Things that are not awesome: being cold, getting your ass kicked in laser tag by not only your little sister but also your mother, and getting out of bed.

Things that are awesome: just about everything else that has happened in the last week.

After writing my silly post about my month-long quest for glitter and absurdity, I went laser tagging with my mom, sister, and grandparents. At the end of both rounds Lion came in first, followed by my mother, and then me. Fortunately, I defeated my grandparents. So obviously I am a legendary laser tag player and in the event that the zombie apocoalypse comes down to a laser tag battle to the death, it is quite clear what my survival odds are…

But seriously.

On Thursday I left for New York, after getting negative two hours of sleep. I napped for about eight seconds on the plane. Although I managed to screw-up the hotel shuttle process, I eventually got checked into my room at around 3:30. I texted Nugs for the ninja game plan (more on this later) only to realize that in my exhaustion, I had the days wrong.

Rather than succumb to champion napping (Nugs is an expert on this concept) which would certainly preclude my ability to leave the room at all that day, I spent about an hour looking things up online and acquiring a vague working knowledge of where I was. Or at least enough that “Queens” and “Astoria” could be located on a map. I wandered aimlessly around Astoria, because I knew I wasn’t bold enough to deal with the subway yet. I stumbled across a nicer-than-expected Thai restaurant that was apparently a date place of sorts because the staff kept looking at me and my solitude and sweat pants funny. That peanut chicken was delicious and required all of my attention. Deal with it.

On Friday, my former roommate and legendary friend Vagina wasn’t expected to arrive until 5:45 so, I decided to hit up museums, as that seemed like a logical thing to do by myself.

Mostly, I just wandered around the brain exhibit at the Natural History Museum solving puzzles. And then loitering in the vicinity of said puzzles so I could feel all self-congratulatory as I watched others take longer to complete them. Of course, this interfered with my ability to take the time to actually read the displays that told me what part of the brain the various puzzles and games were supposed to be somehow affiliated with. Oops.

At some point I stumbled onto Time Square, and once I got past the sensory overload and realized that it was filled with things that I can find just about everywhere else in this country except my awful little town, I concluded that the drizzle and the cold and the general feet weariness meant I should go back to rest up for Vagina and Nugs and Ninjas.

Vagina got in late, I got glittered up, and we took a gypsy cab to dinner. For reasons that were never explained to us, he could only drop us off three blocks away from our actual destination, and we were already 30 minutes late. And so so confused, because Nugs had told me nothing more than “NINJAS!” which, all right, fine, is all I really needed to know.

Ninja New York, in spite of its staggering price tag, was everything I would have hoped for if I had known what to hope for. Or almost everything. I felt that there was an unsettling lack of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tie-in. But these were classy ninjas. They had all sorts of excellent little caves and corridors and hot ninja waiters who announced themselves in front of you by making really loud noises.

I would be an awful ninja, because I am neither quiet nor stealthy. I would also take one look at the solid black uniform and throw a temper tantrum when told that I could not adorn it with glitter and feathers and sequins. Fortunately, Nugs and our ninja waiter are now married and I was annointed Maid of Dishonor, so I have participated in a ninja wedding. Cross that off my life’s to-do list.

From there we hit up a few bars and received a walking tour of the West Village until all of our faces screamed “OH MY GOD NEED THE SLEEPIES NOW” and we trekked back out to our hotel at some ungodly hour.

Nugs had family shit the next day, but Vagina and I slept in until around one. The Statue of Liberty had originally been on the agenda, but it was clear that neither one of us had the requisite energy to tackle that. We decided on the Empire State Building, as this seemed like a much more manageable task. A few lines, a couple elevators, and a bunch of pictures. Boom. Tourist task complete.

From there we went to Union Station to meet up with two of Vagina’s study abroad friends who are amazing girls and I swear to you that these three are lying and have actually known each other since they were small children because they are just ridiculously cute together. And they graciously included me in their circle of adorable. Since it was clear that we are all dating, I was introduced to the magic of Max Brenner. And what other word is there, really, for a chocolate-themed restaurant than magic? The non-chocolate entrees were delicious, but this fact is secondary to the fact that I had the most amazing drink in the history of alcohol and chocolate. And everything Vagina ordered looked like a science experiment. It’s everything that was awesome about childhood merged with amazing big-girl things. Chocolate. Food that you can play with. Classy aesthetic. Alcohol. This all amounts to #winning.

We then wandered around until toofuckingcold o’clock, at which point we saw the girls off at Penn Station and then started heading home just before midnight because, in all honesty, we never really woke up that day.

And right now I am comparably exhausted because I had to wake up way too early to get coffee with Lion. And recreating the magic of Sunday with its new friends and my journey home will take at least another 1000 words.