I didn't realize that I hadn't posted since November 17. Every time I logged on here in the past month, it was just to keep the account active. I really didn't have much to say. After all, what can be said about job hunting, about trying to change your life for the better, about deciding to write a hell of a lot more this new year than last year? A lot of other people are going through it, too. But it's a challenge. Not in the motivation to find a job, which occupies all my waking thoughts, but in just trying to figure out where I belong, where I can thrive the best. And even then, it's more hope about finding work that not only pays decently enough, but being proud of it every day. And I know many positions that, if I was hired, I'd be proud of my work every single day, because I'd be providing people with something they need, something they want, something to satisfy them, either through work in a supermarket or Trader Joe's, or even the local movie theater. I'm going for everything I can possibly find around me.
And yet it's hard, you know? You worry. You hope you get in somewhere, that someone sees you're good enough to work for them and can help make that business shine. You e-mail different people, fill out different applications, and keep on hoping. You can't stop hoping. As my mom says, you've got to keep plugging away. Something's got to give, something in your favor. I'm hoping that my resume and my pleasant demeanor do that. I'm willing to work. I'm ready to work. My book reviews at BookBrowse, despite being satisfying to me creatively at times, aren't going to pay everything. They're not going to get me the car I eventually need, the health insurance I need, the paychecks I need in order to get some stability that way. But it's part of what I do. Same thing with my writing. I've got a few writing projects I want to start this year, including a short story about a dying pigeon in Boulder City, not to show that Boulder City is a great place to die, but just the peaceful beauty of it, that the pigeon, having lived in Boulder City for his short years, chose a wonderful place to live. And then there's the novel or two I want to work on, as well as a nonfiction book involving Boulder City. But the job search comes first with the writing in between.
So where do I fit in? I want to know. I want to have that relief already that comes with being hired for a job, that you know you're being paid, that you know you can do the work you've been hired today with pride, with satisfaction, with consistent good cheer. I'd have all three for sure. Every day. I just hope it comes soon enough. The sooner the better in order to do good, solid work.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Sunday, November 17, 2013
A Book Found in the Saddle Ranch Chop House Men's Room
It's not something I think about at all, at least not until late this afternoon. My sister's love of cooking and food rubbed off on me only in that I read a lot of food-related books, but not necessarily cookbooks. For example, I'm currently reading Ivan Ramen: Love, Obsession, and Recipes from Tokyo's Most Unlikely Noodle Joint by Ivan Orkin, which is part cookbook in the way of ramen, but only part. However, my sister's interest in restrooms anywhere, everywhere, doesn't burrow that deep into me. It made me think today, though, when we went to Sunset Park, across from McCarran International, in Las Vegas, for the food truck festival they were having.
On the way to the grounds of the park where it was happening, I stopped in the men's restroom on the way because of all the water I had had earlier in the day. Even after a year here, I'm still learning about proper hydration in the desert. Not that I don't drink enough water, but when you're in your apartment most of the week, like I am, in my family's apartment, still searching for work and waiting to see what happens with various possibilities, you don't feel the need for so much water, since you're inside. But today, with all the roads driven and the next possible apartment complex looked at in an older stretch of Henderson, near the historic Water Street--more activity, essentially--I needed more.
While standing at the urinal, doing the expected urinal thing, I started thinking about the restrooms I had been to, inside such casinos as The Cosmopolitan, the MGM Grand, the Mirage, the M Resort in Henderson, Ravella at Lake Las Vegas back when it was Ravella at Lake Las Vegas, and the Hacienda near Boulder City, as well as the restroom at Tire Works, once or twice at Fry's Electronics, and so many others. There are stories in all those places. Not necessarily the restrooms, but I mean the places themselves, the moments before and after that relief, the discoveries you make even when you're just going to the restroom for nature's grand purpose for us in there.
In short, I was reminded of the Saddle Ranch Chop House in Universal City, California, pretty much next to the entrance to Universal Studios Hollywood. We went there in 2009, and I remember the fresh fruit kettle they had available, which looked like a little cauldron, and contained the freshest fruit I had ever had in Southern California. No piece of fruit after that experience ever matched it. I think I had their "Create Your Own Omelette" as well, part of their All Day Ranch Brunch section of their menu.
Now, I have been in restaurants, such as Buffalo Wild Wings, where there are small TVs behind plastic, above the urinals. I think at a Hooters or two, there were sports sections taped up above the urinals. It may have been there, or it may have also been at Buffalo Wild Wings, depending on the location, either here in Henderson or the Buffalo Wild Wings in Palmdale, California. I'm not sure. But I'll never forget what I saw above the urinal at Saddle Ranch Chop House, surprising because of being in Southern California, where books and reading don't always feel like major priorities, if at all.
Above the urinal I was at, there was a small poster for a book called Down at the Docks by Rory Nugent, which intrigued me immediately because the author and I have the same first name. In fact, seeing Nugent's name there inspired me to read all the books by those with my first name. I've yet to make a great dent in that desire, but I will.
Never mind that the book's about New Bedford, Massachusetts, a fishing port in dire straits, not at all wealthy as it used to be. Any subject, written interestingly enough, can capture me all the way through. Plus a Rory wrote it, and therefore I wanted to read it.
I checked it out of the Valencia Library in Santa Clarita, back when I had a library card there, before they cut off connections with the other libraries in Los Angeles County as part of that system, and privatized the three library branches in the valley, forming their own library system. In protest, I refused to get a library card in the new system, but in hindsight, maybe I should have, as it would have made those final years in Santa Clarita easier to bear. It's just like the annual pass to Six Flags Magic Mountain I was thinking of getting year after year, but was told that I shouldn't because we would be moving. But then we didn't. And I thought again of getting the annual pass, but was told the same thing. And then we didn't again. And in hindsight, maybe I should have anyway. Now a year and two months removed from the Santa Clarita Valley, I'm relieved to be out of there, but perhaps I wouldn't have been so scarred by that too-long existence there if I had had the library card and the annual pass.
Anyway, I started Down at the Docks then, but didn't read it all the way through. Not that it wasn't interesting, but other books got in the way. Then after we moved to Las Vegas last year, to the Valley Vista All-Ages Mobile Home Park near Sam's Town, I checked it out of the Whitney Library. Same thing. Other books again.
We've been living in Henderson, in an apartment complex along North Green Valley Parkway, for two months now. And neither of the three major branches of the Henderson District Public Libraries has a copy of Down at the Docks. And I didn't feel like getting it from any of the Las Vegas-Clark County branches because I'm not near any of those libraries anymore and I don't want to ever go back to the rundown Whitney Library, which, in the year I used it, was only a refueling stop for me. I didn't use it for anything else because I never felt comfortable there, what with not only the two security guards on duty at different times walking around often, but also the cops occasionally. It was not in a good neighborhood, but it was the closest to our mobile home park, and therefore the one I went to every Sunday.
So this time, I ordered a copy from abebooks.com at the end of October, cheap enough for $3.95 since I'm still looking for a job, and I fortunately don't buy as many books anymore, since the Green Valley Library is within walking distance, on the same side of the street as my apartment complex. I call it my annex, where I keep my other books.
The copy I ordered was the original hardcover edition, since paperback was a tad pricier, and I always liked the hardcover design more. It came from Blue Cloud Books in Phoenix, Arizona, although when I received it, the return address was somewhere in Oregon. Go figure. But I got it, and that was the important thing, and I had no need to return it anyway. However, when I turned the book over, I had the biggest laugh in quite a while.
Blue Cloud Books. Phoenix, Arizona, Arizona being next door to Nevada, close enough that you can enter Arizona past Hoover Dam and go an hour ahead in their time zone, turn around, drive back across the Nevada border, and you're an hour behind again. You can cross time zones that fast in that part. So yes, I would expect that some books from Nevada would end up with Blue Cloud books. But I didn't expect that it would be a discarded library copy in fine condition, nor that above the barcode on the back, it says "Las Vegas-Clark County Library District." I laughed aloud for a while because this book found its way back to Nevada! It could have gone to Tampa, Florida, or Austin, Texas, or Montpelier, Vermont, but no, it arrived here, back where it had started from.
