Tuesday April 12th: Still in Vegas...

Well, we had hoped to get out of town this afternoon and drive at least a couple of hours to St. George. If we did that, we would be within driving distance to Denver where we would rest up for the long drive over the ‘whole lot of flat’ that is between the Rockies and the Mississippi River. We never made it out of town. Alas, fatigue and the strong desire to completely clean every inch of my RV triumphed over the desire for distance. We took care of business and are set to leave early tomorrow morning. My daughter and I decided to go for one last drive to the strip and I see a bumper sticker that stood out. It read "Life's Too Short To Dance With Ugly Men." I've seen this saying many times before, in fact, quite pathetically, I think it was my motto for a while many years ago when I was in college. Tonight it struck me as a bastion of cruelty in a city known for its superficiality. It made me think (I don't know why because there really is no connection) about the Broadway shows we had the opportunity to see while we have been here. There is nothing more fabulous for the culturally deprived than to enjoy a moment with these talented performers enjoying the fruits of their hours of hard work. The feeling of sitting in an audience with the other patrons is odd- like you have all become a part of a single entity. Our job as an audience is to provide the laughter, tears, applause and appreciation that feed the energy of the actors. In turn, they provide the entertainment to keep us going in a weird symbiotic relationship that makes time stop and just for a couple of hours we all believe that there really could be a world where songs pop up as the result of a well placed cue. My 13 year-old daughter and I love to attend musicals together but on the way in she has to remind me of the rules... sit quietly in my seat, no dancing or any other physical gestures that might prove embarrassing and for God's sakes, NO singing. (What happened to the happy little girl that would let me take her tiny chubby hands in hers while we danced and sang all around the living room?) Really, the Broadway show is still a part of the same superficial illusion that surrounds Vegas like a mirage in the middle of a huge barren desert. So I'm thinking about the ‘Ugly Men’ bumper sticker, and I realize that life is kind of all about the dance it would be a shame not to participate simply because the aesthetics of your partner (or yourself) doesn't measure up. Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder and mirages evaporate into thin air as soon as the music stops. I guess its time to put on my dancing shoes.