Edit, Fri 7:45am: I work a little on this every day but frankly it's a week now since I started this and I HAVE to get it done before sicky leaves tomorrow

Edit, Fri 7:45am: I work a little on this every day but frankly it's a week now since I started this and I HAVE to get it done before sicky leaves tomorrow. So I might just spend the next several hours on this.

Edit, Weds 12:11pm: It's several days since I started this, and I find myself making comments about the contents here without context to you guys, and catching myself. It's quite funny.

Losars:

Anyway, if you want to skip to the good stuff, search for "OMG THE UNDERWEAR STORY" because that's kind of what's relevant right now. Otherwise, read the whole thing.

I went to Vegas. Here's what went down.

Sunday

I got to the airport early for a few reasons. First, I always get to the airport early. I hate fuckers who show up late then expect everyone to get out of their way because they're in a hurry to (eventually miss but in their mind) catch their flight. I don't ever want to be one of those bumbling idiots (Bohls) so I get there early. Plus, I want to watch the end of the Indy 500. I go through security, and get to the moment I loathe: trying to find a seat so I can put my shoes back on. I remark (for the first of about two dozen times on this trip) that all these people walking around without shoes on is a staph infection waiting to happen. I cheer on Danica Patrick but she loses. I get on my plane.

I'm sitting next to this eight-year-old girl and her mom. The mom is on the window, the girl in the middle. They're on their way back to Arkansas, from a family trip to Disney. The mom was some kind of businesswoman with an MBA and we discussed how fake Disney is and how it's all there to make money and yet if she's so smart how come she just spent like $3000 taking her family to Disney?

It helped that I was doing my readings for last week's tourism class and they were all analyses of Disney, so I could shout out statistics and stuff to her. She was funny and nice and her daughter was the most precocious, pretentious, adn cute thing I've ever seen. She reminded me of me at age eight, except cute. She was a voracious reader and loved math. I gave her a slip of notebook paper with Math For Smarty Pants written on it as a recommendation. She said she'd seen it in the library but was afraid to get it. I said she should.

The mom liked me so much they invited me to eat dinner with them (the dad and the other two daughters were sitting behind us, the other two daughters being like 6 and 4, and according to Flightner, he must have a short penis) at the BBQ restaurant at the Memphis airport where I always eat when I have a Memphis layover. I love this place. So I eat BBQ with them then put in a dip and watch the basketball game while I wait for my Vegas flight.

I have the row to myself save for a fat snoring man at the window and spread out, planning to take a nap. Then this cute girl -- with blue eyes and straight brown hair, wearing a pink sweatshirt and those sweatpants that accentuate butts -- sits down in the seat in front of me. She keeps seeming to be in the middle of turning around to talk to me and not turning around to talk to me. I lean over to untie my shoes and she reclines her seatback right into my face. I am in love. I write a song, "Little Airplane Girl" (think funky walking bassline)

Hey little airplane girl, what ya think about

Hey little airplane girl, what ya thinkin' 'bout

Hey little airplane girl, what ya think about me?

Your fine brown hair

Your silver blue eyes

Your pink sweatshirt

Are just a few feet

From me

It's a shame I'm in 9A

Instead of 8B

Where a trucker hat man

Solitarily

Clicks away at Minesweeper

Set to Easy

But if I was there

You'd be talking to

Hey little airplane girl what ya doin' tonight

Hey little airplane girl why you on this flight

I'm ignoring the snoring next to me

With all of my might

When I reach down to stretch out my toes

I can almost smell you, our lips are so close

And now we're here in the dark, don't turn on the lamp

It's too bright

I wanna look in your eyes, and say eloquently

Let's go back to my room and get buuusy

Hey little airplane girl, what you think about me?

& now you slam your seatback into my knees

i stifle a scream but i wanna say PLEASE

i wanna touch your face and look into your eyes

kiss your lips and touch your thighs

what a surprise!

she's only fifteen

hey little airplane girl stay away from me

The black dude sitting next to me has a Tribe hat on.

"You from Cleveland?"

"Yep."

"Why ya headed to Las Vegas?"

(I attempt to keep to the rule of referring to Las Vegas as 'Vegas' only after one has played there.)

"Vacation."

"Rock on."

Turns out the dude is a lawyer, he did his undergrad at Kent and law school somewhere out in California. We talked about law, the bar, all kinds of things, for most of the flight. Really cool guy. His friend had a Marshall hat on so I made fun of him for a while too.

It took 45 minutes for my luggage to arrive on the belt. The baggage claim at McCarran sucks ass. Royally. Thousands of people standing around farting and waiting for their luggage. My suit bag finally rolls down the conveyor belt, and I grab it and head to the taxi stand. A minivan quickly pulls up and I order him to take me to Bally's "and take Swenson to Paradise" (thus avoiding getting Tunnelled like we did last night and paying way too much for the trip).

On the way, the cabbie informs me I'm just missing the best weekend of the year for bachelorette parties. Along the drive, he points them out on the sidewalks -- and he's right, there are a LOT of bachelorette parties out there. And they're all dressed the same: tight jeans, high heel flip-flops, tube tops, and precisely the same color of blonde hair.

I term them The Sluts; the boys who follow them, The Clones; and I scribble the maxim, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Except for VD. You have to take that with you."

The cab fare is $13. The cabbie got me there for that much by running several stoplights and was generally a great guy, so I handed him a 20 and told him to keep the rest. That's how I'm doing it the whole trip, I'm gonna set the precedent now. (mixed movie quote, deal with it).

I go inside and get into line and once again remember the fairly bright, shining nature of Bally's indoors. This is as opposed to the quite dark, swanky atmosphere in most other Strip casinos. While in line, i observe more of the Sluts and a few Clones. A horde of 37 Asians (yes, I counted) with cameras shuffles by. Some really cute girls (not Sluts) head on their way out and I flash a smile. The smile is returned. I fucking love Vegas.

They give me a "slightly larger room at the base room price" due to my status as a returning guest. Somehow, they remember me from three years ago. Well, that's nifty.

A Seth Bostleman clone walks by and I nearly evacuate my bowels.

I drop my shit off in my room, "freshen up" (which for guys means brushing our teeth and splashing fresh aftershave) and head downstairs to check out my new casino digs.

I step off the elevator and vaguely catch an ear for what's being played on the casino floor music system.

"He walked with a purpose

In his sneakers, down the street

He had, many questions

Like children often do"

I decided this was a good omen and walked over to the poker room.