I don't think I'll get anything quite as funny from my brief stop in the Sunset Park restroom, but it got me thinking about those different moments, thought processes while doing your business. Perhaps not as detailed, but there are those instances such as this one. They don't happen often, but I pay close attention when they do. And I think back to other such pit stops, and there's nothing I can think of that's like this, but there are stories to be mined, possibly short stories. I think part of this interest may also stem from Sam Shepard, one of my heroes. I didn't think of it until just now, just this sentence, but I went to my main bookcase and pulled out Day Out of Days, his latest short story collection from 2010. In it, starting on page 67, is a 2 and a 1/4-page story called "Cracker Barrel Men's Room (Highway 90 West)", a story heard about a man mistakenly locked in the men's room at Cracker Barrel for the night, with Shania Twain songs playing on a loop, driving the man crazy. To me, Shepard is one of the few writers who gets the American West, who can find depth in different parts of the deserts, even when there seems to be nothing there. It's an incredible gift, particularly when you're trying to make sense of it, wanting to know it, wanting to understand it, like I do, and you need a guide. Shepard is my guide.
So maybe Shepard inspired this line of thought. The subconscious brings up things that you don't expect until you're in whatever you're in in a different approach. But I still think it's my sister. Just like she also looks at the back of products to find out where they're from, like I always do, I believe I thought about this closely because of her interest in restrooms. I don't think I would have looked so closely at the opulent detail in the men's room at the Cosmopolitan had it not been for her influence. And you know what? It is pretty interesting. I wonder what I can do with it. I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.
On the way to the grounds of the park where it was happening, I stopped in the men's restroom on the way because of all the water I had had earlier in the day. Even after a year here, I'm still learning about proper hydration in the desert. Not that I don't drink enough water, but when you're in your apartment most of the week, like I am, in my family's apartment, still searching for work and waiting to see what happens with various possibilities, you don't feel the need for so much water, since you're inside. But today, with all the roads driven and the next possible apartment complex looked at in an older stretch of Henderson, near the historic Water Street--more activity, essentially--I needed more.
While standing at the urinal, doing the expected urinal thing, I started thinking about the restrooms I had been to, inside such casinos as The Cosmopolitan, the MGM Grand, the Mirage, the M Resort in Henderson, Ravella at Lake Las Vegas back when it was Ravella at Lake Las Vegas, and the Hacienda near Boulder City, as well as the restroom at Tire Works, once or twice at Fry's Electronics, and so many others. There are stories in all those places. Not necessarily the restrooms, but I mean the places themselves, the moments before and after that relief, the discoveries you make even when you're just going to the restroom for nature's grand purpose for us in there.
In short, I was reminded of the Saddle Ranch Chop House in Universal City, California, pretty much next to the entrance to Universal Studios Hollywood. We went there in 2009, and I remember the fresh fruit kettle they had available, which looked like a little cauldron, and contained the freshest fruit I had ever had in Southern California. No piece of fruit after that experience ever matched it. I think I had their "Create Your Own Omelette" as well, part of their All Day Ranch Brunch section of their menu.
Now, I have been in restaurants, such as Buffalo Wild Wings, where there are small TVs behind plastic, above the urinals. I think at a Hooters or two, there were sports sections taped up above the urinals. It may have been there, or it may have also been at Buffalo Wild Wings, depending on the location, either here in Henderson or the Buffalo Wild Wings in Palmdale, California. I'm not sure. But I'll never forget what I saw above the urinal at Saddle Ranch Chop House, surprising because of being in Southern California, where books and reading don't always feel like major priorities, if at all.
Above the urinal I was at, there was a small poster for a book called Down at the Docks by Rory Nugent, which intrigued me immediately because the author and I have the same first name. In fact, seeing Nugent's name there inspired me to read all the books by those with my first name. I've yet to make a great dent in that desire, but I will.
Never mind that the book's about New Bedford, Massachusetts, a fishing port in dire straits, not at all wealthy as it used to be. Any subject, written interestingly enough, can capture me all the way through. Plus a Rory wrote it, and therefore I wanted to read it.
I checked it out of the Valencia Library in Santa Clarita, back when I had a library card there, before they cut off connections with the other libraries in Los Angeles County as part of that system, and privatized the three library branches in the valley, forming their own library system. In protest, I refused to get a library card in the new system, but in hindsight, maybe I should have, as it would have made those final years in Santa Clarita easier to bear. It's just like the annual pass to Six Flags Magic Mountain I was thinking of getting year after year, but was told that I shouldn't because we would be moving. But then we didn't. And I thought again of getting the annual pass, but was told the same thing. And then we didn't again. And in hindsight, maybe I should have anyway. Now a year and two months removed from the Santa Clarita Valley, I'm relieved to be out of there, but perhaps I wouldn't have been so scarred by that too-long existence there if I had had the library card and the annual pass.
Anyway, I started Down at the Docks then, but didn't read it all the way through. Not that it wasn't interesting, but other books got in the way. Then after we moved to Las Vegas last year, to the Valley Vista All-Ages Mobile Home Park near Sam's Town, I checked it out of the Whitney Library. Same thing. Other books again.
We've been living in Henderson, in an apartment complex along North Green Valley Parkway, for two months now. And neither of the three major branches of the Henderson District Public Libraries has a copy of Down at the Docks. And I didn't feel like getting it from any of the Las Vegas-Clark County branches because I'm not near any of those libraries anymore and I don't want to ever go back to the rundown Whitney Library, which, in the year I used it, was only a refueling stop for me. I didn't use it for anything else because I never felt comfortable there, what with not only the two security guards on duty at different times walking around often, but also the cops occasionally. It was not in a good neighborhood, but it was the closest to our mobile home park, and therefore the one I went to every Sunday.
So this time, I ordered a copy from abebooks.com at the end of October, cheap enough for $3.95 since I'm still looking for a job, and I fortunately don't buy as many books anymore, since the Green Valley Library is within walking distance, on the same side of the street as my apartment complex. I call it my annex, where I keep my other books.
The copy I ordered was the original hardcover edition, since paperback was a tad pricier, and I always liked the hardcover design more. It came from Blue Cloud Books in Phoenix, Arizona, although when I received it, the return address was somewhere in Oregon. Go figure. But I got it, and that was the important thing, and I had no need to return it anyway. However, when I turned the book over, I had the biggest laugh in quite a while.
Blue Cloud Books. Phoenix, Arizona, Arizona being next door to Nevada, close enough that you can enter Arizona past Hoover Dam and go an hour ahead in their time zone, turn around, drive back across the Nevada border, and you're an hour behind again. You can cross time zones that fast in that part. So yes, I would expect that some books from Nevada would end up with Blue Cloud books. But I didn't expect that it would be a discarded library copy in fine condition, nor that above the barcode on the back, it says "Las Vegas-Clark County Library District." I laughed aloud for a while because this book found its way back to Nevada! It could have gone to Tampa, Florida, or Austin, Texas, or Montpelier, Vermont, but no, it arrived here, back where it had started from.
I don't think I'll get anything quite as funny from my brief stop in the Sunset Park restroom, but it got me thinking about those different moments, thought processes while doing your business. Perhaps not as detailed, but there are those instances such as this one. They don't happen often, but I pay close attention when they do. And I think back to other such pit stops, and there's nothing I can think of that's like this, but there are stories to be mined, possibly short stories. I think part of this interest may also stem from Sam Shepard, one of my heroes. I didn't think of it until just now, just this sentence, but I went to my main bookcase and pulled out Day Out of Days, his latest short story collection from 2010. In it, starting on page 67, is a 2 and a 1/4-page story called "Cracker Barrel Men's Room (Highway 90 West)", a story heard about a man mistakenly locked in the men's room at Cracker Barrel for the night, with Shania Twain songs playing on a loop, driving the man crazy. To me, Shepard is one of the few writers who gets the American West, who can find depth in different parts of the deserts, even when there seems to be nothing there. It's an incredible gift, particularly when you're trying to make sense of it, wanting to know it, wanting to understand it, like I do, and you need a guide. Shepard is my guide.
So maybe Shepard inspired this line of thought. The subconscious brings up things that you don't expect until you're in whatever you're in in a different approach. But I still think it's my sister. Just like she also looks at the back of products to find out where they're from, like I always do, I believe I thought about this closely because of her interest in restrooms. I don't think I would have looked so closely at the opulent detail in the men's room at the Cosmopolitan had it not been for her influence. And you know what? It is pretty interesting. I wonder what I can do with it. I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
We Are Still Connected
Sometimes I think of California.
Anaheim. Downtown Disney and parts of Disneyland.
