1:21 am - Thurs 6/17/04
Fried Twinkies And Brass Asses

Well, one more full day of freedom before I have to be back at work on Friday...

I've been off work since the beginning of the month, and haven't missed it for a second.

Not. One. Second.

Visited the store one day while Kevin was here (I forget what day it was). Kevin had said he wanted to see it, and I was anxious to pick up the dvd of Lonesome Dove I'd ordered.

The visit was fine. But later, when I realized I had books checked out that were going to be due back while I was still on vacation, I called to see if I could check them out for another two weeks over the phone; I didn't want to create the very false impression that I missed the store so much I just couldn't stay away.

(Both the books were very rewarding reading, by the way--Comanche Moon, Larry McMurtry's second "prequel" to Lonesome Dove, and The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time by Mark Haddon.)

But I don't want to talk about work, because I'll just get depressed...

I realized, after finishing up my "Las Vegas" reportage, that there were at least two things I'd meant to write about that I forgot.

On Friday, Kevin drove us downtown, and we checked out "The Fremont Street Experience", the downtown area where some of the oldest casinos are located.

You know how you have an image of places you haven't actually been to, because of seeing them on tv or in movies, or reading about them in books and magazines?

Well, Freemont Street actually looked more like my mental picture of Vegas than "The Strip" did, because there was wall-to-wall neon (And somehow, oddly enough, my "mental picture" of Vegas was all casinos and neon; I don't know where I thought people stayed while they were in Vegas, but hotels weren't a big part of this "mental picture" I'm talking about).

There weren't any streetlights, because you didn't need them (It wasn't "bright as daylight", exactly, but it certainly didn't look like "night" either! More like some kind of bizarre "Twilight Time").

Above our heads, maybe two city blocks long, was a screen where they'd have these musical "light shows" (They would turn off all the neon momentarily, so the show would be more of a show).

There was also a really funky live band, which reminded me how much I really miss dancing (That made me a little sad. I wanted to dance so bad I almost asked Kevin to dance, but I thought that might have been weird for both of us, and thought better of it).

And there were fried Twinkies.

We both saw the sign in front of a casino at about the same time, and immediately decided we had to try them (I'm always amused when someone takes something inherently bad for you and manages to make it even worse. Like "Jolt" cola, for example. Or bacon cheeseburgers).

But we both agreed that "Fried Twinkies" were a big disappointment.

Of the two of us, Kevin was more disappointed, to the point where I think he actively disliked the experience.

For me, it just tasted sort of generic; If I hadn't known beforehand what I was eating, I doubt I could have identified it as having been a "Twinkie" in a former life.

The other thing I wanted to write about was the bronze "Crazy Girls" statue in front of the Riviera.

There's a bronze statue of seven "Crazy Girls", arm in arm, with their backs (And butts) to the viewer.

The statue is a "life-cast". They did molds of the seven dancers depicted, and cast them in bronze.

But anyway...

You're supposed to "rub the butts" for good luck, so at some point on Friday morning, we did that.

And in so doing, I hit a new low of "pathetically hard-up"--I got excited.

Security wasn't called to pull me off the statue, and I didn't have to go back to the hotel to change my pants, but I was definitely turned-on.

What can I say? That was more "fondling" than I've gotten to do in...well, forever.

And I told someone yesterday morning that I didn't think of myself as "kinky"...!

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