If you dance with the devil, the devil don't change. The devil changes you.

If you can guess what movie the title of this post is from, you get bonus points.

This always happens to me. I forgot that it does. And I don't really know why. But whenever I go to Vegas, I come back a little different... I'm not quite the same person as before the trip. I care less about my daily routine. The things that mattered to me before the trip seem to matter less. I get this "ah, I don't give a shit" mentality which tends to last for a few days before I am back in the groove of the daily grind. I don't know why. I flirt with the line of degeneracy in Vegas and I guess it takes me a few days before I become "normal" again.

The past few days, I pretty much had no desire to go out. I had some offers to join people for happy hours, christmas parties, birthday dinners, etc and I turned them all down. I just wasn't feeling it. Sure, I had other plans but they could have been rearranged. Pre-Vegas, I would have rearranged my plans. But this week, I'm just not feeling it. It's like the world around me doesn't matter. I'm numb. Vegas offers such a sensory overload with all the glitz and glamour mixed in with the filth and desperation that I think I become immune to anything else, at least for a while.

Vegas has such a distinct smell. Well, maybe it's the casinos. But I equate that to Vegas. You walk into any casino and you can smell it. And hear it. It's the weird smell of cigar and nasty carpeting. There's always some "peaceful" sound of water trickling into a fountain mixed in with the chaotic noise from the hundreds of slot machines. There's the feeling of excitement in the air as the tourists hope it's their lucky day... and the despair from those that are ready to leave after they got cleaned out by the house. There are people walking around with racks of chip colors you've never seen before, making you wonder what all this "economic downturn" is all about. But then you also see the guy nursing his last $20 stack at a 1-2NL table, folding to a bet on the turn when there's already $60 in the pot...

I know I'll be back to normal again. I'll be back to wanting to do things that I thought was fun before the trip. I know it because I've been there before and after a few days, I snapped out of it. Until then though, I think I'm just gonna be holed up in my house, trying to kick Vegas out of my system. But I know I can never completely get it out of the system. Because I love Vegas. It's like a drug and I'm addicted. See, the devil's changing me already.