Buena Park. The Buena Park Downtown mall, and the sadly long-defunct Po Folks restaurant, which was one of the very few saving graces of existing in Southern California.
Burbank. IKEA and the Swedish meatballs I fervently wish I could have back, if only the company would build here in Las Vegas, probably on the empty lot near Fry's Electronics in Town Square Las Vegas.
Ventura. Ventura Harbor Village.
And San Juan Capistrano. That small main street drag that once made me think I could live there, especially one or two historical houses with museum components located right next to the railroad track.
Yet, I don't ever want to go back to California. After those nine years, I don't ever want to see it again. I don't want to reconnect to it ever again, not that there ever was a lasting connection, save for the occasional piece of writing, like this one.
But even with that declaration, there still are two connections, though I can ignore the first one as much as possible.
Las Vegas is a weekend playground for many Southern Californians, by dint of us being next door to that region, and the money they spend and lose here is always appreciated, though that's all I choose to know about that. As long as they leave at the end of each weekend, I'm ok with them.
The second connection can't be brushed off so easily, but I don't mind it.
Back in my 19 years in Florida, depending on where you went or lived, there was Deer Park water. Zephyrhills. Names you'd only know in Florida. We have such a thing here in Southern Nevada, but to a more minor extent, alkalized bottled water called Real Water, based in Las Vegas and drawn from the Las Vegas Valley Water District. It's your basic tap water, but alkalized. I tried it once, and it's ok, but not as a regular supply.
Ever since our first year in the Santa Clarita Valley in Southern California, in Valencia, we've drunk Arrowhead Water, which, according to the bottle label I have in front of me, is owned by Nestle Waters North America Inc., based in Stamford, Connecticut. Neither the water in our apartment in Valencia nor our condo in Saugus was ever suitably drinkable to us, and I know we could have gotten a filter, but it was easier this way, rather than the whole matter of buying the filter system, using the filter, changing the filter. And who knows how much the water would have taxed the filter two or three times over? We wanted something reliable and we found it in Arrowhead.
Now that we live in Henderson, we still drink Arrowhead. It's here, since Southern California is next door. It was reliable there and it's reliable here. Same thing with the filter. Easier to do it this way since we know what we're getting with this water. And even with being relatively far away from the parts of Southern California I know, we are still connected to it, though more in a minor sense. Also on the Arrowhead label is this:
"Sources: Southern Pacific Spring, Riverside County, CA; Arrowhead Springs, San Bernardino, CA; Long Point Ranch, Running Springs, CA; Palomar Mountain Granite Springs (PMGS), Palomar, CA; Deer Canyon Springs, San Bernardino, CA and/or Coyote Springs, Inyo County, CA."
I've never been to Palomar. In San Bernardino County, we went to incorporated Hesperia once, for the Golden Corral buffet found there (we're all big fans of Golden Corral, my sister and I having been to it since we were very young in Florida), and to incorporated Victorville, to drive through it on our way to various trips to Las Vegas. Fortunately, that's all over with now since we're here.
We never went to Inyo County. No reason to. Ditto Running Springs, in San Bernardino County.
This is the only daily connection to California that remains. Sometimes I notice it. Sometimes I don't. It's the same way that I sometimes think about the few places in California that I liked. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. And they may end up further in my writing, or they may not. I don't know yet, and I much prefer being this removed from California. The water's better.
Anaheim. Downtown Disney and parts of Disneyland.
Buena Park. The Buena Park Downtown mall, and the sadly long-defunct Po Folks restaurant, which was one of the very few saving graces of existing in Southern California.
Burbank. IKEA and the Swedish meatballs I fervently wish I could have back, if only the company would build here in Las Vegas, probably on the empty lot near Fry's Electronics in Town Square Las Vegas.
Ventura. Ventura Harbor Village.
And San Juan Capistrano. That small main street drag that once made me think I could live there, especially one or two historical houses with museum components located right next to the railroad track.
Yet, I don't ever want to go back to California. After those nine years, I don't ever want to see it again. I don't want to reconnect to it ever again, not that there ever was a lasting connection, save for the occasional piece of writing, like this one.
But even with that declaration, there still are two connections, though I can ignore the first one as much as possible.
Las Vegas is a weekend playground for many Southern Californians, by dint of us being next door to that region, and the money they spend and lose here is always appreciated, though that's all I choose to know about that. As long as they leave at the end of each weekend, I'm ok with them.
The second connection can't be brushed off so easily, but I don't mind it.
Back in my 19 years in Florida, depending on where you went or lived, there was Deer Park water. Zephyrhills. Names you'd only know in Florida. We have such a thing here in Southern Nevada, but to a more minor extent, alkalized bottled water called Real Water, based in Las Vegas and drawn from the Las Vegas Valley Water District. It's your basic tap water, but alkalized. I tried it once, and it's ok, but not as a regular supply.
Ever since our first year in the Santa Clarita Valley in Southern California, in Valencia, we've drunk Arrowhead Water, which, according to the bottle label I have in front of me, is owned by Nestle Waters North America Inc., based in Stamford, Connecticut. Neither the water in our apartment in Valencia nor our condo in Saugus was ever suitably drinkable to us, and I know we could have gotten a filter, but it was easier this way, rather than the whole matter of buying the filter system, using the filter, changing the filter. And who knows how much the water would have taxed the filter two or three times over? We wanted something reliable and we found it in Arrowhead.
Now that we live in Henderson, we still drink Arrowhead. It's here, since Southern California is next door. It was reliable there and it's reliable here. Same thing with the filter. Easier to do it this way since we know what we're getting with this water. And even with being relatively far away from the parts of Southern California I know, we are still connected to it, though more in a minor sense. Also on the Arrowhead label is this:
"Sources: Southern Pacific Spring, Riverside County, CA; Arrowhead Springs, San Bernardino, CA; Long Point Ranch, Running Springs, CA; Palomar Mountain Granite Springs (PMGS), Palomar, CA; Deer Canyon Springs, San Bernardino, CA and/or Coyote Springs, Inyo County, CA."
I've never been to Palomar. In San Bernardino County, we went to incorporated Hesperia once, for the Golden Corral buffet found there (we're all big fans of Golden Corral, my sister and I having been to it since we were very young in Florida), and to incorporated Victorville, to drive through it on our way to various trips to Las Vegas. Fortunately, that's all over with now since we're here.
We never went to Inyo County. No reason to. Ditto Running Springs, in San Bernardino County.
This is the only daily connection to California that remains. Sometimes I notice it. Sometimes I don't. It's the same way that I sometimes think about the few places in California that I liked. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. And they may end up further in my writing, or they may not. I don't know yet, and I much prefer being this removed from California. The water's better.
Monday, September 30, 2013
A Momentary Meeting That Spans a Lifetime
It's usually enough to walk into a casino on the Strip, see crowds of people, and know that the world's big enough. But sometimes, that's not enough of the world. Sometimes you need another person in front of you, asking for directions, to truly see the sheer width of the world, someone you'll never see again. Not that I planned it that way. It was a brief exchange, completely unexpected, which makes for life's most interesting moments.
Yesterday, my family and I went to a consignment store directly across from two runways and various taxiways at McCarran International, which meant that most of the time they were inside, save for when I was needed to give my opinion on a bookcase Meridith wanted for her room (much better than the one she had found at another consignment store, made up of alternating shelves, one above another, one on the right, one slightly above on the left, one slightly above on the right, and so on) or to see a lamp Mom thought appropriate for my room (A three-bookcase set from Macy's Home Store is being delivered on Thursday, and my new, and first, reading chair, from Big's Furniture, is being delivered on Friday), I was outside, watching Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Westjet, Allegiant, Volaris, and other commercial jets take off, as well as many private jets. I was in heaven. My heaven. If the owner of this consignment store would hire me to simply sit on one of his padded, stylish stools outside the store, bringing in people simply by my presence, I would be happy. And in fact, I brought two people in, or at least I think I did. One woman, for example, parked, looked at the store, and asked me if this long length of the store was the entire store, or two separate stores. I replied, "It's the entire store. You'll have to go inside to find out."
But that's not the meeting that inspired this blog entry. An hour passed of Mom, Dad and Meridith looking inside the store, then an hour and fifteen minutes, but I did not mind that at all. I was happy right where I was, and even though the uniform blue and orange and red color scheme of Southwest 737s bore me, I smiled every time I watched the nose gear retract on one of those 737s after take off, and watched the nose gear door close. I love how quickly it closes, and it was the same with the 757s and 767s I saw, as well as the JetBlue A320 and the American Airlines MD-80, which is longer than I remember, but it had been a long time since I had seen one.
