Work hard, play hard. It's what so many unimaginative guys put on their online profiles be it myspace or the dating site du jour. But it perfectly describes the last 24 hours of my life. I was in Las Vegas for one last hurrah with a good friend who I met when we worked together at a local TV station. It was my last full-time on-air gig before moving to New York City. Now she's moving here, too, where she's rightfully earned her network stripes.
Friday night, I sat next to a strapping, young, real estate mogul on the flight from JFK to McCarran. When I realized that the seat between us was empty, I said, "I'm going to be stretching out and I hope you don't mind-" and as he said "no problem" he heard the last of my sentence,"if I put my feet in your lap." He laughed and we had a nice conversation before I fell asleep. He was en route to a buddy's bachelor party and I was planning my own weekend debauchery.
Saturday, my girlfriend whose nickname is "Bourge" short for bourgeois for reasons too obvious to delineate, had to go in to work. Her cousin, Denise, and I were invited by one of her boy toys to hang out at the Bare Pool at the Mirage Casino and Hotel. This pool has exclusive access and the female patrons are first screened then encouraged to go topless. Unlike some of my Mardi Gras appearances, this time I abstained from following suit. But the guys we met at the pool were HOT. At one point, Denise and I agreed that we were on the real life version of Entourage and needless to say, I felt fat. After our afternoon frolic, we took power naps. Denise was visiting from Atlanta and both of us were a tad bit jet lagged.
That night, we met Bourge at The Palms. The owner is her friend so we bypassed the proletariat line and were fast tracked upstairs and told by the "host" to go to Tommie Lee's table. But we never made it over there (that's another blog entry me thinks). However, Gwen Stefani was there as was Paris Hilton, a permanent fixture in the Vegas nightlife, along with Nicolette Sheridan, Luke Wilson and some guys from No Doubt. First the DJ asked us to give it up for Gwen Stefani in "da how-us" and played one of her singles. Then he did the same for Paris Hilton. Not to be out shined by her superior, Paris got up on a table and gave an impromptu, um, performance. I took pictures that were later offered to Life and Style Magazine. My friend, one of the editors, thought I was kidding. "We get Paris sightings every week." Apparently, the celebrity sex kitten's antics are often caught on film and even the tabloids are tired of them.We had a few drinks at what we thought was the owner's table. But a few minutes later, I was asked to down my drink because we had inadvertantly ended up at the table reserved by Bruce Willis. After a peculiar encounter with a man vying for Keith Olberman's "Worst Person in the World" anointment (see next blog entry) we were ready to move on to another club. But in order to do this, we had to wait for the elevator and that was a formidable hurdle in itself. At one point, I was being pushed and I turned to look at this huge, bodyguard-type black guy behind me. "You can keep pushing me but I've got nowhere to go," I said indicating the mob ahead of me. "I ain't pushing you, baby," he said moving past me to another room. Denise looked at me with shock and awe, "You're one brave girl to talk to Tupac's killer that way," she said. "That was Suge Knight!" she pointed out. Gulp.
The highlight of the evening was Denise. Besides mortifying her cousin with inappropriate disclosures of how domestic bliss in Georgia is contingent on swinging with other couples, she provided her own shock and awe with her post-marital flirtation techniques. As we dined at The Wynn at 5am, she casually mentioned how the guy she was dancing with was "really turned on." She said she told him as much when she grabbed his package and confirmed his state of arousal. Bourge and I choked on our fries. "What?" she protested. "It's no different from you slapping someone's ass," she said referring to Bourge's tendency to accost men in that manner and then point at me. Also, my friend has the charming quality of not disclosing this fact until after they've chatted me up. Then as my low self-esteem wonders aloud what ignited their interest, she fills me in. Nice. Anyway, back to Denise. "It is different!" Bourge and I exclaimed in unison. She simply shrugged and plowed into her hash browns.
I wrapped up my short visit with a charming dinner at Bouchon, a French restaurant in The Venetian. Afterwards the girls dropped me off at the airport where I boarded my uneventful overnight flight home. If you've been following some of my travel nightmares, you'll understand why uneventful is a blessing. At 7 am ET, I disembarked and boarded another flight from DC to New York. Two rows ahead of me was Senator Ted Kennedy. I was too tired to get really starstruck. I'm impressed for no other reason than his relation to JFK. And I was surprised that he was flying coach. But it's an election year and he's a Democrat. Plus, it was the shuttle from DC to New York, an hour in coach doesn't really count.
Now it's 3am ET and I'm awake because after a really hectic Monday at work, I came home at 6pm and slept until 10:30pm. I know. As usual, I opted for instant gratification over more strategic self-restraint.
