I am in Las Vegas for the next few days, attending Steve Pavlina’s Conscious Growth Workshop.

Las Vegas is not my Right Place
Not even close. The lights, the noise, the massive amounts of people. Some people call this “energy” and love it. It just stresses me out.

Expensive entertainment. $250 to see Donnie and Marie. I used to watch Donnie and Marie on TV when I was a kid. Why do the posters show them looking exactly the same as they did 35 years ago? Maybe it says “not exactly as shown” in small print, so you go to the show and find out that Donny is now bald and Marie is grey and fat. But I’m not coughing up $250 to find out. (On the other hand, both Bette Midler and Cher – “are they still alive?” – are here. Both of which I wouldn’t mind seeing – assuming they don’t have false teeth and walkers. Unfortunately, I no longer have a house I can mortgage to pay the admission.)

Speaking of ridiculous prices…$3.29 for a coffee this morning. $13.99 PER DAY for internet access. Oh…and get this: apparently the *law* in Vegas requires that I pay $84 + 7.75% tax + $3 delivery charge (per person?) for a bottle of Jack Daniels (not that I’m the kind of person who might like a bottle of bourbon in my room). That’s like, even more expensive than CANADA! And I have to order it from the hotel, I can’t bring a bottle in – otherwise, I (little old me) am *jeopardizing the hotel’s liquor license* (despite this danger, they insist on *taunting me* with free ice…)

So…if I don’t return, you’ll know that I bribed a cabbie to take me to a liquor store, downed half a bottle of Jack on the ride back – then came charging into the Flamingo (wearing my pajamas) bottle in hand, shouting: “take that, you stupid hotel with the outrageous internet charges! Screw with me and I’ll make sure you lose your stupid liquor license, you evil greedy bastards!!! Bwwwaaa haaaa haaaa…”

Or maybe the coming weekend of hanging out with a group of vegan raw food eating health and exercise freaks conscious personal development enthusiasts at Steve’s workshop will inspire me to mend my wicked ways. (I can hear Joe laughing all the way from Mexico.)

On the UP side. I have my own private introvert-friendly escape cave. With a private bathroom (and my very own shower!), a king size bed with super comfortable sheets and a door with a Do Not Disturb sign.

This is what compatibility looks like
Joe asked me to bring him back a hat from Margaritaville. I found the Margaritaville site online, located the hats, emailed the link to him and asked him which one. He sent back his selection.

No drama. No hinting that he might like me to bring him back a souvenir (or worse – NOT hinting, then getting disappointed when I returned empty handed.) No pressure on me to select the right hat (there were about 13 of them – the chances of me getting it wrong were pretty good. This ability to do math character trait also makes me completely disinterested in gambling. They might take $13.99 PER DAY from me for internet access, but they won’t get a nickel from me in the casino.)

Some people my ex-husband might think that our approach lacks “romance.” (I get it wrong and then we fight. How the hell is that romantic?)

Isn’t this way better? Joe gets exactly what he wants. I don’t have to stress (or magically develop the ability to read minds).  This is what happens when a “Spock-like” person shacks up with a “Data-like” person. Romance gets replaced by logic. And this is a good thing.

There were no chickens on the bus
Yesterday was a *long* travel day. I left La Paz at 8:00 in the morning and arrived in my hotel in Vegas just after 11:00 last night. It all started with nearly 4 hours of bus ride from La Paz, through Cabo San Lucas to the airport at San Jose del Cabo.

There were no chickens. I wasn’t exactly disappointed (I don’t know for sure, but I expect that I would be allergic to chickens) but at the same time, I kept hearing rumours about how people in Mexico bring chickens on the bus. Not true. At least not on the La Paz to Cabo run. The bus was clean and comfortable (as in more comfortable than the airplanes – I know…a real stretch goal – they could have achieved that *with* the chickens.) Bonus: I got to see “Wedding Crashers” in Spanish.