An hour and fifteen minutes, maybe. I don't know. I only looked at my watch to see if it was getting closer to the time that a 747-400 might land. There were enough flights coming in from the west coast on the runway on the left side of my view, and planes coming in from the rest of the country on the route that passes over the mobile home park near Sam's Town that I used to live in, and I didn't even know there was a runway that far afield, but there is. I understood where those planes landed after flying over my former mobile home park and then banking. According to the website FlightAware, a British Airways 747-400 landed at McCarran at 7:49 p.m. yesterday evening, long, long after we had left that consignment store, and a Virgin Atlantic 747-400 landed at 2:48 p.m., which was an hour after we had left that consignment store.
As I sat on that stool, watching a lull in the takeoffs, seeing an American Airlines MD-80 get a pushback from the gate, and a Delta flight waiting on the taxiway to head for the left-side runway, a car pulled into the consignment store lot about three spaces from me. A guy got out, short hair, wearing a Motley Crue t-shirt. The car looked new, in better condition than many cars are where we used to live, and about average for our area of Henderson. He came up to me and asked if I could help him, speaking with an accent I couldn't place, but knew right away it wasn't English, it wasn't Irish, it wasn't anywhere in Spain, but it was somewhere in Europe. Czech, maybe? I don't know. I wasn't going to guess, or ask him, because I wanted to learn what he needed help with.
I replied, "Sure, what's up?" and he, not understanding my American vernacular, said, "Yes, thank you," and asked me where the rental car places were.
I wasn't entirely sure. I needed a few seconds to think about it. I knew that he couldn't go back the way he came since that was only more of the field of the airport. It didn't lead to the terminals or Avis or wherever he rented the car. I told him he had to circle the airport the other way and he would eventually find it.
He thanked me and walked away, and as he did, I noticed that the back of his t-shirt heralded "Evening in Hell," which is the name of Motley Crue's residency at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino here. I called out to him and asked him how it was. My fault, because he thought I meant the car and told me it was fine, and I replied, "No, no, I noticed your shirt. How was the show?" He smiled and gave me two thumbs-up. Like wine, Motley Crue does not interest me, but it does help boost our economy, so I wanted to know.
After he left, I thought of two things right away. First, I should have told him to drive past the McCarran Marketplace shopping center, where Walmart is, because passing that, he'll eventually see the digital terminal boards which would tell him where to go. Unfortunately, I remembered that after the fact. And secondly, I'll never see him again. And that amazed me. As he pulled out, I noticed either his wife or his girlfriend was sitting on the passenger side in the front, so I thought that their luggage was probably in the trunk, and they'd return the car and take a shuttle to wherever their terminal was for their flight home, somewhere in Europe. It had to be. I'm sure of that.
Years ago, I met people I've never seen since, like that attractive girl about my age in 1994 when my family and I were at Universal Studios Orlando and there was some kind of juice survey we were invited to take and she was with her family. And there was also Bridget, who I met in line at Kongfrontation on that same day. Brief conversation, and then gone. Just like that. Same with that guy. I'm a little disappointed, because I wanted to know more about him, if it was his first time in Las Vegas, how long he had waited to take this trip, what his first night was like here, and also more about his own home. But it looked like he had to get going, had a flight to catch, so I just told him what he needed to know and he was off. But I also realized one of the blessings of living here, that as transient as it is, and as hard-edged as it can be, you sure do meet a lot of interesting people here, and he was one of them. Silently, I wished him safe travels home. People like him are the reason that Las Vegas continues to exist, that they put money into our economy, but to me, they're more than that. I'm always curious. And I was glad to meet him for that brief moment, to know a little bit about him, including his love of Motley Crue. The world is vast, but with moments like that, it's never boring.
Addendum: Looking at the departures from McCarran on FlightAware in the hours after I saw him, I noticed that there was a Condor Flugdienst (Condor for short, of course) flight to Frankfurt International in Germany at 5:43 p.m. The Boeing 767-300 is still in the air, with 3 hours and 53 minutes to go, for a total flying time of 10 hours and 19 minutes. That could be him, since it was a little past 1 p.m. when we briefly met, and I think it's advised that for international flights, you arrive four hours ahead. There was also a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400 bound for London Gatwick that departed at 5:20 p.m. But I don't think that was him. Everything else before those flights were domestic routes.
Politicians talk about international turmoil and strife all the time, but I wonder if they really mean international turmoil and strife amongst themselves. There I was, a regular guy, an American, talking to possibly a German guy. No problem there. No conflict. Certainly one of the most interesting experiences I've had here of late. I liked the little I knew of him, and I hope for more experiences like that.
Yesterday, my family and I went to a consignment store directly across from two runways and various taxiways at McCarran International, which meant that most of the time they were inside, save for when I was needed to give my opinion on a bookcase Meridith wanted for her room (much better than the one she had found at another consignment store, made up of alternating shelves, one above another, one on the right, one slightly above on the left, one slightly above on the right, and so on) or to see a lamp Mom thought appropriate for my room (A three-bookcase set from Macy's Home Store is being delivered on Thursday, and my new, and first, reading chair, from Big's Furniture, is being delivered on Friday), I was outside, watching Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Westjet, Allegiant, Volaris, and other commercial jets take off, as well as many private jets. I was in heaven. My heaven. If the owner of this consignment store would hire me to simply sit on one of his padded, stylish stools outside the store, bringing in people simply by my presence, I would be happy. And in fact, I brought two people in, or at least I think I did. One woman, for example, parked, looked at the store, and asked me if this long length of the store was the entire store, or two separate stores. I replied, "It's the entire store. You'll have to go inside to find out."
But that's not the meeting that inspired this blog entry. An hour passed of Mom, Dad and Meridith looking inside the store, then an hour and fifteen minutes, but I did not mind that at all. I was happy right where I was, and even though the uniform blue and orange and red color scheme of Southwest 737s bore me, I smiled every time I watched the nose gear retract on one of those 737s after take off, and watched the nose gear door close. I love how quickly it closes, and it was the same with the 757s and 767s I saw, as well as the JetBlue A320 and the American Airlines MD-80, which is longer than I remember, but it had been a long time since I had seen one.
An hour and fifteen minutes, maybe. I don't know. I only looked at my watch to see if it was getting closer to the time that a 747-400 might land. There were enough flights coming in from the west coast on the runway on the left side of my view, and planes coming in from the rest of the country on the route that passes over the mobile home park near Sam's Town that I used to live in, and I didn't even know there was a runway that far afield, but there is. I understood where those planes landed after flying over my former mobile home park and then banking. According to the website FlightAware, a British Airways 747-400 landed at McCarran at 7:49 p.m. yesterday evening, long, long after we had left that consignment store, and a Virgin Atlantic 747-400 landed at 2:48 p.m., which was an hour after we had left that consignment store.
As I sat on that stool, watching a lull in the takeoffs, seeing an American Airlines MD-80 get a pushback from the gate, and a Delta flight waiting on the taxiway to head for the left-side runway, a car pulled into the consignment store lot about three spaces from me. A guy got out, short hair, wearing a Motley Crue t-shirt. The car looked new, in better condition than many cars are where we used to live, and about average for our area of Henderson. He came up to me and asked if I could help him, speaking with an accent I couldn't place, but knew right away it wasn't English, it wasn't Irish, it wasn't anywhere in Spain, but it was somewhere in Europe. Czech, maybe? I don't know. I wasn't going to guess, or ask him, because I wanted to learn what he needed help with.
I replied, "Sure, what's up?" and he, not understanding my American vernacular, said, "Yes, thank you," and asked me where the rental car places were.
I wasn't entirely sure. I needed a few seconds to think about it. I knew that he couldn't go back the way he came since that was only more of the field of the airport. It didn't lead to the terminals or Avis or wherever he rented the car. I told him he had to circle the airport the other way and he would eventually find it.
He thanked me and walked away, and as he did, I noticed that the back of his t-shirt heralded "Evening in Hell," which is the name of Motley Crue's residency at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino here. I called out to him and asked him how it was. My fault, because he thought I meant the car and told me it was fine, and I replied, "No, no, I noticed your shirt. How was the show?" He smiled and gave me two thumbs-up. Like wine, Motley Crue does not interest me, but it does help boost our economy, so I wanted to know.
