42 Dreams of Arizona Bay

Vegas is big. Well, the hotels are big. Extravagant. Wasteful. Overblown. Glorious. Gaudy. Overwhelming. The fancier places have shopping areas as large as shopping malls with stores I’ve never heard of. But only because I’m not fashionable. And I can’t afford to shop in these stores. I didn’t go into a single one in the upscale Bellagio or Venetian.

Everything has a theme. Even if you don’t know what it is at first. Our hotel, the Imperial Palace, was not very classy. It was relatively inexpensive, but it was in the middle of a big convention weekend. We knew of at least four conventions in Vegas, and there must’ve been more. And of course, the rates go up during a convention. The Imperial Palace, it turns out, is meant to be vaguely Asian. It took me almost a day to figure that out, between the names of the restaurants and the logo and the crappy decorations in the Tea Room. What threw me off was that their buffet was supposed to be Hawaiian. Throwing me off further was the entertainment. They have celebrity impersonators in the overpriced Legends show. We ran into some impersonators on the way to our room. My dad asked me later, did they look real? I don’t know, I said, I was trying not to look. But no, they didn’t look that good up close. They were kind of scary, in fact. Oh, and apparently, some of the dealers are supposed to be “dealertainers.” The only one I was able to recognize was a guy who looked like a Blues Brother only because he was wearing sunglasses and a hat. But then, I didn’t look much at the dealers, having next to no interest in gambling, and if anything, I was more interested in watching the gamblers.

Vegas is hot. As hot as Fresno. I knew that. My best survival instinct involved going into a shopping center in a hotel for the free air conditioning. That’s how I ended up in the Venetian, sitting on a bench, talking to my dad. Telling him about extravagance and how I might be lost. The water in the fake canal sloshed behind me. A female gondolier sang ethereally as she pushed a bunch of dowdy tourists through. I noticed she had a microphone discreetly attached to better carry the sound.

I can afford nothing. I’m cheap. Every show is expensive. Rides are expensive. I didn’t investigate the price of a cheesy canal ride, though I was secretly fascinated. But people watching is free. I watched people dressed in a wide range. Flabby middle-aged tourists in tacky clothing gab on their way by. There is a younger woman walking with a cane and kitten-heel shoes. Many women wear shoes that are not appropriate for the long hike along the strip. As it gets later, people start dressing fancier and also make me feel very poor. And then I really felt out of place. I did bring a dress, and wore it to a cool club, but I also wore my dependable Birkenstocks because they were comfortable and really didn’t seem out of place with my print dress.

Everyone is visiting. You look like a tourist. You look like a rube. You are looking around in wonder or pretending not to. All the places we went, locals don’t go there unless they work there. And everyone asks: How long are you here for? Is this your first trip? Where are you from?

Two or three miles equals $15. $19 if you include the tip. For a taxi ride that should’ve only taken a couple of minutes, it didn’t. Between traffic and my sneaking suspicion that we could’ve been going a different way, faster, the meter clicked up to $15.40. I sadly did tip math in my head as the meter kept going as we were stuck in traffic for the billionth time. Did I mention I’m cheap? I considered taking a shuttle to another hotel and walking, and I probably would’ve spent a little less money, but I didn’t know anything about how far the walk would be or even where my hotel would be. So I just took the path of least resistance. More expensive but less hassle. I think.

Lights are pretty, but my money is prettier. Even in the classiest of casinos, there’s still a certain, less classy segment encased in neon and noise and spinning slots and people seated around tables. I only spent $1 in a penny slot machine on my way out of the casino. We’d already checked out, in fact. I won a whole dollar, but then I just spent it again. No point in going to the cashier for $1. Incidentally, the hotel charges a phone fee of $1 a day, even if you never touch the phone. So I actually gave the hotel more money for a phone I never used than what I spent in their slots.

Cigarette smoke is jarring after you’ve been away from it so long. I’ll tell anyone who listens that it’s so nice to go almost anywhere in California and not have to smell cigarette smoke. You don’t come away smelling like it after a night at the bar. You might smell like the beer some jerk spilled on your shoes, but you don’t smell like an ashtray. There’s an exception in Indian casinos here. And in Nevada, well, it’s Nevada. You can smoke in any casino to your heart’s content. What is funny is where you can and cannot smoke. You cannot smoke, for instance, while waiting in line to register at the hotel. But you can get a whiff of the cigarette smoke 15 feet away at one of the gaming tables. You cannot smoke in your room (though perhaps there are rooms where you can) but you can smoke at any slot machine. Ashtrays are provided. Smelled smoke in the restaurant we ate breakfast at. But no non-smoking section like in the Midwest.