As I start taking notes on my surroundings, I realize my pencil is quite dull. I make a (mental) note to steal some from the Bally's sports book in the morning.

I arrive at the Bally's poker room and discover it's far from what most of us would call a "room," being a space in the middle of the casino floor where some slots were yanked out and poker tables put in. Thus, it's smoky, noisy, and quite unpleasant. Two games are going on. I ask the brush desk assistant what games they have. 2-4 limit sounds like the one i'll be playing this week, IF i actually play here at all. There's got to be better poker rooms.

I escape to Paris next door. While wandering around, still in my white oxford, jeans, and tan linen jacket, a tuxedoed man hands me a floppy card (gentlemen handing out floppy cards are everywhere in Las Vegas, but usually they're wearing greasy t-shirts with "STRIPPERS TO YOUR ROOM" and a phone number on them... not tuxes.)

I look at the card and it's a complimentary pass to Risque, the club at Paris. Well, now. I'm in a randy mood, so I decide to see what kind of patrons are, well, patronizing Risque. I never get inside, because the line is so long it extends out onto Las Vegas Boulevard. I do get to see who's in the line, and find Sluts of a lesser degree and Clones of a middle. I decide it's not worth the effort, and head northward toward Harrah's and Carnaval (sic) Court.

Carnaval Court is the outside bar where there's a huge bandstand and a round bar where the dudes are all flair bartenders, like Ed and Paul, owners of the LA Hangout. Now, Ed and Paul gave me their cards and told me to show up there and tell them I knew them and I'd "be taken care of." Paul used to work there and Ed beats them all annually in the Flair Bartending National Finals. Unfortunately, when I arrived, there were a buttload of people there, and a cover. Knowing I'd barely be able to get an order in amidst the crowd and noise, let alone have a conversation about what Ed and Paul are up to, I pass, and walk over to the dueling piano bar inside Harrah’s. I buy a $4.00 Mic Ultra, see no hot chicks in sight, and start walking back to Bally’s. Long day tomorrow, after all. I’m not happy to be going to bed, because I thought I looked like a guy who got some in Vegas ought to look, but sometimes you gotta hang it up and admit the pitcher isn’t always going to give you something over the plate.

Monday

I rise early. My experiment, the goals of which were never clearly defined either verbally or in my mind, is about to begin. I shower and lather my face with various moisturizers in an attempt to combat the dry skin I know I’ll experience this week. Fortunately, I hold off the scaly skin for the most part as I come to learn more about how my skin works. I put on a white oxford, flat black tie, and my black pinstripe suit. It’s Memorial Day, after all.

Feeling the pimp, I walk out the back of Bally’s (stopping by the sports book to steal some pencils) and get on the Monorail south toward Excalibur, my first poker destination. I’d chosen Excalibur as I’d read online it was mainly dads and other tourist types, which accomplishes goal #1 (meet tourists) and #2 (play against clueless people whose money I can take).

I walk through MGM Grand (the Monorail station is at MGM Grand, and you have to walk all the way through the quite massive building to get outside, where you cross the street to get to Tropicana, and then cross again to get to Excalibur. It’s not as annoying as it sounds, but it means that I came to get to know MGM Grand really damn well considering I didn’t gamble, eat, or watch anything there).

Furthermore, my experiences with MGM Grand led me to question my previously-stated axiom regarding correlation of casino classiness and cocktail waitress costume tackiness (positive) and/or classiness (negative). MGM Grand is a very nice casino. The theme, as you might guess, is Hollywood. The cocktail waitresses, however, wear suits. Yeah. Red suits. Their skirts might be a LITTLE shorter than the ones I’m used to seeing on the speech circuit or on Law & Order, but they’re still way classier than anything else on the Strip. It led me to really enjoy my long walks through MGM Grand. It was almost enough to get me to gamble there just for the honor of being served a drink by one of them. But no. I had work to do.

Through the heat and exhaustion (which really were not that bad, Las Vegas is quite comfortable, even in a black suit) I stood upon the moving walkway that takes visitors from the Strip sidewalk into the castle-like surroundings of Excalibur. I say “stood” because the mass of humanity in front of me was not moving. I attempted to remark “you know, it’s called a moving WALKway, not a moving STANDway” as I am impatient and a prick, but I was shouted down by a group of medieval buglers (their bugles, suspiciously, had three valves, thus outing them as lowly trumpeters, but who’s counting) playing something I suspiciously recognized as the Alabama fight song. I wasn’t aware King Arthur was a Tide fan. I totally had him pegged for War Eagle.

I stepped off the moving standway and found a group of fat, lazy southerners clapping gaily in their crimson t-shirts and stiffing the “buglers” as they left the casino. I tucked a dollar (earlier in the morning, I’d taken about 20 singles, folded them up individually, and shoved them into my jacket’s front breast pocket in some kind of tacky excuse for a pocket square) into their empty jar and apologized, getting a crack in about Alabama’s education system or something. I asked if they knew the Ohio fight song, and they started playing Across the Field. I booed and walked away.

Okay, so I didn’t boo.

My trip to Excalibur had another looming inevitability beyond my first time playing poker in Las Vegas. You see, I had steeled myself to return to the scene of the crime where, in December 1990, Michael Jackson touched me.

It’s a story I’ve told at least 500 times (everyone who knows me more than five minutes or while drunk hears it, in addition to in every class I’ve ever taught). I needed to revisit it. 14 years of telling a story is bound to develop some discrepancies when confronted with the truth.

I found the escalator where everything went down, and, as if its stairs were made of eggshells, stepped gingerly onto it.

I did not climb, allowing the motorized staircase to take me to this confrontation as slowly as possible. My never-that-solid-to-begin-with bowels quaked with anticipation and, yes, a little fear.

Upon arriving at the top of the escalator, I looked around, and found things to be pretty much exactly as they’d been in my mind’s eye the hundreds of times I’d told the story, with one exception; the concourse extended not fore of me, but behind me. I made a note to tell the story correctly. I took one lap around the floor, finding the food court, and seeing that with all the wonderful places to eat available, the largest crowd (40 people in line) were at McDonald’s. I did not notice if anyone in the McDonald’s line was wearing Alabama t-shirts. I left, shaking my head, and headed down the escalator to the poker room.

It wasn’t hard to find. It was a large room, with a proper rail and large projector screens showing afternoon ESPN programming. It was 10:05, pacific time. I was ready to play.

