July 18: Steam Room

No one breaks any rules - six of us.

January 31 - Steam room

I sit down in the steam room.

“Well, I’m leaving,” a girl who came in moments before stands and announces. “I’m a lightweight.”

I always knew the steam room was an endurance competition, but I didn’t think anyone else realized how badly they were losing to me. I am the winner of the steam room.

I’m in the coed steam room because it’s about twice as hot and steamy as the one in the women’s room. Only wimpy girls pretend the one in the women’s room is a challenge. Right now the steam is everywhere. I like low visibility and hearing voices come out of dense fog. 

I have an addictive personality. This doesn’t have to be a sinister personality trait. Instead of being a stoner, alcoholic sex addict, I could be a yoga instructor, steam room enthusiast, tea-drinking writer… But if I drink a lot of tea then it stains my teeth…

I just never want it to end. It’s so nice here in the steam. So filled with warmth and peace. Is that at the core of my every addiction? A pathetic attempt to find meditative peace, to leave my mind, if only for a moment? It’s really not so bad being in my mind, is it? Why am I so desperate to escape then?  

I head over to the sauna next, but this (not as) good-looking (as he thinks he is) guy who has bugged me before is sitting in there, with only two women for company. As I approach, I can already see he’s on his game. Screw that. I’m not wasting valuable sauna time listening to this d-bag try and get laid.

I head to the women’s room steam room. Oh good, I’m alone. I like to be alone.

Three biddies enter. Fuck. There’s no way they’re not going to talk in clucks. One of them takes off her top. OMG tits. OMG tits. OMG tits. This NEVER happens in the steam room. I have to look over to confirm that there are in fact tits. And now I feel creepy because I was overtly trying to look at a stranger’s breasts. Now I have to look ahead as though I don’t care there are breasts out. But I do care. I really, really care.

I’m used to seeing hundreds of women’s breasts on a weekly basis, but not in the steam room! This is so exciting! Maybe the other two girls are going to get topless too! And then, I’ll casually say, “Well, since you girls are getting naked! I will too!” and then we’ll all giggle together and be topless best friends.

THEN, SHE PUTS THEM AWAY. Alright, yeah, these girls are really annoying. I leave.

Time in steam room: 50 minutes (I know, I have a problem)

Water bottles drank: 2 ½ bottles. 

October 4. Steam room

“I should really talk to a man,” I think as I walk towards the steam room/ sauna after yoga. “The gym is the best place to find a new guy. There’s no sense in dating anyone who gets winded too easily. ”

A really handsome man about to enter the sauna sees me, turns around to walk, then looks back over his shoulder to look at me again.

“I hate him. I fucking hate him. I can hear his thoughts from across the room,” I think. “I’m going to the steam room so there’s no chance of him talking to me.”

Obviously, I’m conflicted.

A few weeks ago, Hannah and I went to Surrender Nightclub on a Wednesday, and we had to fight our way out through a drunken, horny, tourist grope tunnel at 3 a.m.. Men were physically grabbing at us and trying to block our path.

One guy told me to go kill myself when I told him I wasn’t interested in sleeping with him.

I'd like to find a new man, but I’m too sick of men, and a bit disgusted, to want to talk to any of them, which makes finding a new one difficult.

Hell, this is a real problem.

Maybe the guy who taught the spin class I took before my yoga class tonight would work?

During the class he told us all that he’s single. He has a four-year-old girl he loves a lot, and he is not together with the mother, but they’re on good terms. Also, he implied that he’s lonely.

I’ve never shared any of this information with any of my yoga classes.

“Inhale your arms up. Real quick, I cry myself to sleep at night sometimes. Exhale, swan dive forward. I just want someone to cuddle me. Inhale gazing up.”

He was cute and does cardio. Maybe I’ll talk to him next week.

I figure the gym would be a good place to find a new Las Vegas boy because I work out like it’s my job… oh yeah. It is my job. I work out a lot. And I like men who have the same addictions as me.

I should talk to a man at my gym. But I’m always so rude whenever a man tries to talk to me at the gym, that I simply can’t bring myself to do it. I always think, “Hey buddy, what about my no makeup, yoga matt, and ponytail made you think I wanted you to bug me?"

Me approaching a guy would throw off the whole dynamic. He’s supposed to approach me so I can be all cold and mean and shit and then slowly warm up to him after he’s persisted long enough.

What happened to meeting guys the old fashioned way? You know, dating a guy I kind of like and then meeting his awesome friend I really like and then ditching him to start dating his friend? 

Time in the steam room: 10 minutes

Men talked to: Zero 

July 28: Steam Room

Other than the maybe dead man laying in the middle of the road, this has been one of The Most Amazing weekends I've ever had in Las Vegas!

 Take note, all other Las Vegas weekends, this is how I would like this shit to go all of the time. 

If I could relive this weekend, and relive it, and relive it, I would. Exactly three more times I'd relive it. Then, I'd like to do something else.

