Well, we’re back in Las Vegas.
“But Liz, didn’t you do this just a few short months ago?!” I hear you screeching.
Yes. Yes I did. And it wasn’t the best trip – mostly due to the fact that I lost a whole day to what one may describe as “a vomity migraine”, though honestly, that wasn’t the only thing. On that trip in particular, I only really got out of the room dressed a couple of times – once for dinner, and once for lunch. I had grander plans, but I either chickened out (just a little bit) or ended up not feeling well to the point that it didn’t make sense to push myself.
This time around though, I was much more determined.
And so, I landed on the Monday and headed off to Paris, Las Vegas – right on the strip as it prepared for the inaugural F1 Grand Prix, resulting in a chaotic mess of packed streets, obstructed sights, and odd walking routes to get anywhere. Checking in was easy enough, as usual – though the check-in person was a little overly-friendly and awkwardly flirty. She made a heart at me with her hands, and joked about not wanting to deal with traffic and staying with me in my room instead. OK lady.
I unpacked a bit to prepare for the next day, headed out to find something to eat, and then made sure to drink a lot of water and take some migraine meds, just in case. I’m glad I did, because I ended up not sleeping well that night – with the Bellagio fountains booming not too far away, and excitable drivers revving their engines on the soon-to-be racetrack, I think maybe I got 4 solid hours of sleep. Not really a great recipe for having an early-start with a pain-free head.
I woke up around 6.45am and tried to get my shit together. Getting from vaguely-awake to dressed-and-ready-to-go took a solid two and a half hours, which is much longer than it should’ve taken. A good chunk of that time I was stuck in the smallish shower trying to shave all my various bits awkwardly. Another good chunk of it was doing my makeup and having a small panic when I realised that I had not brought the right foundation: MAC’s NC42 instead of my NC40. I figured I’d just go for it and see how it looked – it was a little darker than I wanted (I bought it for when I am a little more tanned), but looked basically fine, though it set me off to a bad start. I then spent another 30 mins trying to find reasons to hang out in the hotel room more – i.e., taking pics under the guise of “well I should probably do a few test shots with the camera.”
“OK, OK – Enough with the delaying tactics. You’re hungry, don’t over-think it, get outta here!”
I had put together a rough schedule of where I was going to eat on that first day. Breakfast was at Mon Ami Gabi, a restaurant attached to Paris, with a nice outside seating area.
I wasn’t mad at it. It was still pretty early, and having heard some good things about what was in and around the Bellagio, I wandered off in that direction to see what was what.
I’m in a constant battle of trying to not give a shit about what people think of me, which is a pretty hard task at the best of times. Dressed up, and minding your own business is one thing: You can largely walk tall and ignore the occasional look. But trying to get a bit further out of my comfort zone: selfies, and selfie-sticks in a public place? Holy sweat-your-makeup-off, Batman. This was a little trickier. It was also starting to get warm. If I’m a little bit… dewy, I’m sure you’ll forgive me.
Having decided I had made my point, I walked back to Paris and figured it was time to start the photoshoot in earnest.
I have this habit where, throughout the year, I will buy pieces that I think might look really good in a photoshoot. There were some particular pieces from Thistle and Spire which I’d been eyeing for much too long, so I caved, bought them, and brought them with me. This was a bit of a departure to any of my previous shoots because breastforms couldn’t really be employed here. A (shock horror) real nipple may make an appearance here, so be warned.
Just gratuitous, and this video’s a little cheeky also. Sorry about that.
One of the things I was planning on doing with this trip was getting some sweater + skirt action in. You can see that with the first outfit (red sweater, denim miniskirt). I figured it was winter in Vegas, so probably cool enough for me to rock the sweater look. I was mostly wrong on this front, since it ended up being pretty warm. On my way to taking some photos of another sweater outfit, I ended up underwear’d in a not-terrible outfit. You can tell the breastforms aren’t in here, because my bra is dented. Classic.
And finally sweatered. My general problem with sweaters is that I run pretty hot, so am almost immediately sweating in them. I guess that’s what you’d expect, given the name. My main problem though is that I don’t think they’re particularly flattering on me. I find this annoying, since “flattering” is basically my whole raison d’être.