Sticking my chest out as far as it would go, I approached the brush table. I’d been planning to play the same 2-4 limit game every other poker room had. It would be only slightly different than the 1-2 game I’ve been playing for weeks in tampa (except twice as expensive).

Surprise to me, then, that the base game at Excalibur is something called a 1-3 game. I’d read briefly about spread games in my poker books, but figuring I’d never actually play any, I ignored them. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“Well, sir, we have a 1-3 game open right now.” I start to follow him when he says, “Oh, you’ll need to go to the cashier to get your chips, of course.” Of course. Blunder #2. I walk over to the “cashier” which is really just another barely delimited side of the brush desk and throw down five twenties. I get a full rack of $1 chips. The purple and white nature of them make me happy, though they are absolutely filthy and I remind myself to wash my hands very well.

I’m seated at a table with nine players.

The first thing I notice upon sitting at the table is in a 1-3 spread game, there’s only one blind. The single blind is a convenient $1. As an ultra-tight player (owing to my attempts to stick to the strategies proposed by mathematics and my books) I am loving this. I can sit here all day, folding shitty hands, and talk to tourists at a minimum of cost difference.

I fold my first shitty hand and turn to the gentleman sitting next to me.

“Where you from, sir?”

With a thick British dialect, he response, “England, surprisingly.”

I attempt to ask him why he’s in town but he cuts me off.

“…but I’ve lived here in Las Vegas for the last fifteen years.”

Shit. My first tourist interview is with someone other than a tourist.

He’s a nice guy, though, and explains some of the intricacies of the game to me as I’ve clearly outed myself as a n00b. Every round can feature a bet from 1-3 dollars, and raises from 1-3 dollars each time. Each round is capped at $12, so the capped hand bet is $48, though I never saw any hands come close to that. In fact, I only saw a few rounds capped at all, the entire trip. Usually most of the table with anything decent calls the $1 blind, and if someone has a pocket pair or is an idiot they’ll raise to $4, at which people either get out or call hoping to catch something on the flop.

It’s a really interesting betting method, though the multiples of 3 were difficult for me to handle the first few hours, so I stuck to strategy and folded everything that wasn’t a great hand.

I finally opened with AKdiamonds. Four people came into the flop with me, which was QsQd9d. I have a nut flush draw and am psyched about it. The mulleted guy two to my left opens with three. I call. The turn is nothing. He bets three. I call again, now chasing a nut flush against my better judgement. The river brings Ac and I foolishly call my pair of aces against… yes, his Q3 offsuit.

The mulleted guy taught me an important lesson in that hand. And that lesson is, mullets look fucking gay.

I ask him where he’s from. “Idaho.” Of course, I’ve traveled some because of my old job, and as a result have simultaneously been everywhere and nowhere. “Oh, really? I’ve been to Idaho. Where in particular?”

He says something in French I don’t understand. “Is that near Boise?” “No.” The British expatriate next to me snorts. Idaho (and thus begins my not-very-clever practice of referring to people by where they’re from – though I tended to refer to Idaho as Mullet for the rest of the trip anyway) doesn’t seem too talkative, so I start a conversation with the dude to my left. He’s from Pittsburgh, and I start up some jawing with him about being a Browns fan, though he’s not that interested in football.

This really is not going very well.

Meanwhile, I am sticking to my “no drinking while playing” rule. The hilariously-dressed cocktail waitress (about 40 years old, unattractive, and in the same weird puffy medieval-page-like costume) brings me a black coffee with regularity, and I am spending more on her tips than I am on betting as I patiently wait for a decent hand or a talkative tourist.

Fortunately, the quiet guys leave and some more talkative guys arrive. I discover that more than half of the players at the Excalibur poker room are locals. So much for my theory about tourist dads. Even the tourists who were in there were older and grandpa-types. All of them knew more about poker than me, but were really interested once I told them what I was doing in town, and when I related the story about Michael Jackson it always inspired someone tossing out a handful of Jacko jokes I’ve heard a dozen times before but still laugh at.

Noon came, and I decided it was time to call the lovely old lady who runs the Aladdin poker room, Edna Dalton. She’d told me Friday on the phone to call her Monday, and it was Monday, so I’d call her.

She answered quickly and told me to call her back in an hour. I said that would be perfect; I’d have time to catch lunch. (I never did find lunch). An hour later I was browsing the Sephora store in the mall underneath Aladdin (which, for location purposes, is next to Paris, which is next to Bally’s) and trying out various colognes and laughing at how everyone mispronounces (in my opinion) the word Sephora.

I call Edna.

“I’m really busy but I can fit you in for a few minutes.”

I walk upstairs to the poker room and scan it for a well-dressed older woman. I find none, but a gorgeous, striking blonde approaches me instead.

“Tim?”

I didn’t realize people were still naming their kids “Edna.”

She sits down with me and we have a conversation, the details of which aren’t important for this email but you can read them in my paper later if you wish. She then asks if I’d like to meet Doug.

At this point everything comes together in my mind. I’d been curious if Edna Dalton, Director of Poker Operations for Aladdin was related to Doug Dalton, Director of Poker Operations for Bellagio (and probably the most famous man on earth for making poker popular in Las Vegas) but figured it was a fluke. Well, duh. THEY’RE MARRIED. I’d called Doug and left him a voicemail but I never imagined he’d have the time, running the Strip’s premiere poker room, to talk to me. As it turns out, he was visiting with his wife on his day off. He was an older guy, not old, just older than Hot Edna, with tired eyes and grey hair that was holding onto its last gasp.

He and I went into a back office as Edna went to deal a table of 3-6 limit that had shown up (she was short on dealers). We talked about 45 minutes or so, about a variety of topics; I got some awesome insight on Vegas history, how he developed the first poker room on the Strip (Mirage) and all kinds of other things about the business. We went into particular depth about his innovation of the nonsmoking poker room (nearly all Strip poker rooms are now nonsmoking, as compared to the rest of the casino where smoking is encouraged or required). I quietly took notes into my little reporter’s notebook and felt an emotion that can only be described as “thrilled.” I was completing the research I needed for my assignment, essentially, before 2pm of the first full day I was in town.

I decided to take care of #2 of my three weekly research requirements, taking photos at the antique car museum at Imperial Palace. Eschewing lunch again, I hopped the monorail and jumped off at the Imperial Palace/Bally’s station.

