Las Vegas, Nevada

When you are unemployed and in Las Vegas, Nevada, you could assume that days would be filled with penny slots and poker. You could assume that while getting quarters for laundry at a gas station, an Elvis in a t-shirt would drive by in the nearby Wendy's parking lot. You could assume that it's hot here, even at night and early in the morning. But early mornings aren't really awake in my day-to-day tasks of sitting at Panera for the free wireless internet, going to yoga, and hanging out with the one person I know in this city.

You could assume that there are big businesses and gated apartment complexes past the strip. And that people are born here and stay. And while filling out your application for a VONS grocery discount card, one of the baggers tells you not to write your address or the cashier will bring a pie right to your door. "Cherry rhubarb!" your friend yells as you walk out to the car.

I don't know if I'm stopping by Vegas on the way to L.A. or if I'll eventually make my way up to Portland, Oregon. My health insurance runs out in a couple of days and my money won't last too much longer, and aside from the occasional freak out in crowded Panera, things just seem to be moving along.

I came out to Las Vegas to hang out with my friend from college who just moved from Washington, D.C. for graduate school at UNLV. Things, it seems, always happen when you least expect it. I wake up next to him knowing that this week I'm here, and I may be here for awhile, but next week could be completely different. I wake up thinking that no matter how much you try to make things less complicated, everything eventually catches up, whether it's in a heated conversation or a half-filled out lease application. When all I want to think about is filling time with goofing off at the grocery store and watching movies on his laptop in bed, the heat of Las Vegas creeps into my thoughts and I realize I'm across the country from what I used to know and nothing is familiar except for him. I think about how cool it is in Portland, and that now that my car is here, I can just drive away at any time.

We are driving over to Los Angeles this weekend for my best friend's birthday and my cousin's wedding. There will be relaxing on the beach and dancing like ass holes in the Riverside Art Museum. And I'll think about how, this is it; this is what we are meant to do. This is where I am meant to be.