Why.

Most of my life, I live in a rut.

My life here in the City is so mundane...I'm surrounded by great things to do and see here but hardly ever take advantage of them. 5 days a week I go to work and come straight home, then on my 2 days off I go out and drink one day in the same neighborhood I always do and spend the other day at home, then it's back to work. Week in, week out, same thing. Vegas every 6 months or so (or less) gives me something to break out of that rut, something to look forward to.

When it comes down to it I suppose I love Vegas b/c it makes me feel like such a facsimile of an adult. I've never really traveled anywhere in my life and by nature I'm not a very adventurous person. I tend to choose the safe, easy option in life. Vegas allows me to break out of that shell for a few days a couple times a year, to leave the job in the company that someone else owns and the room in the house that someone else owns. I can spend a month's salary in a few days and let someone else make my bed and cook my meals and you know why, because fuck you, that's why.

All the while Vegas is still a cocoon in which it's highly unlikely that anything really bad will happen to you and there's the million in one shot that something really good can happen to you. You can meet and hang out with a girl who's not a fucking SF hipster bitch. Or you win a $600 jackpot on penny slots and you feel like a high roller. Eat a $50 steak instead of the normal $2 microwave dinners you have every night at home. You can put on your best Macy's-bought dress shirt that you've had for 5 years and have worn 4 times and look for a few days like you're *somebody*, when in reality you live in a 12' by 12' box in someone else's basement and the jeans you're wearing are the only pair you've got.

Then you can fly home (like adults do) after having had a taste of adventure when in reality you're secretly looking forward to getting back to your carefully constructed rut. It's all artifice, as is Vegas itself, but that's the contract you and the Strip sign off on and it's as close as a lot of modern Americans have to a "house in the country". It's my decadent home away from home and despite being exhausted and broke when I come back I'm sure I'll be looking at airfares and the inevitable comp offers I'll be getting from 3/4 of all the strip hotels within a week of returning.

Because my tax refund will be in my hands in the 1st week of March, and there's nothing better to do with it in my sad little life but to blow it on cheap slots and expensive liquor in Vegas.