However, staying up all night being young and aggressively strange has its price. I must sweat out these toxins asap. My skin is not nearly as happy as I am today. I head straight from the strip to the steam room. 

Because it's early morning, I'm the only one in the steam room. Fantastic. I close my eyes and cross my legs. But it's not hot enough. I like it almost too hot to stand. 

I get the hose, to spray the sensor, to turn on the steam. While I'm standing, a man and woman enter. The man takes over spraying duties.

"Champagne!" the woman laughs when the steam pops on loudly. Fitting because that's what I've been drinking all night.

I sit back down. The man and woman begin talking, and I know they'll talk the whole time. They've just met. Based on her accent, the woman is from Russia. The man is flirting with her and it seems he may actually have a chance. At least she's willing to talk to him. This is further than men get with me in the steam room because of the No Talking rule. I take the rules I make up very seriously. 

I wonder if he did die. The man in the road. Three men stood around him calling  911, protecting him from drunken 2 am traffic. I sat in my car and stared. What a way to start the night. 

Ambulances drive by every day, and it makes me sad. I wonder: what's happened, what's burning, who's in trouble, whose final day has come, who finally gets to be asleep forever... Asleep. Forever.

I'd like to go to sleep. I've been awake for a long time. 

Last night, two roads away, when I saw the ambulance turn on its lights, I didn't have to wonder, I knew where it was going. To the maybe dead man laying in the road. 

It really was a great weekend! Maybe a pool party today! 

Time: 12 minutes

July 26: Steam Room

Only me and two men today.

I'm thinking about the boy. Months ago, I recommended he read a book because it reminded me of us, but it's not actually that great of a book. Our story is better and we're much better characters.

I imagine his disgusted face as he wonders why I recommended something so mediocre to him. I smile as I think about him frowning.

"Thinking of something funny?" one of the men asks me.

"No, not really," I answer.

"Because you were smiling and looked like you were thinking of something funny..."

"No."

He gives up on the conversation. Everyone sits in silence.

I forgot my water again. It was embarrassing. I went into auto pilot and drove to the wrong gym. I was fifteen minutes late to my class. Luckily, they all waited, because I called ahead, and it was a good workout even if it was 10 minutes shorter than usual.

I drink from the hose.

I think I'm an idiot, but I also think that's not a very nice thing to call myself. I do my best, and that's all I can expect of me. And think of the hundreds of times I drove my car to the correct gym! That must count for something. Not just any idiot can do that!

I leave to sit in the women's steam room. Me and two women. One woman leaves. The other woman farts. I consider adding no farting to the steam room rules, but I decide against it.

Time: 14 minutes

July 25: Steam Room

I forgot my water bottle in my car. I drink from the hose.

Four others sit quietly. I close my eyes and my mind is quiet. I open them and only me and one other man remain. I close them and feel the toxins leave my body. I scratch my arm and there's black under my finger nails. Only a few days out of Vegas without my yoga/steam room routine and I have black gunk in my pores?

I'm happy to be back in Vegas where no one can see me unless I want them to, and I can write and read and do yoga and sit in steam rooms.

Time: 13 minutes

July 22: Sauna

I'm visiting Pat and Ryan for a vacation. We all love music and dancing, and that's why we're friends.

I met Pat at a Pretty Lights concert in Las Vegas. Then, I met Ryan when all three of us were at Ultra Music Festival in Miami. Then, they came to Vegas for a weekend, and I moved into the Hard Rock with them, and Pat and I stole money from Buddha so we could buy a bottle of vodka.

Ryan is gone for the day listening to music and dancing, but I'm lazy and Pat's saving money, and we stay home.

Pat and I go to the apartment's sauna. Guest appearance sauna. The sauna is in the women's bathroom of the apartment complex. The one in the men's room is broken. I go in first, check the coast is clear, and then Pat joins me.

Neither of us are sweating yet. It feels like we're burning in a tanning bed.

"Here! This will make it better!" Pat leaves to shower quickly, right outside of the sauna, and comes back. Now he's all glistening and pretty. I want to be glistening and pretty too. I  shower and return.

It's a very small sauna, claustrophobic if I look ahead, but really good if I look toward Pat.

"Let's meditate!" says Pat. Pat reads Today in the Steam Room and knows that the sauna is meant to be quiet meditation time.

"Okay!" I explain to Pat how I meditate. We sit quietly focusing on our breathing. Pat starts laughing about a thought he's had and that ends the mediation. Good. It's exhausting to focus on nothing.

Pat turns off the light, and it's very dark now. I lay down and pretend I'm dead, entombed in wood and heat.

We hear a woman enter the bathroom. She's coughing - a smoker's cough. I listen to her pee. I hope she doesn't take a poo. I wonder if Pat could be arrested for being a pervert - hiding in the dark of the women's room sauna listening to a coughing woman peeing.

"I'm really hot," Pat says. "I'm going to get out now."

We leave to listen to music.

Time: 20 minutes