The sights were interesting and all, but I think I mentioned that Nick and I were there for a specific purpose. We arrived on a Thursday, and I was going to see a legendary musician whose music has touched me my entire life on Friday. Nick gave me a hard time all day because I was so gosh darn chirpy. He pretended to sleep when we were supposed to be leaving for the Paul McCartney concert, but my excitement was not to be dampened:



I am relatively certain that I had enough enthusiasm to cover us both.

When I packed for the trip, I admit that I did waffle on what to wear to the concert. I mean, if he saw me, I'd want him to be decently charmed. I finally decided on an old dress of mine with a small pink leopard print. Girly refinement with wild instincts: just the message I wanted to send! If I ran into Paul McCartney that night, he was going to fall in love with me. (I didn't.)

Due to a bit of a mix up, Nick did not bring the little camera to the arena. That was a bit sad, but I don't think that pictures could have truly captured my emotions or properly preserve the memories anyway. I do have a couple grainy cell phone images (compliments of Nick's BlackBerry) taken in the arena before the concert when I was beside myself with nerves and excitement.



Guys, it was magic. My heart just started beating a little faster thinking of how to describe the experience with words. There was a commotion on the floor moments before the concert was to begin. We weren't sure what was happening, then we realized that Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon, Olivia Harrison and George Martin were in attendance. The commotion started when they took their seats, and the commotion absolutely erupted when Macca took the stage.

I can't even tell you what song he started with because I was stunned. I know it was a song that I knew very well and knew every nuance of the recording. I know it was song that was covered in the hours of Beatles documentaries I have seen throughout my life. It was difficult to connect that the timeless sound I've known for so long was being created just ahead. I felt Nick's eyes on me, looking for a reaction—I couldn't snap out of it.

It was sometime during the second song ("Junior's Farm") that I noticed myself singing along and moving my feet to the beat. I laughed. I laughed for several moments. I think I went a little crazy because—DUH!—PAUL MCCARTNEY WAS RIGHT THERE. I glanced back to Nick and noticed his smug expression, so proud of himself for getting me to that place of carefree elation.

I wasn't thinking of work, or hospitals, or futures…for once, I was completely invested in savoring the now. The tiredness (and crankiness) that had plagued me the night before was non-existent as I lost myself in the music and the anecdotes.

I was expecting to be wowed by the great Paul McCartney songs, but I got more than I bargained for. He led the audience through the hook on John's "Give Peace a Chance" as we sang it over and over again. Cameras panned the audience, and large screens behind the stage showed Yoko and Sean waving their arms and singing along. I just couldn't believe that I was there.

After the concert, including two encores, the arena emptied and we were caught in a wave of people who seemed to be floating through the passageways. Everyone seemed to vibrate with this crazy energy. It was a feeling of unity with perfect strangers (and Nick, who is perfectly strange). Suddenly, the tightly packed crowd began singing, "Naa na na, na-na na na, na-na na na, hey Jude!" I'm usually not a fan of crowds, but I sure liked these people!

Beatles fans should totally rule the world.

The entire purpose for the trip was to see The Cute One. Even so, when the plane landed it was the first time I had ever been in the Pacific timezone much less Sin City. I am not a gambler (there's usually a dress or pair of shoes that I would rather throw my money at), but I wanted to take in other parts of Las Vegas while we were there. Shortly after checking in, we headed to New York, New York to find a place to eat a light dinner.



After learning the price of a fountain soda at a sandwich place, I made sure to take advantage of the free refills. I consumed Diet Pepsi until you could see it splashing in the whites of my eyes. I drank well past the point of comfort and barely left any room for my black bean burger—but by God, I was going to make 'em hurt on the fountain soda.

After dinner, we left to do some touristy stuff on the Las Vegas Strip. We caught the fountains at Bellagio…



…and the Mirage Volcano. We took video of that too, but I am not all that entertained by it, so I won't embed it here. We waited quite awhile for the show to start since it was on Nick's tidy little list of must-sees. As such, since we both had cameras, we ended up with a lot of shots outside the Mirage hotel. Most of them were deleted because they looked the exact same as the other 50. Oh, look! There's a duck! [click.] Oh, look! There's the same duck! [click.] Oh, look! There it is again! [click.] Boredom bites, but thankfully today's memory cards support that level of boredom.