Lest we forget, here’s my behind again.
By this point, I was getting hungry once more. I threw on one of my favourite dresses (the eagle-eyed among you may remember this as the dress I was planning to wear to a friend’s wedding, but ended up missing it because I caught COVID. Grr.) I also decided to give these incredibly high sandals a whirl, too. I’m glad for the blockier heel on these bad boys, because I otherwise would’ve frequently landed on my aforementioned ass.
My vacation plan called for food, and then a wander, before heading back for more photos, so away we (my heels and I) went.
At the creperie downstairs, I ate what I would consider an expensive-yet-unremarkable crepe. The unremarkability of the crepe is more annoying, given that crepes are the only thing this place makes. If you’re gonna do one thing, do it well, you know? After that disappointing experience, I wandered off halfway down a french hallway. I can only apologise for the poor image quality, but I guess my phone doesn’t do so well in the not-very-dark.
Enough of that. On my way back to the room, I figured I’d try taking some photos in the well-lit, largely unpopulated elevator lobby down the corridor from my room.
If you want to see me walk awkwardly down that hallway, badly lit, from an unflattering angle, check out this instagram post. People seemed to like it. But enough photos with potatophone, I have a much better potato back in the room.
I love this dress. A lot.
When I first started dressing up and doing my own photoshoots, it was a bit of a shock discovery to realise that it’s fucking exhausting. Set up the camera, take a photo, hate it, adjust the camera, take a photo, like it a bit, do thirty poses from that same spot, adjust the camera, squeeze your shoulders back, suck your stomach in, pretend like you’re not exhausted, take the photo, etc etc. Learning from previous experience and knowing that I had another day of this, I was trying to take it easy by taking lots of breaks, and drinking lots of water. The strategy paid off because I didn’t keel over and die, wearing a pained expression on my withered face. But there are noticeable time gaps between photosets, i.e. the next one, where it’s suddenly dark. This is due to a period of 2 hours where I sat in bed doing fuck all.
This outfit was actually an afterthought when I was packing. I threw it together quickly, and it ended up being one of my favourites.
I mean really, this retro lingerie outfit kind of killed.
I occasionally have this idea that I could try and be sexy or compelling on video (especially because short videos/reels seem to be where all the buzz is on social media these days) but I always end up feeling awkward like I don’t know what I’m doing because I don’t know what I’m doing. However, this instagram video kind of worked out, if you ask me.
One of the things I had done prior to arriving in Vegas was to book a fancy restaurant for dinner on the first night, which ended up being Gordon Ramsay’s Steakhouse. Largely as a forcing function to make sure I actually got out of the room. It was a winning strategy, because I wore what I thought was my most stunning dress. Here’s a video of the dress in action, and then here’s a horrible picture of me at the restaurant (“intimate restaurant lighting” doesn’t help with potatophone selfies)
The food was good – I got a tasting menu which was pretty solid. And expensive. jeez. But figured I’ll only live once, as far as I know. I got some air outside, and was starting to fall asleep, so figured if I wanted some actually good shots of this dress, I better high-tail it back to the room.
And with that…. to sleep. A surprisingly peaceful sleep, given the night before. I was thankful for that.
Having gotten a solid sleep in, and having to not worry about shaving every nook and cranny on my body, getting ready this time around took far less time. Or should have, but it somehow took even longer for me to get ready this time around. Somewhere in between being incredibly lazy, trying to figure out where to eat, checking in at work (bad Liz, no cookie) and figuring out what to wear, I wasted a lot of time.
I eventually settled on this gold sequin miniskirt that I absolutely adore, alongside this white ribbon tunic thing which I think is super cool. I got breakfast at this place called Alexxa’s, which is also attached to the hotel. It was ok. Their meat omelet was eh.
I hadn’t explored southwards from Paris yet – adjacent to the hotel was Planet Hollywood, so figured I would wander around there for a bit and check out “The Miracle Mile”. I did not know it was just a mall, so colour me somewhat disappointed for the lack of miracles.
That ended up being a pretty long walk. Longer than I was anticipating, and certainly the main contributing factor to my only blister (only one blister! Shocking, honestly, since my fitbit says I walked 8 miles on this trip. in heels. That’s ridiculous, and I refuse to believe it.)