After he left, I thought of two things right away. First, I should have told him to drive past the McCarran Marketplace shopping center, where Walmart is, because passing that, he'll eventually see the digital terminal boards which would tell him where to go. Unfortunately, I remembered that after the fact. And secondly, I'll never see him again. And that amazed me. As he pulled out, I noticed either his wife or his girlfriend was sitting on the passenger side in the front, so I thought that their luggage was probably in the trunk, and they'd return the car and take a shuttle to wherever their terminal was for their flight home, somewhere in Europe. It had to be. I'm sure of that.
Years ago, I met people I've never seen since, like that attractive girl about my age in 1994 when my family and I were at Universal Studios Orlando and there was some kind of juice survey we were invited to take and she was with her family. And there was also Bridget, who I met in line at Kongfrontation on that same day. Brief conversation, and then gone. Just like that. Same with that guy. I'm a little disappointed, because I wanted to know more about him, if it was his first time in Las Vegas, how long he had waited to take this trip, what his first night was like here, and also more about his own home. But it looked like he had to get going, had a flight to catch, so I just told him what he needed to know and he was off. But I also realized one of the blessings of living here, that as transient as it is, and as hard-edged as it can be, you sure do meet a lot of interesting people here, and he was one of them. Silently, I wished him safe travels home. People like him are the reason that Las Vegas continues to exist, that they put money into our economy, but to me, they're more than that. I'm always curious. And I was glad to meet him for that brief moment, to know a little bit about him, including his love of Motley Crue. The world is vast, but with moments like that, it's never boring.
Addendum: Looking at the departures from McCarran on FlightAware in the hours after I saw him, I noticed that there was a Condor Flugdienst (Condor for short, of course) flight to Frankfurt International in Germany at 5:43 p.m. The Boeing 767-300 is still in the air, with 3 hours and 53 minutes to go, for a total flying time of 10 hours and 19 minutes. That could be him, since it was a little past 1 p.m. when we briefly met, and I think it's advised that for international flights, you arrive four hours ahead. There was also a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400 bound for London Gatwick that departed at 5:20 p.m. But I don't think that was him. Everything else before those flights were domestic routes.
Politicians talk about international turmoil and strife all the time, but I wonder if they really mean international turmoil and strife amongst themselves. There I was, a regular guy, an American, talking to possibly a German guy. No problem there. No conflict. Certainly one of the most interesting experiences I've had here of late. I liked the little I knew of him, and I hope for more experiences like that.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Still Here
Still here. Still living. Still in Southern Nevada, this time a resident of Henderson for two weeks now. I should write more, and I will, eventually. Nothing's keeping me from it. I'm just exploring my new home, figuring out what to write about it, what to wonder about, what to exclaim about, what to think deeply about. There's a lot, and it will all come soon. Actually, it feels easier writing here than it was when I wrote in the mobile home park in Las Vegas. Life feels easier here, even while still waiting for a job to come, even as I continue to send out resumes. It's a little worrisome, but it doesn't poke at me constantly. It's because of this place, this apartment complex, this neighborhood, the fact that the Green Valley Library is on the same side of the street as this apartment complex, and I've walked there and back twice in two weeks and loved it both times.
More to come soon.
More to come soon.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Omnibuses Versus Regular Books
I don't feel comfortable with omnibuses, related novels or works put together in one or more whale-sized volumes. I don't like hefting 700+ pages to get to favorite scenes. It makes books feel weightier than they need to be. They should be balloons, not anvils. I realized this while on page 144 of More Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin, the second of his celebrated masterwork series, this paperback edition a Harper Perennial 2007 reissue.
I love the Tales of the City series, knowing Mary Ann Singleton, Brian Hawkins, Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, Mona Ramsey, and, of course, Anna Madrigal, the grand lighthouse landlord of 28 Barbary Lane. In fact, with two weeks left before my family and I move to our new home, a neighborly, pleasant, peaceful forest of an apartment complex in Henderson, I've checked out of the Whitney Library the bulk of the Tales of the City series to reread them and decide which ones I want to buy for my permanent book collection after we move. My widescreen TV is becoming the living room TV because I want bookcases in my room once and for all, and the Tales of the City series should be part of that.
I don't like omnibuses because they clump stories together in a mass. An introductory page does separate each novel, but you're holding the previous novel while you're reading the next novel. I understand the convenience of referencing a scene from a previous novel that relates to a current novel, but it's not for me. If I want to check something in the previous novel, I can dig into my collection and pick it up, on its own. Every book needs its own space, its own mass.
Back in Santa Clarita in May of 2012, I bought an enormous book containing the first three Tales of the City novels: Tales of the City, More Tales of the City, and Further Tales of the City. I had been thinking about the series again, as happens many times a year, and I wanted to spend some time in that San Francisco again. So there I was, with those three novels, and I enjoyed the experience as I always have, but I didn't feel entirely comfortable. It was because of that book. I wanted Mary Ann and Brian and Michael separate from those different times in their lives, not those times pressed so close to each other.
Yes, compared to omnibuses, the separate novels take up more space on a bookshelf, but there's such deep, harmonious pleasure in looking at those novels, proud to know they are yours, thinking about which one to read again. But there are exceptions. I have huge volumes of all of Neil Simon's plays, and I'm happy to have his genius comedy and wit all together. And it feels right to have all of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novels together too in The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The universe is awfully vast, and that book makes it look slightly more manageable, but only just.
I bought Tales of the City two weeks ago for my permanent collection. That has to be with me. And I reread Michael Tolliver Lives and Mary Ann in Autumn, the latest two installments, around the same time as I bought Tales of the City. Those are on my list to buy after I move. And maybe I will end up buying the entire series. But I want to be absolutely sure. I also want the pleasure of visiting with these wonderful people again.
I love the Tales of the City series, knowing Mary Ann Singleton, Brian Hawkins, Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, Mona Ramsey, and, of course, Anna Madrigal, the grand lighthouse landlord of 28 Barbary Lane. In fact, with two weeks left before my family and I move to our new home, a neighborly, pleasant, peaceful forest of an apartment complex in Henderson, I've checked out of the Whitney Library the bulk of the Tales of the City series to reread them and decide which ones I want to buy for my permanent book collection after we move. My widescreen TV is becoming the living room TV because I want bookcases in my room once and for all, and the Tales of the City series should be part of that.
I don't like omnibuses because they clump stories together in a mass. An introductory page does separate each novel, but you're holding the previous novel while you're reading the next novel. I understand the convenience of referencing a scene from a previous novel that relates to a current novel, but it's not for me. If I want to check something in the previous novel, I can dig into my collection and pick it up, on its own. Every book needs its own space, its own mass.
Back in Santa Clarita in May of 2012, I bought an enormous book containing the first three Tales of the City novels: Tales of the City, More Tales of the City, and Further Tales of the City. I had been thinking about the series again, as happens many times a year, and I wanted to spend some time in that San Francisco again. So there I was, with those three novels, and I enjoyed the experience as I always have, but I didn't feel entirely comfortable. It was because of that book. I wanted Mary Ann and Brian and Michael separate from those different times in their lives, not those times pressed so close to each other.
Yes, compared to omnibuses, the separate novels take up more space on a bookshelf, but there's such deep, harmonious pleasure in looking at those novels, proud to know they are yours, thinking about which one to read again. But there are exceptions. I have huge volumes of all of Neil Simon's plays, and I'm happy to have his genius comedy and wit all together. And it feels right to have all of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novels together too in The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The universe is awfully vast, and that book makes it look slightly more manageable, but only just.
I bought Tales of the City two weeks ago for my permanent collection. That has to be with me. And I reread Michael Tolliver Lives and Mary Ann in Autumn, the latest two installments, around the same time as I bought Tales of the City. Those are on my list to buy after I move. And maybe I will end up buying the entire series. But I want to be absolutely sure. I also want the pleasure of visiting with these wonderful people again.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Wandering in Primm
Tonight, I'm at the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas in Primm, directly on the Nevada-California border.
Well, I'm not actually there. Depending on what I'm doing on a given evening, usually when I'm writing, I go to different places in my mind: The Nevada Room and then the fiction section at the Boulder City Library, the Student Union at UNLV, the World Literature section at Lied Library at UNLV, downtown Henderson which is also known as Water Street, the main drag of Boulder City, the Cosmopolitan on the Strip, and even back into my past, such as the shopping center across from Grand Palms in Pembroke Pines, Florida that included a Winn-Dixie and Regal Westfork Plaza 13, as well as the Fashion Bug store that Meridith loved, but which is now sadly gone, just like the one here in Las Vegas.