Mere moments after I stepped into the quaint, dated building that is IP, a woman approaches me.

“Do you work here?”

So as not to belabour the point, I’ll just say that this happened ten more times over the next several hours. I dunno why patrons of IP thought I was a manager, I guess because my suit was so totally fabulous, but whatever.

Anyway, I decide after not being able to find the antique car museum that it no longer exists, and head up to the IP Poker Room (which itself is impossible to find; the layout of that place sucks my balls.)

I finally find the poker “room” and discover it to be more of a balcony, though one decently appointed with large, blue-felt tables (which have in texas-y print, “TEXAS HOLD’EM emblazoned upon them; I guess you’re not allowed to play seven card stud or Omaha hi-lo there) and free food and drinks and coffee on a sort of buffet. The food doesn’t really attract me, being very carby, but the prospect of not having to wait for a cocktail waitress (or tip one) is awesome, and I begin drinking coffee like it was grey goose and I’d just been laid off from Enron.

I told you the tables were huge. Well, they were fucking enormous. They seated the absurd number of thirteen players. Sitting on the end, I had to stand up every flop to see the cards… that’s how far away I was. Now, if there’d been 13 players at the table, I would have been happy. Alas, there were only five of us, and it was a 2-4 game so I was putting out $3 in blinds every rotation and rotations were happening quickly. I asked the floor manager if we could go no rake until we get some more players and he said “okay.” So that was nice. Or it would have been, if I’d managed to win any hands.

The dealer was this joke-cracking little kid named Kenneth. His name tag identified him as being from Laos, and though it didn’t mention his age, I estimated it to be about twelve. He reminded me of the kid in Temple of Doom. You know, “No time for love, Dr. Jones.” I notice the dealers here don’t carry around the towels they each sit down on at each dealer change like at the other casinos. Staph infection waiting to happen.

I’m sitting at a table with four guys my age. They’re talkative; from Spokane, they’re in town for the IP’s big tournament tomorrow. $500 buy-in. The guy next to me works in construction research, or something. He’s wearing a USC cap and says he wishes he’d studied what I study when he was in college. The guy down the table makes some reference to “give me a break, I’m a writer.”

“Hey! I’m the one playing the writer card at this table,” I joke and hold up my notebook as some kind of proof that I’m a writer (conveniently shielding the doodles I’d been making next to my 15-minute chip counts).

As it turns out, he went to journalism school at Northwestern, which may or may not be ranked higher than OU, so I told him I went to OU J-school and he seemed impressed. I wasn’t catching shit for hands, so I kept talking to these dudes about how they found about the tournament, et cetera, and left about $40 poorer than I started.

I headed back to the casino floor and found this black dude handing out the ubiquitous floppy cards. I looked at it and found “one free admission, antique car museum” printed on it. IT DOES EXIST! I chatted with the dude a while. He looked, talked, and acted like Cuba Gooding, Jr. Which is both good and bad. His name was Zach Binion, and he wanted me to hear that last name really closely. “As in, Benny Binion?” “Yup, my great-uncle.” I briefly try to calculate where the miscegenation occurred before catching myself.

He orders me to go to The Orleans for poker and find a guy named Lon Kilgore. The name sounds like the type of individual I generally avoid.

I take a few elevators until I find the well-hidden antique car museum. The museum has a large conference room next to it, where a large conference is ending. I glance at the sign: “TODAY: CELEBRITY IMPERSONATOR NATIONAL CONVENTION”

…interesting.

Before my eyes, dozens and dozens of impersonators, in full costume and character, emerge from the room. Alice Cooper. Jimi Hendrix. Ozzy Osbourne (and his entire family). Bush. Robert DeNiro. Tina Turner, Woody Allen, Elton John, Marilyn Monroe, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cyndi Lauper, and a million more I missed in my attempt to write them all down.

About forty of them go into the antique car museum as I do. Remember, these people are still in character. I guess they didn’t need the floppy card for free admission. I mean, they’re CELEBRITIES. They get perks we well-dressed-but-unimportant people don’t.

So for about two hours I wander through these cars, taking photos for a project for my tourism class, and talking to these celebrity impersonators. Eventually some of them break character because I have so many questions. Especially interesting was the Arnold guy. His actual job is with the city of Sacramento, impersonating the governor. Seriously. He does speeches and promos and PSAs. Wild job. He really seemed to get into it, too, believing in his political influence despite his never actually having been elected to anything.

I leave IP around 6:30, needing a drink.

I go over to Harrah’s and Carnaval (sic) Court. I’d been told by Paul to look for a guy who looked exactly like him (bald). His name was Flippy. I walked in (afternoon, only a hundred or so people there, no cover) and immediately saw a bald dude who looked exactly like Paul.

“Flippy!”

“Hey, what’s up.”

“Alcohol Paul says hi.”

Flippy then proceeds to do what his name would suggest. He jumps up on top of the bar, begins banging stainless steel mixing cups together. The other bartenders (two guys and a hot chick) come over to see what all the fuss is about.

“THIS GUY KNOWS ALCOHOL PAUL!”

So, all hell starts breaking loose. I’m still in my suit, outside, but I sort of ignore that juxtaposition as they start making me whatever drinks I order “on Paul’s tab.” Flippy is particularly nuts, juggling several bottles of captain morgan around and between his legs and… it was insane. These guys are mad talented. The hot girls sitting at the bar in front of me are somewhat impressed by the reaction I’ve gotten out of these bartenders. The brunette is like “hey, I know alcohol paul too… or something.” I get them some shots, free of course, poured in that fancy style where they pour like 12 shots in a row (though I’ve seen Ed at the Hangout do it much better. )

I decide I’m very hungry and sweaty and decide to go back to my room, “freshen up,” and eat dinner at Paris. I am feeling very accomplished on the day, and decide I am going to treat myself to a fine French meal.

8:31

I am sitting at a table in the French Café that overlooks the “yard” of Paris. The signs around me read in French things like “Fois Gras” and “Beaucoup something or other.” I open the menu and find none of these things there. Indeed, there is not one item of French origin on the menu. They have Frenchy names, but they aren’t really French.

A server approaches me. His name tag identifies him as “Carlos.” I inform Carlos I’d like the Baron de Rothschild Cabernet. “Muy bueño, señor.”

He scurries away and I get a very confused look on my face.

