This weekend, I found myself on the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island, despite having been pretty apprehensive the last time. (I have no answers; I just suddenly appeared on the Wonder Wheel again, like it was a dream and I was escaping a chemistry test by flapping my arms really fast and that’s just what happened.)

At night, Coney Island is packed and filthy and loud. (I would say it changed how I feel about Coney Island, but anyone who reads “And the Next, and the Next” in the Living Dead 2 is going to get an idea of how I feel about Coney Island.)

However, from the Wonder Wheel, there’s something very melancholy about it:

The blackness isn’t just my questionable camera; it really is a blaze of lights and then the huge, sapping darkness.

I walked across the empty beach and into the water, which was so dark that when the waves came in over my knees, it looked like tar. (I guess it still might, soon.)

The next day was the Natural History Museum, which has one of my favorite things in the world, the Wall of Completely Overwhelming BioDiversity:

And speaking of overwhelming, the IMAX Hubble movie talked casually about the 90-trillion-mile-wide Orion nebula, which is a birthplace for stars and galaxies:

It confirmed two things: the universe is an amazing place, and I am completely unprepared for Launchpad next week. (I did, however, pick up a lot of fun facts about marine life, so we’ll see if that comes in handy at any point.)

There’s no outward connection between the two days, but somehow I feel as if there was; as if I was reminded how lonely the world is, before I was reminded how teeming it is, before I was reminded how insignificant it is.

(And, oddly, how much the universe looks like Coney Island at night.)

When I worked for the event planner, back in 1874, we did a lot of serious parties. Usually they were weddings, but there were a surprising number of dream birthdays as well. Those parties were generally a lot fancier than I could have imagined. (You think Gossip Girl is completely fake and impossible, but I assure you, I only ever looked at those parties and thought, “They’ve understaffed.” It’s all reaaaaal!)

I am not a huge party person, but those parties still seemed a little empty, because very few of them were based on movies. Specifically, the best party of all time:

I have thought for years and continue to think this is the best party idea of all time. (Except for the threats-from-violent-gangs part and the running-from-the-cops part and the 1/3-of-your-guests-will-perish-and/or-get-picked-up-by-the-cops part, but no party is perfect, and this is still better than some of the parties I’ve been to.)

The problem with that party is logistics. All of them.

It’s hard to ask people to haul ass as high as 100th St (where the movie’s first chase scenes were filmed), wander casually down to 72nd street, get into a fight with baseball bats, hang out in Union Square for several hours, then hop the train down to Coney Island at dawn (before anything is open). Even if you are actually planning a party and not being a hopeless smartass, there’s no reason to do this; it’s long and exhausting, and by the time you get to Coney, even if things were open at 7am, everyone’s too tired to hit the Wonder Wheel or anything.

I even tried to schedule this party once, before I realized it was impossible for anyone with a day job or a circadian rhythm or anything. And yet, every summer I get a brief, flickering urge to do it, because if done right, it would be the best party in the world, ever.

(This post brought to you by trying to think of ways to make my sister suffer in the name of my birthday. I was THISCLOSE to getting her to sit through the midnight show of Eclipse. SO CLOSE.)

On Friday, I went to Alaya Dawn Johnson’s launch party for her 1920s vampire novel Moonshine. It was a flapper party. I was not missing that.

It was a great party – live music, performances, people complaining about their suits at length. But the best part about it was that the gallery was so far on the West Side that hipsters piling onto the street from out of nowhere just looked as though they had crawled out of the slime of the River, adjusted their ironic 80s fashions, and then set out their shamble across the city. I am not exaggerating when I say that literally hundreds of hipsters passed us, on this non-major cross-street at the far edge of the city, over the course of the evening. I still don’t understand where they all came from. Eventually partygoers gave me possible transportation options like “magical bridge” and “dirigible,” and I believed them all, because THEY JUST KEPT COMING.

Bonus: that party also ruined my impression of New York as a place where hipsters are obsessed with being seen in superhip exclusive nightclubs with five bouncers, which I carried over from my time working for an event planner. Turns out this is wrong! People in New York will, in fact, enter any venue where lights are on and sound is coming out, much like moths, or nightgown-wearing young ladies vacationing in remote locales. A good two dozen people walked into this party off the street, saw that 95% of attendees were dressed like a silent movie, AND WENT WITH IT. Twenty minutes later, they would wander out again, looking confusedly at the book they had somehow bought. Meanwhile, all the costumed partygoers were sipping drinks and giving them the side-eye. It was glorious.

There is photographic evidence of this nice party, but this photo in particular captures the mood of the room:

Photo: Ellen B. Wright | http://www.ellenbwright.com/

It catches that sense of fun that was going around all night, with Alaya soaking up the good vibes, AND a pair of party-crashers doing the Charleston in the foreground. Dance away, participatory hipsters! (SERIOUSLY, WHERE DID YOU COME FROM.)

It’s official – I’ll be attending Launch Pad this year!

I’m incredibly excited about this, and seriously cannot wait for July. Stars! (I live in New York; if you ever see a decent night sky in New York City, something is horribly wrong and you should try to leave that parallel universe immediately.)

(You know, out of context, that title sounds like something Gilgamesh would say, and not a way to instantly get me to quote that film in its entirety.)

A week ago, I passed a little hobby shop that had Galaxy Quest miniatures in the window. I did a double-take, walked back, pressed my face to the grate until my face looked like a waffle iron, and generally pined for them. It took me a week to get back there at a time when they were actually open. But I did, and now I own this:

Box is labeled “Standard Thermian Issue.” APPROVED.

You’d think that owning this, and being able to take it out of the packaging any time I want, would be the best thing ever. (Collectors, please put down your mint-in-box weapons – the bottom of this box is so damaged there’s no point in keeping it pristine. It’s seen better days; it might as well live out its life being carried around on a belt loop as I cosplay as Brandon-at-home-just-as-Jason-calls-him or something.) However, it turns out that this is NOT, in fact the best thing ever, because as I went looking for pictures of this thing, I found a website that has this on it:

Found on The Questerian.

I don’t care if this is the real Japanese poster, or a fan graphic, or a total hoax, because whatever this is, it is the best thing ever. (That gun is shooting “Never Give Up, Never Surrender,” you guys. YOU GUYS.)

My mom’s reaction when I told her I’d bought Thermian away-team gear: “Well, you’re outside.” (This nerd apple did not fall far from the tree.)