the smack factor

Ah yes, always reporting the story, not becoming the story. well cross your fingers that no one in rows 12 and 14 had their video cameras or camera phones on, or any possible recording device as I made my way home from Vegas to NYC, rounding out 36 hours of hardcore free as a bird partying. I was so proud of myself as I woke up Saturday morning without a hangover for drinking only water the last hour or so of my evening. wow, such control. Such responsibility. Sigh. I was so proud that, before I left for the big party at Bare, I had scheduled a wake up call, packed, and consolidated my stuff back into one bag. I headed out to Bare feeling pretty sassy in satin “King Richard” poofy short sleeve tangerine/burnt sun shorty shorty dress. Of course, I dropped my lip gloss near my hooha so it looked like something might be trying to escape, but whatever.

The setting was glam, the people were self important, the hosts were fantastic, the food was deplorable. The afterparty was a who’s who of douchetown and the mayor had the clipboard. But let’s talk about the flight home, because that’s where it gets good. I got to the airport two hours before boarding so i could write, have a bloody mary, and just get close to “away from Vegas” as possible. I think it’s a crap town. I hate it to be honest. It’s depressing, it’s trying to be something it’s not (like, um, if you want to stay in a hotel that looks like the buildings of New York, hows about spend your hard earned money on a trip to the REAL city instead of a depressing poor man’s version?) I think that’s really the theme of Vegas: low class aiming for a self imposed importance… that fails. It’s all about loss and how willful a marketing pawn you are. Sometimes I hate being older - it’s too much awareness.

Anyway. Bloody Mary in full effect, I wandered over to the gate and saw all the poor hungover schmucks from the night before. I assumed it would be a quiet flight. I figured no one would be talking, just a lot of napping. I assumed wrong. Free vodka and beer AGAIN, and new seat partners for me because I switched at check in for a window. Turns out my seatmates were fans of ordering a bloody mary and Dos Equis at the same time. We had 4 rounds of each within a 3-4 hour time window. just in time to hit gut flopping turbulence. just enough time to really really regret my choice as we were forced to land in Rochester in order to refuel and wait out the violence. And Rochester? just enough time for me to fill four barfbags full of honk - to be relayed to the main garbage and back by my saintly seatmates (two gruff and funny guys from “the Suffolk). just enough time to have an annoucement made … certainly not beacuse of me, noooo,

“If anyone is feeling ill, which we’ve had reports of, please move to the front or back of the plane so you can reach the bathroom more quickly” - this was after major turbulence, but yeah, that’s not why I honked.

I arrived in New York, slipping out of the Broadway/Lafeyette stop, at 2:00am. Home just before 2:30, showered, and in bed. Today all I could think of was how that honking situation could have been so much worse. Those guys could have been horrible assholes. They rallied all the seats around us and got every single barfbag in a 12 seat radius. They saved me.

so yeah. I guess time will tell if anyone kept a record of that. I made it through Vegas without barfing, just in time to hork in Rochester, NY.