I gently limped back to the hotel room for yet another round of pictures.
This picture would have been great if there wasn’t a lamp sticking out of my head. So it goes.
The attentive reader will notice that I’m wearing a different, much shorter wig, than yesterday. I had brought this wig with me on my last photoshoot adventure, and it didn’t really strike me as attractive. For whatever reason, I felt like it suited me much better this time around. Also, it was generally much easier to manage and I didn’t accidentally keep eating it. No joke, I had to suck some egg-yolk off the ends of the longer wig at breakfast the day before. Kind of gross.
We’re slap-bang in photoshoot mode again, and there’s still the other fancy bodysuit I hadn’t taken pictures of yet. It was officially time. Be warned, the dreaded nipple might make an appearance again.
The trouble with this bodysuit, as much as I love it, is that I had to readjust it over and over again, lest Señor Nurpenstein and his wife… La Señora… make an unfriendly appearance. There’s a hint of them and their shiny heads, let’s leave it at that and head to the bathroom
I know I know! I’ll take some photos in the bathtub! That’ll be sexy!
You know what’s not sexy? Sitting on a towel in a cold bathtub, trying to figure out how the fuck to hoist yourself out of it every couple of minutes to adjust the camera angle, or try a different lens, or scoot weirdly into a new position. I’m not saying I wouldn’t do this again, but holy crap, this was not fun in the moment.
How do bodysuits fit you? Are they comfortable? No. No they are not. Here’s a candid moment of adjustment.
Proper wedge. Herr Ballsack was uncomfortable, and eager for air. It was like carrying around an extroverted tumour.
Anyway. I was tired and hungry at this point, and that made choosing somewhere to eat a chore. I ended up deciding on just hopping downstairs to a cafe in the casino, and perched up at the bar and ate a pokébowl while a friendly bartender tended to my bar-related needs.
Really feeling that cocktail in that last picture. Yeesh.
Before that last picture was taken, I threw some cash at a slot machine. That was a waste of time. Don’t gamble, kids.
Back up to the hotel room for more photoshooting. At this point in my trip, my general vibe is “GO HOME, YOU’RE TOO TIRED AND CAN’T BE BOTHERED AND YOUR FAKE TATAS ARE MAKING WEIRD SLURPY NOISES FROM YOUR CHEST SWEAT”, but I forged ahead, knowing I’d be upset with myself if I didn’t get more pictures.
These turned out not-terribly, though the tiny bathroom here was annoying to shoot in. I took another break before settling into one more hastily-thrown-together lingerie shoot. Hastily thrown together because it’s made up of clothes that have featured in at least one previous photoshoot before. Typically, I loathe doing anything where I repeat a previously seen outfit, but this turned out nice. And really, who’s paying attention anyway?
I was starting to not care about photos anymore. Partly because I, was once again, starving, and partly because I was just tired. It’s exhausting trying to take a million pretty pictures and utilise every vaguely photogenic corner of a hotel room. At some point you just want to crawl into bed and watch british panel shows for the rest of the night while drinking a vanilla milkshake (spoiler alert: that happened).
It was time to head out. The last place I wanted to hit was Gordon Ramsay’s fish and chips – it’s one of the few stops I make in Las Vegas every time I go, and it’s the closest to real fish and chips that I’ve had in this godforsaken country, so you bet your shitsack I’m not gonna pass up the opportunity to get some. It was yet another long walk to add to the accumulating mileage, so I strapped on the heels and away we went. It started raining on the way, but not terribly so. The gentlest of drizzles. Here’s me being a proper tourist, plus the aforementioned milkshake.
So tired. I figured maybe I had a couple more photoshoot pictures in me though, to really capture my deeply captivating state of mind.
I’m done. During the course of packing, I found that NC40 foundation I was missing. It was in a pocket of my makeup bag that, last time, I lost a tube of moisturiser too. Fucks sake. I’m entirely useless.
Overall, I got in a solid 2 days of photoshooting, eating, and getting out in the world and… existing like a real person. It was nice.
Maybe I’ll do it again sometime.
Stay sexy, friendos.