Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

I have just spent the past five days in Las Vegas varying degrees of completely lost. On my best day I can barely make it from one end of a straight block to the other. If I'm distracted at any point, chances are 50/50 I'll wander back the same direction I came from. I've learned to accept my Achilles head as an easy way to accidentally investigate places where lots of prostitutes hang out. Maybe if I were a gambler I would feel otherwise, but Las Vegas befuddles me. It's a lite-brite babylon with the desperate, frenetic energy of a recent divorcee on New Years Eve. I am simply not turned on by looped video footage of various fat middle-aged men passed out in twinkling pools of vomit while a country music version of "We are the Champions" blares in the background. I wander around looking about as terrified and uncomfortable as Mitt Romney at the Leatherati Black Party Expo. If the watered-down swill I non-enjoyed was any benchmark, Las Vegas is not a place...

Although it sounds all romantic and maybe even handy at times, I'm glad I don't have a tail. Grooming a tail would probably add at least fifteen minutes to my morning routine. I have enough trouble remembering to comb the hair on my head, let alone fluff out my hindquarter. Whenever I reflect on this subject, I always assume the human tail is fur-covered. I picture a puffy spaniel-like appendage, as opposed to bald, pink and rat-like. If humans had rat-like tails, we'd most likely go in for wallpaper tattooing and bedazzling. Half the sites on the internet would peddle tail slings, muffs, pouches, hoists and other prophylactic devices because no one wants their naked tail dragging on the sidewalk. Personally, my tail-lette would be a woodland-print knit with LED lights. I might get a tassel or a pompom to hang on the end of my tail. Nonetheless, a rat-style tail may have some advantages over a hairy-style tail. Hair would require all sorts of product to stay on top ...

Occasionally, Pop decides he's unhappy with the current ski trail, shrieks "Shortcut!" and takes off into the woods. This is probably not the worst of it. What might be worse is the gut-wrenching fear that comes from watching my mother, who tore her ACL and is supposed to be, but is not, wearing a gigantic knee brace. She skis down black diamond trails at a perfect, rail straight, 90-degree angle to the hill. Meanwhile, Dad decides it's boring to walk back to the hotel so he skis right through the middle of the Winter Carnival, right past the teenagers in the toboggan line and everybody out front the hot chocolate stand. He waves 'hi' to the ice sculptors and tells the ticket takers chasing him down that he's "just passing through." The rest of us slog out down the road with our boots on. Mom rolls her eyes and says Dad's probably hypoglycemic. Other than that she's not concerned. She swings around, skis in hand, to let me know t...