First Trip Back

Vegas was my first trip back to the mainland after moving to Hawaii. All the people around me sounded different, robotic, but with an endearing sense of urgency. That prescribed, presumptuous hospitality. "May I help you?" "Thank you for shopping with us." City people were newly foreign to me. They sounded different and all looked different. Different clothes. I wished I could get pants with such a wide leg. A shirt as well tailored as that. A pair of shoes that would be 'just so.' The whole time I was there I felt I didn't look to strangers as the person I really was on my mushy insides. I wished I could construct myself externally more easily.
Fuck it.
I'll learn to sew and focus on the internal.
Yeah?

Dirty Vegas

Las Vegas is amazingly dirty. Everything is oozing with that wonderful mixed fragrance of alcohol sweat, ashtrays, and pollution stench. I saw a pregnant woman at a slot machine. Everything has rhinestones on it. I'm currently enjoying a view of another dirty hotel and a parking lot through a window smudged and smeared with I-don't-know-what. It's both sick and strangely cool. Tomorrow, after the convention, I venture out off the strip to hunt for a good thrift shop.

I'm here for a national conference for teachers. So far several speakers have tried to motivate me to motivate my students by asking me to pretend I enjoy their presentation, that I am amazed and so jazzed by their smart solutions to minor classroom problems. So much so that I can't hold back an "Oh yeah!" I feel like the only sober audience member of an infomercial, looking around in amazement at everyone's burnt out reflexive over-enthusiasm.

Creepy.

One woman, both weak and energetic, made a sad sad argument about the connection/s between math and science: it consisted only of everyone putting on a latex glove before drawing perpendicular lines over a drawing of the human heart. That's all she had.

Depressing.

My hand smelled like latex all day... Every session I have to introduce myself to my 'neighbors,' say where I teach, and hear "Ohhh waaaaw. You're from Hawaaaiii! She's from Hawaaaiii!"

'Well. I'm not FROM there.' God.

MGM Grand Signature Tower Penthouse Suite!!

I'm in Las Vegas for a Special education conference. When we got to our hotel at 2am they were overbooked so they sent us to the 38th floor of the MGM Grand Signature Tower Suites for one night (for a Grand total of 6 hours). They didn't just send us to the penthouse level, but to the Uber-penthouse level (as you can see in the picture 'UPH'). It's amazing how quickly a girl can spoil.

Clumping Bamboo

Duncan and I took the Gator to the edge of our property to see this giant pit of clumping bamboo. If you look closely you can sort of see Duncan there and get an idea of how huge the bamboo is.

Seizures and the No-Go

At a recent doctor's visit I found out that my medical situation makes a healthy pregnancy highly improbable. If I want to remain seizure free by continuing to take anti-convulsants, there is a very high risk of the most horrifying birth defects. As my seizures are really violent and really long (2-8mins), pregnancy off the anti-convulsants risks serious physical harm to the child. I have other medical difficulties as well, and everything just gets more and more complicated.

Therefore, a no-go.

I guess people deal with this kind of thing all the time.