. When I was sick of looking at cards, I went to the nickel keno machines. Occasionally I played poker machines and quarter keno. My norm was to live between my own personal stress, work, and poker games and machines after work. Sure…every now and then dinner with friends, dancing with a select group, intermittent movies…but all in all, everyone I knew was in the same place I was in, heading for machines and table games when we parted for the night.
One day a switch clicked somewhere in my head. I was done. I moved into another phase of my life. I stopped punishing myself…in more ways than one. No matter where you live, you can find a way to destroy yourself and make life impossible. There are a million things to do in Vegas but I only manage about 1,000 of them because of time restraints.
END OF RECALL***
On the thought from yesterday when I wished I had chicken noodle soup, my wonderful friend, Vivienne, called and asked if I wanted…you guessed it! She brought me some. Life is sweet here in the desert!