The "volcano" was disappointing for me. I didn't see the draw, but then maybe we were just standing too far away from the center of the action to be drawn in. I was very tired by this point as well. On a normal night, we go to bed at 9:00 (early morning people). The time change threw me off, and I was mad that it was still so light outside when I was ready to crash. Still, Nick had one last thing to see that night since it was going to be our only time to sight-see.

My fatigue was making me very cranky because my body was still on Wisconsin time and thinking that it was past 10:00. I never sleep well the day before travel (mind too busy), so I was even crankier than usual. I didn't mortally wound Nick with my stabbing glares, but I wanted him to at least hurt a little. This is a conflict that we run into on every single vacation. Nick likes to fill every second with an activity. I myself enjoy a little feline laziness when I go on holiday. I usually return to work more exhausted than when I left because my time away was all GO-GO-GO-GO.

I knew that I would play along and go to his last item on the list because I always fold, but I wasn't going to go quietly. He hailed a taxi to take us to see the Fremont Street Experience.



If I had been in a nicer mood, I might have let him know how much I enjoyed seeing the light show. As it was, I had a point to make, so I remained taciturn as I snapped photos and thought to myself, "Wow…"

I've been in a bit of a foul mood since the Simon and Garfunkel concert fell through last year. I was ecstatic the day I bought tickets. After I got the confirmation email, I sat on the floor and cried. I was ridiculously excited…and equally crestfallen later when poor Art paralyzed his vocal cords and the tour was cancelled. Who knows if they will ever tour together again even if he gets his voice back (though I'm wont to believe that artistic temperaments that marred their partnership mellow with age—but I just don't know).

So, this time around, when Nick bought tickets to another concert, I held myself reserved. These aging musicians…you just never know.

I was at home getting ready to host a Lia Sophia party the next day. Another U.S. concert was announced for the current tour and tickets just went on sale according to the email he forwarded. I wasn't sure why he sent me the email since the concert announced was almost 2,000 miles away. He called me to chat. We carried on some inane chatter about the concert. He confessed that he was watching the tour schedule last year (while I was finishing up school). The tour never got close enough that we could attend one of the concerts without taking me away from schoolwork for a few days, so it was a no-go.

Paul McCartney was coming to Las Vegas on June 10th. Actually, Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon, Olivia Harrison, Dhani Harrison (who is the spitting image of his father), the fifth Beatle and his son (George and Giles Martin) were all in Las Vegas to celebrate the fifth anniversary of LOVE. Ringo was touring in Europe and unable to attend.

It was a neat idea, all of that winning DNA in the same place again.

It seems like we're always saving money for something. Last year it was the wedding and the vacation surrounding it. This year it is the reception we are holding next month. Next year I'm sure we'll be putting away money for Sophie's college fund. It's always something. I never considered that going to Las Vegas was a possibility.

We ended our phone conversation.

Minutes later, I nearly wet myself:Nick forwarded me another email. This time, it was confirmation of purchase for two tickets to see Paul McCartney live at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. I proceeded to freakout, crying and carrying on like a person who is very excited and doesn't have to worry about witnesses. Then I remembered Art Garfunkel and sobered.

I am sure Nick was mildly disappointed that I wasn't outside of my skin the two months leading up to the concert. I just didn't want to get my hopes up again. I couldn't get properly worked up until I knew for sure it was happening. By the time we boarded the plane headed toward Las Vegas, I was absolutely dazzled.

I have been a fan of the Beatles, and Paul McCartney in particular, nearly all my life. My father watched the Beatles perform on the Ed Sullivan show the day after his ninth birthday, and he was hooked for the rest of his life. I remember him singing, terribly, I Want to Hold Your Hand while he put the training wheels on my first bike. Every time a Beatles song played on the local "oldies" radio station, he turned the volume up to ear-piercing volume.