Airplane happiness
Cabo to San Francisco – 3 1/2 hour flight – I got an entire ROW to myself. Heaven. First time I’ve ever been happy to sit in the middle seat. Kicked off my shoes, sprawled out…then finished reading my book before the plane landed. (Damn! )

With cheap entertainment
Connection wait in SF for flight to Vegas. Bar filled to capacity. Unable to find interesting book in book shop. Reduced to people watching for entertainment (and bag of peanuts for sustenance). Plane was about 20 minutes late due to fog. Airport personnel doing best they can to make sure 4 passengers can make their connecting flight in Vegas. Watched one of the women have a hissy fit melt down. Decides not to go at all. Airport guy advises: “you’ll really be better off if you take the flight. I would.” Woman refuses to board plane. Guy shrugs and says he’ll help her make different arrangements once he makes sure this flight takes off (they’re rushing to get plane off the ground as soon as possible, planning to try to make up time in the air). End result: even though we take off 20 minutes late, we land on time.

And there is an empty seat between me and the quiet woman on the aisle. (Yay! No “Chatty Kathy” to yap in my ear for the entire flight.) Probably belonged to the hissy fit woman who may still be fuming away at the airport in SF.

Heightened security? My Grinch jammies got fondled by at least 4 security checkers. I got fondled once. (Joe: “Did they grab your crotch?”  Me: “Nope.”  <insert statement by Captain Obvious here>)

Time to head to the lobby to find something other than peanuts to eat. Then a stop at the Margaritaville store to choose something for Joe. I wonder if he would like a hat?

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<insert period of time here where I – 1. Don’t push the publish button (see prior note about cost of liquor) 2. Go for a walk on the strip to procure food, tissues and some goo for my hair.>

More Reasons why Vegas is not my Right Place
I don’t have a good any sense of direction. Las Vegas is three dimensional – full of huge tall buildings. Not only can I get lost on ground level – I can get lost between floors. It probably took me 10 minutes of aimless wandering to figure out how to leave the Flamingo Hotel (which is actually more like  a mini-city).

Then there’s the endless gauntlet of people trying to sell tickets to things or put pieces of paper into my hands. And did I mention the crowds of people? I think Las Vegas is Spanish for “Introvert Hell.”

On the other hand, there’s the wonder of Google – it was probably worth the $13.99 PER DAY for internet service to learn where the nearest drug store was. I managed to walk there and pick up some goo for my hair (grumble, grumble airplane hair goo size limits) and some soft tissues (what is it with the “contains bark” brands that hotels – even expensive ones like this one – insist on stocking).

Being here alone is a weird feeling. Right from check in: “you’ll need two room keys?” – um no, sadly enough I get that entire king bed to myself this week. And as I walked the strip, just about everyone is coupled up or in a group. Lots of hand holding. Lots of Joe missing.

Disappearing stuff
No. Not my luggage. Some of my “stuff” stuff – like, let’s start with the fact that I’m doing this all on my own. Signing up for a workshop, traveling from Mexico to the US, spending a week by myself in a strange city. There was a time, not all that long ago, where I would not have considered doing these things.

And still there stuff
I don’t like to eat alone in restaurants. So I’ll either have to get past this, live on bags of peanuts or buddy up with people at the workshop to go for lunch.

Of course, that all depends on whether I can actually *find* a restaurant. I gathered up the courage to eat alone, saw the advertisements for the restaurant next door, went there (or at least what I thought was there) and ended up walking through an endless casino with no food in sight. (My inner conspiracy theorist: there is no restaurant. It’s all a ploy to get people into the casino. I suspect a lot of people who come to Vegas can be easily distracted. Food. Food. Food. Oh look – gambling. Let’s do that instead.)

Gone stuff: I walked through the casino without feeling anxious. Still There Stuff: I didn’t ask anyone for directions. So instead of a hot lunch, I ended up eating a takeout salad (mmm iceberg lettuce) alone in my bat cave.

And a happy customer service experience
The Margaritaville store. Conveniently located inside Flamingo Hotel City, it has (from what I can tell) everything they list on their web site. I easily found the exact hat Joe selected (surprise, honey!) and it was the same price as advertised online. (Don’t get me started on whether $19 is a reasonable price for a ballcap.) Very nice woman at checkout…so nice I bought the $5 up-sell shot glass she offered.

Now if only she had an $84 bottle of Jimmy Buffett branded bourbon.

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3. Barbara Sher is just like a real person, only shorter
4. Aaacck! Don’t watch me!

Tagged as: drinking, introversion, shyness, silliness, social anxiety