Another server, this one thoroughly American, takes my food order. I order the “Napoleon,” which is a ham sandwich. The wine comes quickly and is good. I make a note to buy some when I get home. The sandwich also comes quickly and is a large ham sandwich on very hard bread. The server tersely states, “bon appetit” as she walks away, as if saying “bon appetit” makes the food magically French somehow. I eat the ham, leave the bread, and close my tab quickly.

I make it back to Excalibur. The poker room is rocking, and I actually have a 20 minute wait before getting seated. I’m at a full table, but the clear new favourite of mine is a guy who was freshly seated, like myself, and immediately starts looking for the cocktail waitress. He’s a doctoral student at Harvard, subject (unintelligible) and from Tucson. And a drunk. I love him immediately, and he and I pretty much play together at a few tables for the next five hours or so. After a while, I notice a fairly quiet blonde hottie in glasses at the end of the table. I’m not doing so well, down about 22 bucks, but I’m doing the standard hi’s and hello’s to the people at the table so I shout down, hey blondie, where ya from?

I should note that my policy of not drinking while gambling went out the window a long time ago.

“Cleveland.”

So I have a new Cleveland. We talk about Cleveland for a while, I am hitting on her hardcore from way down at the end of the table. Finally I ask why she’s in town, which is really kind of an important question when it comes to doing research on poker tourism.

“Visiting my brother.”

“Oh, really? What’s he do?”

She points across the table.

“He’s sitting right there.”

Harvard about falls out of his chair laughing. The Hawaiian dude (not Hawaiian ethnically, but from Hawaii and in a UH hat) snickers to my right.

Around 2am or so I get up and leave, having blown $75 but having laughed my ass off for hours. I ask the dealer if the monorail runs all night. He informs me it does. I bid farewell to Cleveland, Harvard, Hawaii, and the rest of my crew. I take the walkways back to MGM Grand, walk all the way through its increasingly empty spaces, and arrive, finally, at the monorail station. “Closed 2am-7am.” Fucker.

So I walk all the way back through the building, get back to the strip, and start the not-all-that-long walk back to Bally’s. I find myself walking next to two guys who look suspiciously like me, though not as well dressed. We walk past some cabbies who try to pull the “free fare to the strip clubs” scam. We aren’t buying. Well, at least I thought we weren’t. This guy’s buddy turns around and runs back to the cabs. I turn to the guy and say, doesn’t he know that’s a scam? “Yeah, but he’s horny.”

Well then.

Guy’s name is Kenny, and he is from Atlanta. On vacation. Kenny is very effeminate and I play along but eventually leak something about an ex-girlfriend. He’s walking back to Caesar’s after an indeterminate night of gambling and shows. Apparently, Kenny has been to Duncan Falls, OH, which is the closest thing to a suburb of Zanesville as there can be. “I was visiting my girlfriend on her family’s farm.”

Suuuuure Kenny. Your GIRLfriend. Kenny’s friends, save for the guy who wanted free cab fare to the strip club, were all gay (info ascertained through telling the story about the guy downtown last time in Vegas) and my gaydar was pretty much solid enough to laugh openly at his alleging he liked girls. Suuuuuuure Kenny.

Kenny and I bonded on our walk home, and I gave him that half-hug guys give each other when a handshake is too formal and a real hug too meaningful slash gay.

I went to bed.

Tuesday

Planned to go to Aladdin to enter a hold-em tournament Hot Edna had invited me to, but got there too late. So I’m in a black suit, lavender shirt, purple striped tie (Progman’s wedding outfit if you remember). It’s 10 am and I’ve got nothing to do. Well, I think we all know what we do in this situation.

I go to Excalibur.

I meet a bunch of people from Cleveland. By my estimate, half of the tourists in Vegas are from Cleveland. I meet a dude from England who used to visit here just to play poker, and then met his wife here. CHOICE! I played patiently and six hours later was up a healthy $100 or so. I decided I needed to see the Wynn poker room as it was claiming to be the nicest on the Strip.

An hour later I arrive at the Wynn (the monorail doesn’t really go there, and I didn’t know about the tram between Las Vegas Hilton [where the monorail actually goes] and Wynn) and marvel at its gaudiness and garishness. They tell me Steve Wynn is going blind from macular degeneration and I have no problem believing this.

The poker room is okay, very fancy, but very crowded. I talk to some people outside, they’re all professional players, all live in Vegas, all speak disdainfully to me and without much of anything to say.

I realize the basketball game is starting soon and head to the sports book, which is legitimately awesome. I make some horse bets that lose, drink a lot of amstel light, and talk to this dude next to me from LA whose son has a band and a web site I got the name of but haven’t been to and don’t really plan to.

I bet if you were a jockey with the last name “Scratched” you’d confuse a lot of people.

I catch the tram to Las Vegas Hilton, and ride the Monorail back to Bally’s, where I “freshen up” and eat a roast beef sandwich. Back to Excalibur.

I arrive and hit AA, KK, and JJ on my first three hands, and just start owning people. By 2:00, I’m up another $100. I meet an old man who brought his daughter out here for her 21^st birthday. I inquire as to her location. Meanwhile, the drunk guy to my right keeps reminding me he’s from Hagerstown. He was a great guy to have to my right; maniacs to your right when you’re a tight player are key. Fished a lot of people in, was up $250 at one point but got stupid later in the night (again, the non-drinking clause was being violated).

Walked home. Getting blisters on my feet.

Wednesday

French blue shirt, blue and black tie, black suit. Looking sharp. Arrive EARLY for the Aladdin tournament. $40 buy-in. I pay my $40 and walk around for a few minutes. Hot Edna had assured me they had breakfast every morning for her players. Apparently in Hot Ednaworld “breakfast” means doughnuts and coffee. No thanks to the doughnuts, more please of the coffee.

As 10:00 and opening of play approached, my hands got clammy and I began to wish I’d paid more attention to the sections on no-limit in my books. At 10:00 the tournament director announced the rules. 120 players this morning, nine get paid. Top prize: $1090. Nice turnaround if you can get it. I found my assigned seat and discovered Hawaii was sitting to my right. Not the best guy to have to my right (another tight player like me), but okay.

I got trash for the first hour. 7-2 off. 7-2 off. Five times in prelims got 7-2off and a million other times close approximations. I stayed patient and never got moved. Won a hand here and there. 11:00 came and we got a five minute break. I made it past the first hour! Wow! That was my goal!