My mother used to sing to me at night, and one of the first songs I can remember her singing to me as I fell asleep was Ebony and Ivory. I remember my parents, young and in love, doing dishes together and singing the chorus to Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey, wiggling their hips, and laughing like school children. Happy memories, very happy.

Whether they knew what they were doing or not, they spawned an über fan. Even the idea of seeing Paul McCartney live was one of the greatest rushes of excitement I ever felt.

It may not look like much, but it took a lot of effort to get it. Let me back up a moment.

Throughout our relationship, I have had a big, brick-like camera to Nick's point-and-shoot. You really need both types of cameras because DSLRs do not fit so well in a pocket—at least not comfortably or without awkward stares. Luckily, my back problems manifest when I have weight pulling me backward (like a backpack), but something pulling me forward actually relieves the discomfort. I don't mind having a brick hanging around my neck, but it's not always the most convenient.

Nick has been the owner of a long line of Sony Cyber-Shots. He was pretty geeked out with the one he had when I met him, but managed to lose it after a trip to Minneapolis after we took his parents to a football game there in late 2007. For some reason, he didn't want to call the hotel to see if they found a camera. I bought him a newer model for Christmas that year.

THAT camera lasted a few years. He took it on every adventure, and it was on one of those that it died. I was back home, feverishly writing essays, when he went kayaking with our friend Jim in the summer of 2010. While taking pictures, a spider landed on him. From recollections, I understand that he screamed like a girl and threw the camera into the air…which then splashed into the creek. He was able to retrieve the camera, and the memory card was functional. The camera never powered up again.

Then he bought another Cyber-Shot that was supposedly waterproof. He was very traumatized by that spider you see, and he wanted to make sure his camera would be safe the next time one landed and made him get all wussy. That was the camera he used during our trip to Florida for our wedding and our first two days in Las Vegas last month (note to self, still need to talk about Las Vegas and THE CUTE ONE). I say the first two days, because on the third day he decided to test out that waterproofing. It was unsuccessful.

We were going to see Cirque du Soleil's Love that night. No cameras were allowed during the show or even our backstage tour, but we did want some pictures of the Mirage. I did not bring the Nikon with because I didn't want to risk being denied entrance to the show or having them confiscate it. On impulse, while I was still lounging by the pool, Nick bought a camera out of a Best Buy vending machine in the lobby of our hotel (MGM Grand). He bought it because it was a Sony and because it looked cool. It was completely inappropriate for our needs and took extremely low quality stills (see below). He resold it on Craigslist a few weeks ago.



Since Sony told us that it would cost more than $600 to fix the camera (when it didn't cost that much new), we knew we would be buying yet another brand new Sony camera. What is that now? Four? Five? In the same time that he has cycled through point-and-shoots, I have had exactly two DSLRs. Granted, the cost of one of my bricks warrants years of use. Plus, I only replaced my camera last year because my other camera needed some repairs, lacked certain functionality, and I needed a new lens…it doesn't hurt that I've always wanted a Nikon. But, you know.

Last week, Nick and I bought tickets to a pre-screening of Harry Potter. It was a charity event that included a reception, drinks, and a costume contest. Nick really wanted to have a little camera along for the ride. He scoured Madison looking for the camera he wanted but nothing was available. Last minute, we ordered it online with next day shipping.

The "next" day that it was supposed to arrive? Yeah, that was movie day. Nothing like cutting it close.

So close, in fact, that the package did not arrive that day. Understandably upset, Nick demanded that the company reverse the shipping charges. Which they did. Then they lost the shipment. Nick demanded that they fix the mess quickly. They sent another camera with next day Saturday delivery (which of course we didn't pay for).

So, we have the sparkly blue Cyber-Shot now (I was sick of black and silver, so I put my weight behind the blue). This one is supposedly waterproof too, but I don't think I'm going to let him test the waterproofness this time.



