For today’s twenty or thirtysomething woman, a weekend in Las Vegas seems to provide a unique opportunity to reinvent oneself via contemporary fashion. A stroll through any strip hotel offers hundreds of examples of accountants, lawyers, taxidermists and toxic waste dump personnel who have, for two days and three nights, reimagined themselves as high-priced hookers.

 Balancing precariously on four-inch CFM heels, their sparkly mini-dresses casting off all constraints of modesty and good taste, they are looking for attention, and getting it.

 Conversely, the boyfriends/husbands of most of these women have taken this getaway as an occasion for sheer, unadulterated comfort. Clad in graphic t-shirts, board shorts (or, for even more commando breezeway action, baggy knee-length workout shorts) and flip flops – at 10:00 at night – they appear to be immigrant farm workers who have wandered into the casino by mistake and are only missing a bag of oranges.

 Why these women have so little sway over their partners is a mystery to me, since my partner feels free to comment on every item of clothing I wear, but I think it bears consideration that a woman who can’t get her husband to put on long pants is doomed to a life of football widowdom and mysterious credit card charges at the Spearmint Rhino.

My partner and I were in Vegas this weekend, that bacchanalia of slurpee cocktails and Cirque du Cher. This is not an unusual occurence; he loves gambling and I love the over-the-topness, and since we get free rooms (which, given that he is not even remotely a high roller, should tell you something about the Vegas economy), we go a lot.

We typically stay at the Venetian/Palazzo, or occasionally, the Wynn/Encore. And therein lies the problem. These are glamorous hotels that feature large, suite-like rooms with five star amenities and kill yourself views. (I’m writing this blog post from the comfort of the sectional sofa in the step-down living room of our suite.) And they’re now the standards by which I measure the hotels we stay at elsewhere.

Interestingly, since hotels in other cities rudely require some sort of cash payment in exchange for their rooms (as if this would enhance anyone’s stay) and since I am not made of money, we rarely stay in 5-star hotels outside of Vegas. Which means that I find myself sighing heavily (my partner would call this by another term) when, say, our Hilton hotel room does not have a bathroom big enough to stage a Broadway musical. Or I get into a minor snit (my partner would call this by another term) when our Hampton Inn does not have restaurants by Mario Batali, Daniel Boulud and Alain Ducasse. (Of course, we rarely dine in these eateries in Vegas, either, but they’re THERE.)

I would therefore like to propose that five-star hotels in other vacation destinations consider emulating the Vegas model and begin comping our hotel stays. This would engender considerable loyalty from me and would keep the guests of lesser hotels from having to overhear my cries of anguish when faced with a room that does not have a TV in the bathroom mirror and electronic drapery closure.

I’m only thinking of others.

Last night was the closing night of Promax, the annual television marketing convention and self-congratulation extravaganza, beloved by its attendees for its potential for both creative inspiration and hookups.

It was held in LA this year, and, because I work for a television network, I was present last night for the closing party, held at the pool of the new J W Marriott hotel downtown. It was a typical Promax party in most respects – lots of randy guys whose heads are whirling around like police sirens, and lots of women trying to avoid those randy guys as everyone loads up on Grey Goose and gossips about the people they work with who are currently in the bathroom.

It’s the “lots of women” part of the equation that, at this particular party, threw me. The attendee makeup is probably 60% men, 40% women, but you’d never have known it from the “playmates” hired for the event. The pool was populated by a group of scantily-swimsuited girls who either the hotel or the Promax promoters had hired to frolic about, wet and soon to be pneumonia-stricken in the 60-degree evening chill, caressing beach balls in a way that would perhaps have been more appropriate at the Playboy Mansion. I saw one mermaid mouth to her friend, “I’m freezing my ASS off!” Ironically, the fully-heated waters of the large Jacuzzi was apparently off limits to them, since that obviously would have implied some sort of come on.

Then there were the scantily-clad females in hooker heels hired to get the party started on the dance floor. I would have just assumed they were just out-of-town attendees looking to memorialize their trip with an assignation they would regret the next morning, but a friend informed me that he had come right out and asked two of them if they were hired help.

All this set me to wondering: why were there no scantily-clad men to get the party started for the two hundred women present? This seems oddly sexist for a conference of liberal television folk. Given the rabid nature of women at a Thunder Down Under performance, I can only surmise that they, too, appreciate a little eye candy.

Obviously the double standard is alive and well. Perhaps in the future, Promax – or the Marriott – should consider throwing in some man whores. Creative women need to blow off a little steam, too.

Those of you who have read my book are, perhaps, aware of my mother’s tendency toward slightly obsessive anal retentive behavior. Perhaps you would be unsurprised, then, to learn that I, too, on occasion, can find myself contemplating the need to vacuum the driveway or alphabetize the Christmas decorations. 

These can, I suppose, be somewhat self-defeating activities. But they don’t hold a candle to my current favorite (and any of you who are published probably know what I’m about to say): pulling up my new book’s Amazon page several times a day to assess the sales rank.

This is, in almost every way, an exercise in not only futility (how exactly are you planning to move the sales needle from #766 to #1?) but masochism. Unless your book is The Help (which – no pressure for me – my editor published, and which has sold 4 million copies in HARDCOVER), you’re only gonna be flogging yourself.

I think I need a substitute for the Amazon page, something I can pull up on my computer repeatedly throughout the day that will make me feel less at the mercy of the reading public.

 Maybe any article on BP executive Tony Hayward. Next to him, I’m golden.

When you work a full-time job and write a book on the side, it evokes some interesting reactions from people upon its publication.

I work for a TV network, and the responses to my being published have ranged from the flattering “You’ve inspired me” and “Can you sign my boobs so that I can prove to people that I knew you when?” (the practicality of which apparently eluded the woman in question) to the unsportsmanlike “Well, how many books have you sold?” to suspicion that – because I work long hours in a semi-stressful job and would seem to have little time for writing – I might have been implanted with a robotic chip.

Explaining that I only write on Sundays and that it takes me a couple years to finish a book doesn’t seem to appease them. Many of these people are creative folk for whom my (minimal) book success has evoked a rather substantial level of guilt, of the “I should be writing a book/directing a movie/releasing an album/perfecting my pole dancing” variety.

My typical answer to these people, most of whom have kids, is, “You know all that time you spend raising Halli/Bryce/Sophie/Mathilda? That’s when I write.”

I then hand them a copy of the book and add, “Meet MY kid – now for sale at a bookstore near you.”

This seems to calm them down. After all, I may be making money off my kid, but it can’t wipe my butt when I’m old.