The Time I Loved Las Vegas
"Day 6: Tell us about a time when you surprised yourself."
Soooo, incase you haven't noticed, I'm sort of... not so mainstream, I guess? Names I have lovingly been called include: crunchy granola, starseed, [dirty] hippie, politically correct, and nerd to name a few (specifically "nerd classic, not nerd-chic").
I took anti-oppression training in university, where I was studying International Development. I worked for two years in a feminist collective for Sexual Assault Survivors. I worry about climate change and income inequality and the field-to-table movement and the school-to-prison-pipeline. You know what I mean. I'm “one of those people”.... Or am I??
Soooo, a few years ago, I went to my very first photography conference. It was the huge WPPI Las Vegas (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International). In order to save some cash, I stayed across the street from the conference at, ahem, Hooters. Yes, the "Hooters Las Vegas Resort and Casino". No, no, you didn't hear me wrong. Hooters has a casino, and I stayed there for eight nights. Oh, did I mention I went alone?
I spent eight days and nights alone in Las Vegas and I loved every minute of it. Surprise! I crashed a private party in a hotel across town. Surprise! I won $200 at blackjack, and told my table mates that the secret was to play the chips "boobs up" (Hooters' chips have sexy ladies on them). Surprise!
Sooo, what is the lesson here? Don’t label yourself, my friend! Someday you may go somewhere that, in theory, goes against everything you stand for… and you might just love it! Maybe it won't be a physical place; you'll "go there" and try something you never thought you'd do, and it’ll be the best!
You might think you're one way but you're every way. We all can be anything... Malcolm X taught me that, and so did Vegas. Surprise.