Tonight, having finished the freelance writing newsletter for which I compile job listings, I'm feeling slow. Not lazy. Just slow. I've got a few details I could research for one of the plays I want to write, but I sit here watching clips from The Hunt for Red October on YouTube, one of the most intelligent thrillers ever made. It's not because I don't want to write this play; it's just one of those nights, especially with the vastly uncomfortable heat in this desert, which has become even more relentless. I don't think I'll get used to it, but next year, I hope to be able to at least tolerate it. And with the heavy rain that roared in last night and Friday night, what can we expect tonight? Anything? I hope not. I'd like to not have to shut down the computer yet again while jagged lightning flashes outside.
Oh, I could finish At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon, the first in the Mitford Years series, which I previously read in September 2010, but apparently hadn't paid as much attention to it as I am now. I'm certainly enjoying it more than I did then. Plus, I want to see what the rest of the series is like. But I'm not quite there yet, to get off the computer just yet and finish it. Nor do I feel like stocking the new 400-slot DVD binder I bought from Fry's yesterday. I had to because yet again, I don't want to haul in moving boxes more DVD cases with the DVDs in them. I don't need the cases. I know what these DVDs are about.
And strangely, I don't feel like going back to the first season of Boston Legal yet, which I checked out from the library, along with two canvas bags full of books, including A Light in the Window, the second in the Mitford Years series. And two books about President Reagan are in there too because it's presidential history, and I like to skip around. Lately, I've been reading about Harry S. Truman. Not wanting to continue just yet with Boston Legal is strange because I could listen to James Spader do great honor to the English language for hours on end, even to the end of time. I love listening to him talk and I proudly place him as one of my major inspirations whenever I'm feeling blah about my writing. Him, and Tony Kushner's screenplay for Lincoln lately, the reason I bought the movie on DVD and the published screenplay. My favorite character in that? The lobbyist W.N. Bilbo, played by...James Spader.
Whenever I go somewhere in my mind, it's just me. No one else. Wherever I go is empty. I haven't felt like writing anything lately because some of the days blend into each other pleasantly here, and what do I pick out first? Or, rather, do I pick anything out or just let the entire block push through, looking ahead to the days following? I've been to Ellis Island twice this month, nothing unusual, just the usual $5 in free slot play, the disappointment being that on my latest visit, someone was on "Montezuma," my new favorite slot machine and would not get off, judging by them playing 40 lines at a time, their takeout boxes from either the barbecue restaurant or the cafe sitting on an adjacent swivel chair. With the $5 in free slot play, I play 90% for pleasure and 10% for more money. My favorite there used to be "Coyote Moon," which remains my favorite slot machine overall, but being that they took out the machine that was the friendliest in payouts and left the one that's tighter than a prostitute's first day, it's not as fun because there was a flow to the other one I liked. Even if I wasn't poised to win a couple bucks, it at least let the bonus round come a little more often so I could watch the coyote approach the campfire near the Indian blanket and crouch down when the fire sparked up with the message about the spirits giving me 5 free spins. I always hoped I'd win the bonus round because the graphic there was the coyote watching the shooting star before the reveal of how many credits were won, and then throwing back its head and howling. I love that.
"Montezuma" is my new favorite there because of the theming, which is not IGT, my favorite slot machine company, this time. It's Williams, which used to make pinball machines before deciding that slot machines would now be more profitable. Aztec theming, with temples and feathered headdresses and eagles and gold. I love this one because as the roulette-like wheels that indicate the forthcoming bonus round come up, there's a drum boom that sounds and the machine vibrates. I love that drum boom, as well as the Aztec music that plays during the bonus round, although I wish it would play throughout the entire game. There's no music during regular play, not like there is with "Coyote Moon." That's my only problem with "Montezuma," but I can just sit at that machine and stare at the theming and imagine different stories, or even use it to think about my own writing. That's really my only motivation for playing slot machines anymore, and even so, I don't use my own money if possible, such as with that $5 in free slot play. Only if it's a machine that I absolutely must play and there haven't been those in quite a few months. When you're a tourist, gamble all you like. But when you're a resident, you can't keep up the same tempo. It's taxing on the energy and wallet, and if you don't keep a regular schedule of some kind or have strong aims for what you want to do in your life, this city will eat you up. It nearly did me when we first moved here in September and there were those first five nights sleeping on the floor, when we moved in and before our custom-made mattresses were delivered.
Ok, so maybe there are things to write about even when the days blend into each other. After all, if you can't find anything to write about in Las Vegas, quit. It's not that I can't find anything to write about, but I haven't felt that driving need lately. So I wander. Let's wander.
One side of the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas has a red, wavy metal sign that juts out steeply in the middle, like a flag flapping and then freezing mid-flap. The letters for "Fashion Outlet" undulate on it.
To the right of that sign, almost poking into its doorway, is the Welcome to Las Vegas center, with guidebooks and ads and flyers and history all around in framed pictures, and people there who have either lived in Las Vegas for a very long time or have lived there all their lives, which is how it was when we went back here two months after we moved to Las Vegas. To me, it's closed tonight because I can't top the guy I met behind the counter who not only knew so much about Las Vegas because he was a native, but he remembered the UNLV basketball team when it was coached by Jerry Tarkanian, who led it to a national title. What Las Vegan wouldn't remember that? But then, this guy was clearly into his city, and not just for the sake of a paycheck. You can tell who's really interested and who's not when they talk about Las Vegas, and this guy was, going all the way back in its history through our conversation. Besides, in these wanderings, I walk alone.
Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas is closed, but all the lights remain on, and select stores are still open for me to peek into. Pass the Welcome to Las Vegas Center, and you find the entrance that my family and I have used the times we've come here. Walk in, and you find that it's in-the-round. Start in one spot, walk all the way around, and you'll return to that exact spot.
To the left is Williams-Sonoma Marketplace, the discount outlet for the chain, and it's open for me because I want to see if they have any new mustard. I love mustard and I still want to write extensively about it. Plus I like to see if there are any interesting condiments. The only thing I have with me, though, are quarters, and those are for the food court. No mustard I haven't seen before anyway, but I hope they get something new in, being that they're on the Nevada-California border, and that invites a lot of interesting possibilities.
Walking out of Williams-Sonoma Marketplace, I notice again the shiny grayish flooring, which actually doesn't mar the mixed-up style this mall has. There are tall electric lampposts throughout, right inside! And the floors are nothing more than utilitarian. After it closes for the night, it's an easy buffering, ready for foot traffic again. Who comes out this far? You'd be surprised, but since there are so many bargains here, they come, by car, by hotel shuttle, by bus, by taxi. People stop by on the way in from California, like we once or twice.
If I go to the left now, I pass Coach and Tommy Bahama and Cole Haan and the Gap Outlet, and I eventually hit the entrance to the Primm Valley Resort & Casino, which is not where I want to be. But if I go to the right, I reach the food court and the arcade buried inside it.
So I take a right. And I pass by that entrance, which has, on each side, huge swimsuited statues of a man and a woman holding up white globes. Then the Banana Republic Factory Store (bargains for everyone, as you see), and Fossil, Inc., the Old Navy Outlet, Le Creuset, the Ann Taylor Factory, and so on. There's no straight line here. It curves. And it eventually leads to the food court, which includes Subway, Villa Fresh Italian Kitchen (which never looks so fresh), Hot Dog on a Stick, Kelly's Cajun Grill, and the family favorite, Tea Zone, which offers all kinds of boba teas and smoothies and slushes. To the right of that, a little further, in a near-cubbyhole next to the restrooms is the arcade. There's a basketball throw game and a racing game which may be The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, but I don't remember, so that's what it will be until the next time I actually go back.
Against the left wall, in the back is one of those Namco arcade machines that offers, together, Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga, my Valhalla. This is the reason for the quarters. This machine is far better maintained than the one at the Pinball Hall of Fame and thus far the only reliable one I can find in Southern Nevada. This is the one on which I finally got past level 10 after losing there every single time. I worship this machine for that and also because I love playing this. I love coming up with potential reasons for this alien bug invasion in outer space, or where they come from, or what kind of war this is. I always wonder.
