I live in Las Vegas and the crazy, extreme, party, bling-bling, over-the-top everything rumors are 100% true.

Just this week I had a silver fox of a man disco ball glitter himself across the front end of my car as he crossed in the sidewalk from parking lot to the mall bedecked in yellow hot pants with his shirt blinding drivers from the +100 degree scorching sun in a BeDazzler’s dream of sequins. And he actually looked pretty stylish doing it.

Las Vegas got style.

We also got game. Particularly women’s basketball game.

And it is a joy and a party.

The stadium drops to black to highlight the flames shooting from both baskets on either end of the court, as laser lights cut lines of color through the darkness and etch the team’s name and emblem into the center of the court as screams and cheers fill the space until it’s tangible. Your arms swirling in it as you add your voice and energy to the cacophony as the players are announced. The Megatron quad-screen tv hoovering over center court shivers and flashes as it encourages attendees to GET LOUD with double person height letters.

And that’s just the start of the show—I mean game.

Music is constant like a rock show, until it is one of our players at the free-throw, and then the stadium insta-quiets so fast and so completely you could hear a soda-pop drop from the hand of a fan as we all sit on the edge of our seats.

And goodness forbid if the other team is at the free-throw line!

The range of cries becomes a horror show of sound distraction. A roar from a thousand angry chaos lions. A focusing nightmare.

During timeouts we are all singing together for crowd karaoke as we follow the bouncing ball on the Megatron TV and watch our fellow stadiumees dramatically mouth the words with sparkles in their eyes.

The Lost Fan Cam scrolls through the crowd looking for fans sporting team jerseys that aren’t our own. The wearers proudly lifting their shirts to the cam that found them as we cheer and laugh them on. Proud in return.

Free t-shirts are thrown into the crowd by the flock of conservatively attired team dancers and Buckets, the giant bunny mascot who has a surprisingly good arm, giving hope to those in the nose bleeds for an arial prize.

And if you’re a little guy dancing with abandon and you’re spotted by the Megatron cam, well the head team member will give you a team t-shirt after the crowd has encouragingly cheered in a volume few game-play moments can inspire.

And halftime usually holds a breathtaking performer doing a something off the wall, blasted out of the realm of possible performance.

Because Vegas got talent.

And win or lose, as the mass of bodies cattle crawl their way out of the arena and into the Mandalay Bay casino to dine out, find their car, or throw some dice—one voice calling the team name anonymously in the crowd will get a full throated response of the team name in return.

The game in a show. A party. A community event. A family event.

A non-stop ruckus of good feeling and comradery.

I love it.

And then I saw another WNBA game on the internet.

It was so quiet. Subdued.

I assumed it was just how they filmed it, with filters and selective recordings. Cutting to stats and replays as the crowd had their own version of fun time together.

I have since learned that we are Vegas. And our party is not the norm.

That other games are just the big grown-up sister to the high school basketball games I’d play in the band at.

Duh-duh Da-da Da-da — CHARGE!!

That only Vegas has the party. With the duo DJs bedazzled in their own glitter and glam hosting the event like a rock-game-party of stadium proportions.

And I love that I live here. And get that extra bling. That extra glam and sense of community.

I want that in more things.

Like the books I read.

I just found a new favorite author to add to my well-dusted and loved-on collection.

I read the first book and was bedazzled by the characters. Got to the end and felt like I knew them, their little town. Their community.

And when I closed the cover I was sad that was the end.

I knew there were 10+ more book with the detective in it, as it was the first of a series. And starting the second book, I almost put it down in melancholy as the first characters I read about were new to me. And not very nice.

I kept going as there were other reasons I liked the book, including the detective, but longed to know more about this town I fell in love with. Follow more of these people’s stories, imaginary people, but representations of people I did know and cared about in real time. Or wanted in my life. A place I wanted in my life.

And then with the name of one of those characters on my mental lips wishing to know what happened to her next, she started speaking to me from the page.

What!?!

With a flip of pages and a run to the author website, I had an incredible discovery—the whole series is set in this blessed little made-up town I adore, these people I want to know better. That I already know by name.

And that—in real life—there was a community of people that felt the same.

So much so that in real life a little town took up the name of the imaginary town. Similar, or perhaps inspired to the author to write about it (I need to do more research) but there is a real life town so similar that a community of fans can traverse to it, a pilgrimage so to speak, to touch live what is now not only in their heads, and commune with like book-world-lover people like themselves.

Wow!

I want that more. And more.

It feels like the additional step up out of the merch cling and excitement I have to connect with a book and people, real and imaginary, that live in those worlds.

There are so many things in this world that pull us apart.

These types of community connections bring us together with a puff of wind that blows all that negative muck away. And just leave us standing together, enjoying one another.

So whether you live in Vegas or anywhere in our world, I wish you joy and connection, and a community of people you can love and rejoice with.