This one has a lot of neat features that try to replicate the depth of an SLR image. For example, it has a background de-focus function that takes two photographs in rapid succession. One of the images is blurred while the other is crisp. The two are then overlaid with the crisp foreground and blurred background. It's not perfect, but under the perfect conditions where depth is obvious, it's kind of neat (both the outcome and the logic).



How long will this one last?

I am in the process of reviewing drafts that I have saved over the last few years. I saved the following draft on July 11, 2010. Now, a year later, I think it's about time to finish her up…but you'll notice that the beginning bits are a bit outdated now.

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(Written 7.11.10)

Forgive me for being a little wistful over the next few months. 2010 is shaping up to be a year where a lot of time and hard work is paying off, and I wouldn't really be me if I didn't give credence to the past while celebrating the present. On the way to work the other day, the DJs were discussing the had-I-known-then-what-I-know-now conundrum, and I haven't been able to get the topic off my mind.

In less than six months, I will marry Nick. I think back to myself seven years ago when I tried this the first time. There are a lot of things I liked about that Laura, mainly the innocence. She thought that she could have anything she wanted if she just wanted it badly enough. She had her whole life ahead of her, which translated roughly to an idea bordering on immortality.

She had never truly experienced death, save for elderly relatives who passed in her early youth and whom she never really knew to begin with. The idea that someone close to her could leave was so foreign that it hinged on ludicrous. She also believed that promises are always upheld, regardless of the source. I truly was a little Pollyanna, and nothing could ever go wrong if I just kept my spirits up and hoped for the very best.



That girl also had zero ability to cope with hardship, and lacked faith in her own strength. As has been documented throughout the archives of this blog, her world as she knew it did eventually crash. It was sudden and the wake was devastating. Like Pollyanna being told that she may never walk again, for the first time I couldn't find anything to be happy about. I too needed the love and support of the people in my life to climb my way back out.

Yes, I miss her innocence, but mostly I am sad that she had to find out the hard way that there isn't always an obvious silver lining, that you have to go looking for the good. I do not miss her fear that if everything wasn't always "just so" that something catastrophic would happen or that everyone would judge her incompetent at life. It's the coming of age that I suppose we all go through.

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(Written 7.10.11)

I became too wistful to publish this last year. My memory is fairly good, but I have a tendency to romanticize the past. When an alternate reality hued with rosier shades presents itself, melancholy is a foregone conclusion. 2010 did end up to be a year where a lot of my goals were realized…but at the time this was written, I was beat.

I have never known exhaustion so complete as I had during my last few months of school. A perfectionist in almost everything, I refused to accept anything other than an A. Those last few really difficult classes came with professors who were extremely stingy with their top marks. I wrote my heart out. I researched until my brain felt ready to burst. I raked my papers over coals in effort to see them through the eyes of an unsympathetic audience. I scribbled all over them with a red pen, rewrote awkward passages, and gave it everything I had.

Then it was over, and I graduated with top honors.

See, the innocent Laura of yore didn't have it in her to make the sacrifices it took to finish her degree. She did not value herself—neither her development nor her sense of accomplishment—enough to realize that finishing her degree was something she had to do because it was important to her. It really wasn't about anybody else…that's something I didn't understand before.

Reminiscing the past is fine as long as you don't let it pull you in. I would have to sacrifice a lot to return to a different time. The tradeoff would never be worthwhile, not with any terms. I regret that I am entering the next decade more jaded than I entered the last, but that's life. Innocence is a gift, and it's special because it's not meant to last forever.

I still see the glass as half-full even though I know that it could very easily go the other way. I am still a Pollyanna, even though it irritates the pessimists. (Hi, Brenda! Hi, Michelle! Hi, Nick!) I am proud of this. Today, my optimism is the result of a choice. Yesterday, my optimism existed because I couldn't fathom anything going wrong.

Making the choice gives me more strength than an assumption never could. I still like thinking about what if…what if I knew then what I know now? Quite frankly, I would not have been able to handle it. Knowing more is the reward of time, and I'll accept my prize gratefully.