And what does that even mean? Does it even have to mean anything?

The title does two things: first, it becomes clickbait for most, and second, what it should do is grab eyeballs. Las vegas? And President Biden? And our desi Shalini?

This title is just a plain proclamation of a desi girl’s admission to go to the sin city (and not fuck, lol) and blast it as a newsletter headline on the faces of all those who wish they had booked their honeymoon to LV only if the gatekeeping to ‘sins’ did not exist everywhere.

I am sorry to be sending this newsletter after weeks of procrastinating! Mentally, there has been a lot of pressure to perform in Amrika. Lots of lessons, mi amors.

But, all in an accidental swivel, I ended up meeting someone I never thought I would be able to meet, and that happened a few weeks before going to LV. LIFE-CHANGING. More on that in the upcoming months.

Nevada was a total sham. It tricked my nerves so badly that I felt I was spiraling most times to breathe, see, feel alive, and not be so highly dehydrated. I was exhausted even before I could reach Nevada’s Mojave Desert Special tacos. The Mojave Desert is one of the few places I have always wanted to visit. Other places are on the top of my mind: Eureka Springs ( I am going for my prestigious writing residency in July!), Washington DC, Baltimore, Bay area, Seattle, Hawaii, and Alaska (That is just the USA)!

The desert has no clearly defined boundaries. Finding a center can be challenging, but by combining latitude and longitude, elevation, geology, and indicator plants, borders can be created, and a center for the desert can be determined. I stood in the basins with lizards the size of your legs and wondered if I was too lucky to be here. I walked aimlessly with my friends, overwhelmed by glam and gloss. It was pathetic to see me fiddling with my 5-year-old flowery maxi dress that looked ‘salvaged.’ I had zero jewelry to reflect on the hundreds of riches in your face parade.

The Mojave Desert is a huge region located primarily in southeastern California. The desert extends into Nevada, Arizona, and Utah, covering over 25,000 square miles (Desert USA)- Tried audio recording what I would be writing-

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We had a stopover on the tarmac due to the wonderful storm that decided to hit up the south, which lasted approximately, and very unfortunately, 6 hours. Yes. 6 hours on the tarmac. Imagine standing in a line like an ass at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport for 6 hours, fighting, arguing, and surrounded by people ready to kill each other. Then at 3 AM, American Airlines tells you, “Hey, dude, so yeah, all the hotels up to 25 miles are all booked, and by the way, there is no flight until tomorrow, and God help us all!”
Imagine being at the airport until 5 a.m., only to be given a flight leaving at 10 a.m. after being awake and hungry for the previous 24 hours and more.

And by the way, your Airbnb host is waiting for you to arrive 24 hours later.

Meanwhile, 38 hours later, your flight takes off.

Meanwhile, you arrive only to learn that your Airbnb is in North LV, like another country on the other side. Then you reach your destination 45 hours after you were supposed to and after spending a tonshit.

It meant a trip that I would never forget—horrendous and overwhelming all at once. Some moments were just wonderful- the mountains, the meeting with friends for whom me and my partner (more on that soon! :P)

But then, I met some of my friends from India and had some amazing, silent, stargazing days!

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Now onto Iowa. Back to the sullen, cold lands.

The Horse Fell Off the by Mahmoud Darwish

The horse fell off the poem

and the Galilean women were wet

with butterflies and dew,

dancing above chrysanthemum

The two absent ones: you and I

you and I are the two absent ones

A pair of white doves

chatting on the branches of a holm oak

No love, but I love ancient

love poems that guard

the sick moon from smoke

I attack and retreat, like the violin in quatrains

I get far from my time when I am near

the topography of place ...

There is no margin in modern language left

to celebrate what we love,

because all that will be ... was

The horse fell bloodied

with my poem

and I fell bloodied

with the horse’s blood ...

Our fictions is the apple
in our hand. Ask

us if we are happy and we will
slick our tongues with deceit.

We retreat to other realms,
sun-kissed lands of forever

peaks. We don a body not
our own, and here we fuck like pretzels

in the heart of a tornado.
What we dream is what we desire.

Rescue us, oh hazy fantasy, save
us from couches that devour,

our lackluster lovers, and place us
in the arms of gods,

whose kisses wet us
in all the right places.- Ira Sukrungruang

Prompts from the Las Vegas educational trip:

1. A dispensary walk in North Las Vegas that turns into a high-stakes stake situation and ends in a time warp

2. Three aliens who descend in Mojave decide to describe Mojave to the aliens above

3. Tigers in a casino

4. Apocalyptic last blackjack

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Wrote this letter listening to Pappu Can't Dance on repeat, after a long time.

This is a free newsletter but not cheap. If you love it, consider supporting it by liking and sharing this newsletter. This letter is reader-supported, hence the lack of ads and sponsors.If you do read, please feel free to drop me a note or hit the “heart” on the newsletter-

Shalini Singh