Things come back together and at around 11:30 the massive chip leader at my table, this Indian guy, calls over the tournament director. Apparently he has to leave. Why, this was never explained to us. Unfortunately, instead of blinding the guy out, they sweep his chips – and thus all of us at the table saw OUR chips removed from the table. This would lead to some consequences later.

I was short stacked, and I was forced to go all in on my next big blind. Lucky, I was dealt bullets and flopped trips. So I was still alive. Next time the blinds went up and came around, I had to go all in again. Caught a straight on the river. I begin to think I am actually “lucky.” Noon break comes and I turn around, seeing only about 20 guys left playing.

Patience.

Another hour, another hour of conservative play. At 12:55 or so I hear the tournament director announce, “That’s it” and I realize that the tournament is down to its last ten players.

Holy fucking shit, I made the final table.

We get a ten minute break and then there will be drawing for table positions. A lot of the guys who have been knocked out are still hanging around, and when we reconvene, there’s ten of us at the table and about 30-40 standing around it. I am SEVERELY short stacked; I have about $3000 while everyone else has at least $20000 (except for the other guy who came from my original table, who suffered the guy’s mysterious emergency like I did; he had about $5000, but he was directly to my left, so I wasn’t going to be able to squeeze him out).

The tournament director announces nine players will be winners today, and I speak up.

“Hey, there’s ten of us, what do you say we let first one out get his money back?”

Murmurs of approval cross the table. I’m not sure if they noticed my state of severe short stacking-ness. After all, I had $3000, I was three away from the big blind, which was $3000. I was, very likely, going out first.

We agreed to take $40 off the 1^st place prize, and began the game.

My first hand is The Hammer. 7-2 off. I fight the voice of Wil Wheaton in my head and fold it. I fold the next two until I’m under the gun (first ahead of the big blind).

KQclubs. This is it. This is better than anything I’m going to get next hand when I’m forced all in anyway.

“All in.”

I push my meager three $1000 chips into the center of the table. Two well-endowed (chipwise) players at the other end of the table call. I resist the urge to stand up, like they do on television.

The flop is 2c-4c-9d. I didn’t hit anything, but I have my ideal flush draw. Of course, the other two guys are still in; so my cards aren’t turned over and nobody knows what I’m drawing to.

The turn is a ten of hearts. I still have a 4.1:1 chance of hitting my flush. I start considering where I’m going to go eat lunch.

The river is a Jack. Of hearts. The other two guys check. Guy number one says “got nothing” and turns over an ace of hearts and a 5 of hearts. Guy number two says “me either” and flips over an ace of diamonds and a 5 of diamonds. They were drawing to a gutshot straight; their odds were far worse than mine to hit.

I turned over my KQc slowly.

The crowd sighed.

Nervously, I mumbled, “Guys, this was my first tournament ever, I really appreciate it, thanks for a fun time” and a few of them looked at me in surprise that I managed to make it to the final table, as from my limited conversations with them, it was clear most of the guys there were professionals who played this tournament daily.

The tournament director was surprised to see someone knocked out so early, but quickly handed me a $25 chip and three $5 chips. “Thanks for playing,” he offered helpfully. I got into line at the cashier with some broke-ass blackjack players, took my $40, and headed to the hot-chick sports bar I’d heard was in the Aladdin mall.

I found it, and ordered a reuben. The hot bartender, Renee, took to me quickly. I tried to play NTN, but I was… distracted. She was from Brooklyn and, apparently, quite offended by the nature of New York, New York. She wants hot dog stands out front. I informed her that hot dogs are not very popular when it’s 95 degrees outside.

I took half my sandwich with me because I was still nervous from the tournament. I left it in my room, “freshened up,” and headed back to Excalibur.

I played for three hours, with (at least as my notes indicate) nothing interesting happening, save for a guy with two hot chick friends playing with us. I really wanted to get hot chick #2’snumber but they were heading back to Phoenix in like an hour, so screw it. While I’d been playing all week, I’d been patiently awaiting the presence of Tony Green, director of poker operations for Excalibur. Around 5pm or so, I glimpse a large man with a shock of white hair in a dark suit standing by the brush table, and excuse myself to approach him.

He was quite possibly the jolliest person I have ever met.

We talk for a half hour, and he gives me information I’ll again exclude bc this email is too damn long already.

I leave another four hours later with the same amount of money I started with, and head back toward Bally’s.

Along the way, I stop in the Tropicana for a free deck of playing cards and decide to use a coupon they give me for a 9.99 prime rib & crab legs dinner. I find my way to the restaurant, which is decorated with the photos of all the great old school performers who played there. I feel better in my suit. I am led to the harlequin-decorated booth, and sink into the seat. I wonder if I ought to buckle up. A neverending loop of Sting songs plays on the sound system, and I ask myself who in the world ever thought that “All for love” song was a good idea. I mentally create the “Las Vegas Restoration Society” which will promote people dressing up when they go out in Las Vegas, in response to the dozens and dozens of people who say, “it’s nice to see someone wearing a suit. I miss those days, it was a better place back then.”

I stop by Bally’s, “freshen up,” and head to Harrah’s. And this is where things get a bit hairy.

There was no cover for some reason, even though the place was insane. I flip Paul’s business card to the guy who serves me, and the requisite mania happens again, and I am quickly getting drunk. I start talking to these four knockouts sitting at the bar, who are (like the previous ones) intrigued at the fact I’m not paying for any of my drinks. They’re students at SDSU, in town to party. Rock on. I am particularly interested in the curly-haired brunette, named Laura. We talk a half hour or so as I drink 12oz cups of pure Captain Morgan. She gets up to go to the bathroom and then a very bizarre, yet all too common, realization hits me: she’s fat.

Is this happening to all of us? How are we being deceived by womens’ faces to believe they aren’t fat when they actually have a huge, huge enormous ass? I was disappointed, so I turned to the far hotter and verifiably non-fat friend next to her.

Things start to get really blurry here. I know that I ended up making out with yet another friend, whose name I never learned. The whole time, I was looking at the really hot one, who was with another guy, telling her I wanted to be making out with her. The one I was making out with and I crawled onto the bar and sat there and made out for a while, and ice was thrown at us…

I took notes but they are unintelligible.

I think I got lost on the monorail on the way home, and a cop was like “hey, buddy, you okay?” but I really don’t remember.

Thursday

8:00

I wake up still in my suit, on top of a still-made bed. My head feels like the head of someone with a bad, bad hangover. Power through it, I tell myself. Power through it.