A couple of games, 20 or 30, since I also have unlimited energy in these mental wanderings, and I go out to the food court to sit down for a bit and enjoy the peace. I wish there was a library here, which I know is impossible because it's a tourist attraction. I don't think I could live here, and it's a bit of a drive so it can't be done as often, but if they had a library with deep enough armchairs, with one always reserved for me, I'd go for it because there is a shuddering kind of peace in Primm. There is such transition because of the Nevada-California border, people coming and going, people shopping on the way in and shopping on the way out, people you might never see again, and you probably won't. It's a bit of a jolt at times, but then things always settle. You wander through this shopping experience--and yes, I consider it an experience--and you can browse with ease because it strikes a kind of balance between high-end shopping and then shopping for the rest of us. There are the ritzy kind of stores and then there's the Viva Vegas souvenir store, where I like to be, to see if they have any worthwhile shirts and magnets. The last time we went, no. But when I went to the Viva Vegas store at Las Vegas Premium Outlets South, I found a magnet with the Cosmopolitan on it, and you bet I bought that. I'll bet the next time I actually go to Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, I'll find that same magnet there.
I get up from the table at the food court, and walk back the way I came. I don't need the Discount Smoke Shop, or Wilsons Leather Outlet, or Bauer Fashion Eyewear, or Silver Post, or even Crocs. I could go to the Character Outlet Gift Shop just off the food court, but they don't lean as heavily toward Disney stuff as the Character Depot in Las Vegas Premium Outlet South's annex property, on the same land. The last time I went there, I found a gray Walt Disney World t-shirt with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, Daisy, and Pluto in front of Cinderella Castle, and Tinker Bell above, and naturally it had to be mine. The time before that, it was the Tron: Legacy junior novelization and a sticker book that included a sticker of Kevin Flynn, which, to me, was a sticker of Jeff Bridges, one of my heroes, and where else would I find a sticker of Jeff Bridges? I don't think I can wait for the The Mirror Has Two Faces sticker book, after all.
This is the end of my time here. I've done what I've come to do. Just down the street, adjacent to the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, is the Primm Valley Lotto Store. Since there is no lottery in Nevada, this is just a whisper across the border in California. In fact, here's something really cool to do: Stop your car just past the stop sign on the way into the parking lot, or on the way out, if you want. Your back tires will be in California. Your front tires will be in Nevada. Or just get out of your car after you park and do the same with your feet. Doing it at Hoover Dam, one foot in Nevada, one foot in Arizona, is cool, too, but you're at the Lotto Store. It's not as large, but it is quick. Back in May, when the Mega Millions jackpot was $600 million, a lot of people did just that, though further back, as the line to buy those tickets was monstrous.
Now I'm back in this living room, in this mobile home, eight miles from the Strip, and 44 miles from Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas. It's not like going back to boredom after having so much fun, like it was going back to the Santa Clarita Valley from anywhere during those years. Everything is interesting in Las Vegas, even the small things, because they may portend a bigger, more detailed story. However, I don't go to Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas as often in my mind as I do the Nevada Room at the Boulder City Library, or the main drag of Boulder City, especially the half-bowl-shaped park located beneath the Bureau of Reclamation building, or the UNLV campus. You'd think my love of Galaga would trigger more visits, but there are still a whole lot of books in the Nevada Room that I haven't read yet, still a lot of titles to linger over. And, when I need to write, what better peace for it? But I still do appreciate Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, because I'm not like my parents, who went between Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York so easily. I never knew close borders like that when I lived in Florida. That's why that Nevada-California border is so fascinating to me. California's jurisdiction ends right there, and Nevada's begins. Just like that, just by that border marked so with those signs. It isn't just how smooth the roads quickly get when you drive into Nevada, though that does show an interesting difference in state governments. It's that there is my past, and here is my present and my future, so close together. I will not revisit that past by going back, but whenever we're at Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, I like to look out at California, relieved that that part of my life is over, that there is no such thing as boredom here in Southern Nevada. There is always something to see, something to hear, something to smell, something to taste, something to touch, something to know. And then the stories come. And the mental journeys begin again.
Well, I'm not actually there. Depending on what I'm doing on a given evening, usually when I'm writing, I go to different places in my mind: The Nevada Room and then the fiction section at the Boulder City Library, the Student Union at UNLV, the World Literature section at Lied Library at UNLV, downtown Henderson which is also known as Water Street, the main drag of Boulder City, the Cosmopolitan on the Strip, and even back into my past, such as the shopping center across from Grand Palms in Pembroke Pines, Florida that included a Winn-Dixie and Regal Westfork Plaza 13, as well as the Fashion Bug store that Meridith loved, but which is now sadly gone, just like the one here in Las Vegas.
Tonight, having finished the freelance writing newsletter for which I compile job listings, I'm feeling slow. Not lazy. Just slow. I've got a few details I could research for one of the plays I want to write, but I sit here watching clips from The Hunt for Red October on YouTube, one of the most intelligent thrillers ever made. It's not because I don't want to write this play; it's just one of those nights, especially with the vastly uncomfortable heat in this desert, which has become even more relentless. I don't think I'll get used to it, but next year, I hope to be able to at least tolerate it. And with the heavy rain that roared in last night and Friday night, what can we expect tonight? Anything? I hope not. I'd like to not have to shut down the computer yet again while jagged lightning flashes outside.
Oh, I could finish At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon, the first in the Mitford Years series, which I previously read in September 2010, but apparently hadn't paid as much attention to it as I am now. I'm certainly enjoying it more than I did then. Plus, I want to see what the rest of the series is like. But I'm not quite there yet, to get off the computer just yet and finish it. Nor do I feel like stocking the new 400-slot DVD binder I bought from Fry's yesterday. I had to because yet again, I don't want to haul in moving boxes more DVD cases with the DVDs in them. I don't need the cases. I know what these DVDs are about.
And strangely, I don't feel like going back to the first season of Boston Legal yet, which I checked out from the library, along with two canvas bags full of books, including A Light in the Window, the second in the Mitford Years series. And two books about President Reagan are in there too because it's presidential history, and I like to skip around. Lately, I've been reading about Harry S. Truman. Not wanting to continue just yet with Boston Legal is strange because I could listen to James Spader do great honor to the English language for hours on end, even to the end of time. I love listening to him talk and I proudly place him as one of my major inspirations whenever I'm feeling blah about my writing. Him, and Tony Kushner's screenplay for Lincoln lately, the reason I bought the movie on DVD and the published screenplay. My favorite character in that? The lobbyist W.N. Bilbo, played by...James Spader.
Whenever I go somewhere in my mind, it's just me. No one else. Wherever I go is empty. I haven't felt like writing anything lately because some of the days blend into each other pleasantly here, and what do I pick out first? Or, rather, do I pick anything out or just let the entire block push through, looking ahead to the days following? I've been to Ellis Island twice this month, nothing unusual, just the usual $5 in free slot play, the disappointment being that on my latest visit, someone was on "Montezuma," my new favorite slot machine and would not get off, judging by them playing 40 lines at a time, their takeout boxes from either the barbecue restaurant or the cafe sitting on an adjacent swivel chair. With the $5 in free slot play, I play 90% for pleasure and 10% for more money. My favorite there used to be "Coyote Moon," which remains my favorite slot machine overall, but being that they took out the machine that was the friendliest in payouts and left the one that's tighter than a prostitute's first day, it's not as fun because there was a flow to the other one I liked. Even if I wasn't poised to win a couple bucks, it at least let the bonus round come a little more often so I could watch the coyote approach the campfire near the Indian blanket and crouch down when the fire sparked up with the message about the spirits giving me 5 free spins. I always hoped I'd win the bonus round because the graphic there was the coyote watching the shooting star before the reveal of how many credits were won, and then throwing back its head and howling. I love that.
"Montezuma" is my new favorite there because of the theming, which is not IGT, my favorite slot machine company, this time. It's Williams, which used to make pinball machines before deciding that slot machines would now be more profitable. Aztec theming, with temples and feathered headdresses and eagles and gold. I love this one because as the roulette-like wheels that indicate the forthcoming bonus round come up, there's a drum boom that sounds and the machine vibrates. I love that drum boom, as well as the Aztec music that plays during the bonus round, although I wish it would play throughout the entire game. There's no music during regular play, not like there is with "Coyote Moon." That's my only problem with "Montezuma," but I can just sit at that machine and stare at the theming and imagine different stories, or even use it to think about my own writing. That's really my only motivation for playing slot machines anymore, and even so, I don't use my own money if possible, such as with that $5 in free slot play. Only if it's a machine that I absolutely must play and there haven't been those in quite a few months. When you're a tourist, gamble all you like. But when you're a resident, you can't keep up the same tempo. It's taxing on the energy and wallet, and if you don't keep a regular schedule of some kind or have strong aims for what you want to do in your life, this city will eat you up. It nearly did me when we first moved here in September and there were those first five nights sleeping on the floor, when we moved in and before our custom-made mattresses were delivered.