People really are out at all hours of the night, gambling. I didn’t sleep much before I went to Vegas and got about 10 minutes of nap on the airplane before some hellacious turbulence jolted me awake, disoriented. It was fun, like a 10 foot drop in a roller coaster. So my next opportunity to sleep came when I got to the hotel, after my expensive cab ride. But instead, I read a book. I didn’t get to go to sleep until 9 p.m., and then I crashed like a stock market. I woke up at 11, only to go back to sleep again. I later regretted sleeping all that time, because we could’ve been going back out, having drinks, doing anything. But I slept. And Vegas never sleeps.
I woke up at 4. I was wide awake and raring to go. I wondered if restaurants in the hotel were open 24 hours. Heather doubted it, but we went on a field trip to find out. No, the mainstream places with good food were closed. But there was one 24-hour place we could get breakfast at. So we did.
The people in there looked like they hadn’t slept but were still going strong. I thought they were insane, and I’m a night person. I can only get so much living done in a day and I have to sleep. So I ordered too much breakfast, as I always do. Side orders of biscuits and gravy should be small, right? And I still wanted waffles.
Breakfast weighed on me like a lead brick. I should’ve just gotten one thing. And then we went back up and I went back to sleep for a few more hours.

Out of my element, but still geeked. We went to the Star Trek convention at the Hilton on the other end of the strip. The Hilton also has the Star Trek Experience year-round, but we didn’t go in because we wanted to catch more of the convention and thought we might get to it later. Well, we didn’t. It’s also expensive, so I guess I can save it for next time.
The convention was cool. We came just as Jonathan Frakes (Riker) and Brent Spiner (Data) took the stage. They were hilarious. Spiner, answered, roundaboutly, a question about a dog named Data. And then whether Data was dead. And shared what had to be a totally made-up story about Marina Sirtis’ dog. Ah, who cares? All I learned is that a ton of people have animals named Data. Not that I thought I was original, but it was humbling. I’m also humbled by the people who know absolutely everything about everything Star Trek. I’d like to pretend that I have better things to do with my time, but I don’t. I’m just not dedicated enough, and have geeky interests across the spectrum.

Geeks will spend lots of money. They save lots of money while living in the basement. Old joke, I know. But when you are truly dedicated to this entire universe, it’s easy to get carried away. I will admit that I bought a light switch panel that looks like something from The Next Generation. And I almost lost my mind over some Star Trek glasses we already have. Mostly because I wanted some for insurance for when we break more of ours. And one booth was selling anything from Starfleet Academy engineering degrees to Vulcan land grants. I told the hawker of the Vulcan land grant that I’d love to buy one, but it wasn’t in the budget (at $150!). We take credit cards, he said. Yeah, I bet they do. I saw many things I wanted, but I’m starting to operate on the philosophy of not needing to collect more stuff and contribute needlessly to stuff that just ends up in landfills. It’s a hard thing to follow through on at a Star Trek convention, but I managed to control myself. I didn’t end up with a $2,500 print signed by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. Or even a $50 publicity still signed by one of them. I somehow view it cheating if it wasn’t signed for me.

Klingons are scary. The voices that came out of tall, looming Klingons were less menacing than I thought, but I was still scared of them. I didn’t want to talk to them in case I might be eaten. That, and I’m not up on my Klingon. Other costumes included the Borg Queen, various people in TNG uniforms, Riker and Troi in wedding garb and what had to be the evil Bajoran spiritual leader Kai Winn, only I didn’t ask. The Bajoran actually said nice shirt to me (I was wearing my 42 shirt). Then she asked where my towel was.

42 is the answer to geekiness. Even though this was a Star Trek convention, geeks love many things, and vendors took advantage of that. They sold photos, posters and autographs from all sorts of sci-fi shows. I saw, but didn’t buy, a Don’t Panic shirt. I like my 42 shirt and I think it’s subtle and fun. I got a Doctor Who question mark pin. And … guess who else commented on my 42 shirt? …

Wil Wheaton! I loved Wil’s character Wesley on The Next Generation, and missed him when he left, and was outraged when he got cut to a quick, nonspeaking shot at the end of Nemesis. I loved him in Stand By Me and have been reading his blog for a while. So I knew he was making the trip to the convention, and that in addition to having a reading from his new book, that he’d also be selling it on the vendor floor.
We scoured the place, looking for him. I figured I just didn’t see him. I didn’t want to leave without seeing him. He was half the reason I was there. I really identified with young Wesley, and he seemed to be about my age.
And then we saw him. After a faux pas in misinterpreting a line, we ended up standing in line to get his book. I got to shake hands with him, and he autographed a copy of The Happiest Days of Our Lives.
I floated on air and giggled like a school girl after shaking hands, getting a picture and walking away.
Wil was gracious, funny and treated me like I was the first person he talked to, instead of one in a few hundred.

Well, those are the highlights. I’d like to think I saved the best for last — Wil Wheaton.