I shower, dress, pack, and check out. I deposit my bags with the bell captain. I venture in search of Rio.

After a while of getting lost, I make it out to Rio. I talk to the WSOP tournament director and he adores me. I sit at the final table and examine the little cameras that check out players’ hole cards. I wonder what famous players will be sitting at this table with its soft velvet. I see Phil Hellmuth and shout, “Hey, Phil!” and he just sort of looks at me and walks away. I eat a corn dog. I drink a huge bottle of official 2005 WSOP water (everywhere you go, they have customized labels for the bottled water. Even the monorail has monorail brand water) and wish the hangover away. No dice. I hang out for a while with this Carlos guy I met at the Excalibur a few nights back. I cannot adequately explain the WSOP except to say, take the entire Seagate Centre, fill it with custom 2005 WSOP poker tables, and seat players at about half of them, with a line of a hundred players at the cashier, and a few hundred at registration, and that would be about it. Oh, yeah, there’s hot chicks everywhere, promo models for Card Player magazine or Full Tilt Poker.

I leave in search of hangover alleviation. I take the tram to Harrah’s, then ride the monorail to the Las Vegas Hilton. I am going to do Star Trek: The Experience, as I’m told (okay, Wil said) it is awesome.

For sake of space, I won’t go into details, but Star Trek: The Experience is pretty sweet. It’s a combination live theatre, 3-D, amusement park ride. My only frustration was the fatasses who didn’t play along when we were in a “hurry” (leading the actors to ad lib jokes about ‘you do know we’re trying to escape, right’) etc. Left Star Trek: The Experience after a few hours and headed to the world-famous Las Vegas Hilton sports book.

Along the way, I decided to use a $10 match play I’d won outside and play one hand of $10 blackjack. I walked up to a $10 table with a bored-looking dealer named Donna, threw down ten bucks and my matchplay, and waited for her to shuffle the eight decks and fill the shoe.

My $20 bet quickly became $40. I tipped Donna five bucks and walked away to the cashier. After tip, $25 profit. Not bad.

I sat in the sports book, betting on Derby Lane (tampa greyhound track, won on the first 10 of my 11 bets on #1 to show) and watching the heat-pistons game. Oh, and drinking a buttload of Coors Light. The game ended, and I took my winnings to the buffet, next to the sports book, where the food was lousy but they had beer on the buffet. Indeed.

My hangover was finally gone.

I went back to Bally’s. Instead of going to Carnaval (sic) Court, I went to the piano bar, where a pair of twin blondes in bikinis were going at it on the pianos. It was quite a show. I sat down and a guy bought me a beer; he was there with his son, daughter, and their spouses (son and daughter were my age) and we talked for about an hour and a half. Really great people, who were both from Dayton and from Pasco County, FL so we had a lot to talk about. The son’s wife was hot in that “cute but then you get talking to her and you realize she’s the kind of person you totally make a connection with” way. She even said at some point when I said I liked brunettes, “I knew I liked you for a reason.”

I know that’s vague and seems like a tossoff vignette, but I think the last little conversation I had with those really nice people from Dayton encapsulated so much about what made my week so great. People were nice, people wanted to talk, people bought me drinks, and girls were hot. I realized I was late to catch my cab to the airport so I wished them all luck and rushed down the strip (stopping to take a photo of people at the Mirage volcano; that was goal #3 of my research trip), into Bally’s, retrieved my bags, caught a cab, checked in, drank two very expensive Ketel One bloody marys served by the only bartender left in the airport at 12:15am, and caught my plane. I was alone in my row, and don’t remember much about the flight to Detroit, or, frankly, back to Tampa. I was in that space between sleep and death we call “Vegas Detox.”

Came home, talked to Jenn, got busy, never had a chance to actually sleep. Left for the LA Hangout to find my friends and tell them all about the awesome week I had.

OMG THE UNDERWEAR STORY

Funny, then, that none of my friends came to the LA Hangout on Friday. Nay, it was just me and Ellen, the woman my mom’s age who I occasionally smoke the happy plant with. So we’re playing trivia and the bar is pretty boring. Around 10:00, this group of people come in and are over on the other side of the bar talking to Ed. Most of them are fat girls, but one is this little, tiny redhead with bangs whom as I watch Ed sign her stomach has a really, really nice stomach. I dunno, it’s like, a go-to point for me. What can I say. I turn to Ellen and say, “What the fuck is this shit?” I make eye contact with the redhead. She comes over to me and kind of looks at me for a moment.

“You’re not a redhead.”

“Wow, you’re really observant.”

“We need a redhead.”
”for what?”

“We’re on a scavenger hunt.”

“Well, I’m not a redhead. What do you need one for?”

“We need to make out with him.”
”My facial hair is red, does that count?”
”No.”

“Sorry.”

“Do you know any redheads in here?”

“not really.”

She begins to walk away. Then she comes back.

“Can I have your underwear?”

I’d have said no, knowing I was wearing some tight maroon boxer briefs on account of, well, having been in Las Vegas for a week, but I sort of have a precedent for giving girls my underwear (see Progman’s bachelor party).

I say, okay, come with me. I lead her to the men’s bathroom, say, wait here, and look inside. It’s empty. I turn back to her. “There’s someone already in there, let’s just go out to my car.” She giggles and says okay, and grabs my hand to walk me outside.

I point her toward my car, which is not in the main parking lot but in the small one behind the bar where the employees (and I) always park. I lament not having cleaned out my car before I left (three weeks of mail was in my back seat) which inspires a bizarre OCD streak which I’m still suffering today. Sicky and Jen will see the effects of it, but basically, everything is clean here, and stuff is organized in a fairly absurdist manner. Alphabetized, lined up, etc.

Anyway.

I tell her to keep lookout for me and I get into my back seat. Then I lean out and say, “You want to join me back here?”

“Sure!”

I start to move away from my own eyes and into the third person eyes that surreal episodes always get viewed through. I’ve only had two beers tonight, but I’m behaving in a forward manner not exactly characteristic of my personality. She climbs in and sits on all my mail. I start to take off my pants. Well, I took off my shoes, first, then my pants. Then my maroon tight underwear while I just sort of casually talk about this scavenger hunt they’re on.

I should say that the bizarre mood (sleep deprivation plus two beers) I am in combined to make me quite breathless and excited during this whole episode. That is kind of an important word to keep in mind without getting too graphic. Excited.