Ok, so maybe there are things to write about even when the days blend into each other. After all, if you can't find anything to write about in Las Vegas, quit. It's not that I can't find anything to write about, but I haven't felt that driving need lately. So I wander. Let's wander.
One side of the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas has a red, wavy metal sign that juts out steeply in the middle, like a flag flapping and then freezing mid-flap. The letters for "Fashion Outlet" undulate on it.
To the right of that sign, almost poking into its doorway, is the Welcome to Las Vegas center, with guidebooks and ads and flyers and history all around in framed pictures, and people there who have either lived in Las Vegas for a very long time or have lived there all their lives, which is how it was when we went back here two months after we moved to Las Vegas. To me, it's closed tonight because I can't top the guy I met behind the counter who not only knew so much about Las Vegas because he was a native, but he remembered the UNLV basketball team when it was coached by Jerry Tarkanian, who led it to a national title. What Las Vegan wouldn't remember that? But then, this guy was clearly into his city, and not just for the sake of a paycheck. You can tell who's really interested and who's not when they talk about Las Vegas, and this guy was, going all the way back in its history through our conversation. Besides, in these wanderings, I walk alone.
Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas is closed, but all the lights remain on, and select stores are still open for me to peek into. Pass the Welcome to Las Vegas Center, and you find the entrance that my family and I have used the times we've come here. Walk in, and you find that it's in-the-round. Start in one spot, walk all the way around, and you'll return to that exact spot.
To the left is Williams-Sonoma Marketplace, the discount outlet for the chain, and it's open for me because I want to see if they have any new mustard. I love mustard and I still want to write extensively about it. Plus I like to see if there are any interesting condiments. The only thing I have with me, though, are quarters, and those are for the food court. No mustard I haven't seen before anyway, but I hope they get something new in, being that they're on the Nevada-California border, and that invites a lot of interesting possibilities.
Walking out of Williams-Sonoma Marketplace, I notice again the shiny grayish flooring, which actually doesn't mar the mixed-up style this mall has. There are tall electric lampposts throughout, right inside! And the floors are nothing more than utilitarian. After it closes for the night, it's an easy buffering, ready for foot traffic again. Who comes out this far? You'd be surprised, but since there are so many bargains here, they come, by car, by hotel shuttle, by bus, by taxi. People stop by on the way in from California, like we once or twice.
If I go to the left now, I pass Coach and Tommy Bahama and Cole Haan and the Gap Outlet, and I eventually hit the entrance to the Primm Valley Resort & Casino, which is not where I want to be. But if I go to the right, I reach the food court and the arcade buried inside it.
So I take a right. And I pass by that entrance, which has, on each side, huge swimsuited statues of a man and a woman holding up white globes. Then the Banana Republic Factory Store (bargains for everyone, as you see), and Fossil, Inc., the Old Navy Outlet, Le Creuset, the Ann Taylor Factory, and so on. There's no straight line here. It curves. And it eventually leads to the food court, which includes Subway, Villa Fresh Italian Kitchen (which never looks so fresh), Hot Dog on a Stick, Kelly's Cajun Grill, and the family favorite, Tea Zone, which offers all kinds of boba teas and smoothies and slushes. To the right of that, a little further, in a near-cubbyhole next to the restrooms is the arcade. There's a basketball throw game and a racing game which may be The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, but I don't remember, so that's what it will be until the next time I actually go back.
Against the left wall, in the back is one of those Namco arcade machines that offers, together, Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga, my Valhalla. This is the reason for the quarters. This machine is far better maintained than the one at the Pinball Hall of Fame and thus far the only reliable one I can find in Southern Nevada. This is the one on which I finally got past level 10 after losing there every single time. I worship this machine for that and also because I love playing this. I love coming up with potential reasons for this alien bug invasion in outer space, or where they come from, or what kind of war this is. I always wonder.
A couple of games, 20 or 30, since I also have unlimited energy in these mental wanderings, and I go out to the food court to sit down for a bit and enjoy the peace. I wish there was a library here, which I know is impossible because it's a tourist attraction. I don't think I could live here, and it's a bit of a drive so it can't be done as often, but if they had a library with deep enough armchairs, with one always reserved for me, I'd go for it because there is a shuddering kind of peace in Primm. There is such transition because of the Nevada-California border, people coming and going, people shopping on the way in and shopping on the way out, people you might never see again, and you probably won't. It's a bit of a jolt at times, but then things always settle. You wander through this shopping experience--and yes, I consider it an experience--and you can browse with ease because it strikes a kind of balance between high-end shopping and then shopping for the rest of us. There are the ritzy kind of stores and then there's the Viva Vegas souvenir store, where I like to be, to see if they have any worthwhile shirts and magnets. The last time we went, no. But when I went to the Viva Vegas store at Las Vegas Premium Outlets South, I found a magnet with the Cosmopolitan on it, and you bet I bought that. I'll bet the next time I actually go to Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, I'll find that same magnet there.
I get up from the table at the food court, and walk back the way I came. I don't need the Discount Smoke Shop, or Wilsons Leather Outlet, or Bauer Fashion Eyewear, or Silver Post, or even Crocs. I could go to the Character Outlet Gift Shop just off the food court, but they don't lean as heavily toward Disney stuff as the Character Depot in Las Vegas Premium Outlet South's annex property, on the same land. The last time I went there, I found a gray Walt Disney World t-shirt with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, Daisy, and Pluto in front of Cinderella Castle, and Tinker Bell above, and naturally it had to be mine. The time before that, it was the Tron: Legacy junior novelization and a sticker book that included a sticker of Kevin Flynn, which, to me, was a sticker of Jeff Bridges, one of my heroes, and where else would I find a sticker of Jeff Bridges? I don't think I can wait for the The Mirror Has Two Faces sticker book, after all.
This is the end of my time here. I've done what I've come to do. Just down the street, adjacent to the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, is the Primm Valley Lotto Store. Since there is no lottery in Nevada, this is just a whisper across the border in California. In fact, here's something really cool to do: Stop your car just past the stop sign on the way into the parking lot, or on the way out, if you want. Your back tires will be in California. Your front tires will be in Nevada. Or just get out of your car after you park and do the same with your feet. Doing it at Hoover Dam, one foot in Nevada, one foot in Arizona, is cool, too, but you're at the Lotto Store. It's not as large, but it is quick. Back in May, when the Mega Millions jackpot was $600 million, a lot of people did just that, though further back, as the line to buy those tickets was monstrous.
Now I'm back in this living room, in this mobile home, eight miles from the Strip, and 44 miles from Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas. It's not like going back to boredom after having so much fun, like it was going back to the Santa Clarita Valley from anywhere during those years. Everything is interesting in Las Vegas, even the small things, because they may portend a bigger, more detailed story. However, I don't go to Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas as often in my mind as I do the Nevada Room at the Boulder City Library, or the main drag of Boulder City, especially the half-bowl-shaped park located beneath the Bureau of Reclamation building, or the UNLV campus. You'd think my love of Galaga would trigger more visits, but there are still a whole lot of books in the Nevada Room that I haven't read yet, still a lot of titles to linger over. And, when I need to write, what better peace for it? But I still do appreciate Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, because I'm not like my parents, who went between Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York so easily. I never knew close borders like that when I lived in Florida. That's why that Nevada-California border is so fascinating to me. California's jurisdiction ends right there, and Nevada's begins. Just like that, just by that border marked so with those signs. It isn't just how smooth the roads quickly get when you drive into Nevada, though that does show an interesting difference in state governments. It's that there is my past, and here is my present and my future, so close together. I will not revisit that past by going back, but whenever we're at Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, I like to look out at California, relieved that that part of my life is over, that there is no such thing as boredom here in Southern Nevada. There is always something to see, something to hear, something to smell, something to taste, something to touch, something to know. And then the stories come. And the mental journeys begin again.
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