So I hand her my underwear but she really is not looking at me at all. She tries, but her eyes keep going to my junk.

“I’m Tim.”

“I’m Amber.”

(ouch)

She keeps trying to look at me but she is clearly distracted.

“Uh, um, you… are going to make a woman very happy some day.”

I ignore the comment and put my arm around her.

“So what do you do?”

I discover she works at the Moffett Cancer Center at USF and is studying to get her Ph.D eventually in Public Health. She asks how old I am.

Still quite breathless and aware I am pantsless in a public place.

“26.”

“I’m 21.”

Hmm.

So we talk very briefly and then she like “Okay, you really need to put your pants back on. I’m not THAT drunk.”

We talk a little longer and she says she’s never done anything like this before and it’s only because she’s drunk. I find this girl so very cute and charming and I tell her so. She giggles and covers her face shyly. “You’re just wasting my time. You’re not serious.”

“no, really, if I didn’t think you were cute I wouldn’t have brought you out here.”

“you’re kidding,. You’re just wasting my time.”

Her friends call her mobile, wondering where she is. We jump out of the car, I throw on my pants and shoes, my mobile falling under the seat somewhere, and follow her out.

She asks for my number. I would get hers, but my phone is awol amongst old copies of Newsweek and my notebook is sitting on the bar next to Ellen.

I give her my number. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” she says, looks in my eyes, and I lean over and kiss her on the cheek. Her friends arrive and pick her up, and she disappears. I’m going commando in jeans after a week of walking around in 95 degree Las Vegas. The chafing begins.

I go back to my car, looking for my phone, but I can’t find it. I go back inside and Ellen is staring at me.

“WHAT WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?”

I just shake my head in disbelief at what just went down. Leslie, the hot lesbian bartender I have a crush on, asks me what just went down. I shake my head in disbelief, and yell, over and over, “Vegas, baby, VEGAS!”

Amber (ugh) had told me she and her friends hang out at Boba Louie’s. I knew my friend Shannon, the Canadian who was deported but then let back in, hung out there from time to time, so I figured it was a safe bet to drop by there on my way home, as my real friends had never shown up at the Hangout and I was too high on life to go home or stay at the Hangout. I stopped by Boba Louie’s, and found no one. I did find my buddy 2K, who I roll with at the Pegasus on open mic night, and my phone. My phone had four missed calls in the roughly hour that had passed since I lost it: one from sneakdogg, one from my mom, and two from an 813 (tampa) number my phone didn’t recognize. Had Amber (ugh) called me way ahead of her stated “tomorrow”? Did she want to hang out tonight?

Unfortunately, a week of Las Vegas had rendered my phone useless to even check the two voicemails my phone said it had (though as it turns out, they were from sneakdogg and my mom anyway). The mystery of the 813 number would have to wait until tomorrow.

On the way home I stopped by Peabody’s and saw Shannon and her fiancé and we got caught up and laughed about the fact I was going commando and then I told the same story to my friend Pete who was more interested in the fact I met Phil Hellmuth.

I went to bed.

Saturday

Did you never call? I waited for you to call.

All day, in fact, until around 7:00 I got fed up with the anticipation and called the mystery 813 number.

“Hello?”
”Is this Amber?” (ugh)

“Yeah, who is this?”
”tim”

“OMG THE GUY WHOSE UNDERWEAR I GOT!”

As it turns out, her phone lost the last digit of my number somehow, and she called my number while trying to figure out what it was and then gave up. She tells me about how all the rest of the night went, strip clubs, porn shops, etc. I ask what she’s doing tonight, and she’s going to the Green Iguana (ybor dance club) with her friend Tiffany and Tiffany’s boyfriend. She invites me out, and I tell her I’m going to a party but will call her later to catch up with her maybe. The party was a lie, of course, but I needed to find my friends first.

Luckily Tina, Charles, and Dave were at the Hangout. I gave them the contents of the above 23 pages in about 5 minutes. At 11:30 I called Amber (ugh), and she told me her friends decided not to go out after all. She lives across the street from Boba Louie’s, so I recommend we go over there. Boba Louie’s is about five minutes from the Hangout.

So I go over there and she’s waiting with some friends. We have a few drinks, but not many. I sing some karaoke. Mainly, we talk. During our conversation, I say something politically-related and she informs me she is a Bush Voter. Not just someone who voted for Bush, a BUSH VOTER. Conservative Christian, social conservative, everything.

I sort of frown but I still think she is cute.

The bar closes and they throw us out. I ask her to give me a ride back to my car and we get into her… wait for it… silver Civic. We sit in her car for 20 minutes talking then decide we need to pee. She invites me over to her apartment.

Dunh dunh dunh

We talk for like three hours then I get fed up and kiss her and we make out a little while but she wants to take things slow which is not something I am used to. At all. We fall asleep on the sofa together and it’s the first time, I think ever, that I’ve spent the night at a girl’s place without some form of sex happening. That’s kind of sad, but it’s the truth.

We get up in the morning and talk for hours and then I take her to lunch at Boston Market. I am not sure about this girl. I really find her cute, but she is very shy, not very talkative, has a boring job, is conservative, and seems to have this weird insecurity that leads to her not really having any trust. Yet.

I kiss her goodbye in the rain and she heads off to her mom’s house, which is, coincidentally, right down the street from MY house.

Her mom is also coincidentally from Montpelier, Ohio.

I call her Monday on my way to class. Her day was uneventful. I call her Tuesday and pretty much invite myself over. She works 7-3 at Moffett, so she goes to bed pretty early. We watch TV and make out a tiny bit. Every time I put my hand anywhere close to anything prurient she sort of retreats. I am not really sure what is up with her, except that she is really insistent that this relationship progress very slowly.

On Sunday I set up a date with her to go to MOSI, the science museum in tampa, on Saturday morning. I wonder if she will tell me evolution is wrong? Who knows. Actually, I have some slight self-doubt that we’ll go at all, she hasn’t returned my phone messages from the last two days. Though she really hates calling people on the phone – kind of like someone else I know.

The worst part, though, is that I still cannot attach that name to her. She’s just “that girl” in my mind. She isn’t, and might not ever, be “Amber” (ugh). It’s like I’m functionally disposed to be unable to link the signifier and signified, and I have to cognitively think about her name every time I think of her name. Weird.

11,007 words. Suck on it.

-tim ‘burkeman’