If you're looking for a good time when you visit New York, you can read how to spend 36 Hours (Straight) in Central Park in today's New York Times, or you can just do what I did: spend 36 hours in Central Park over the course of nine years. After all, you got plans to sleep in the park this weekend? Wayward tourists, here is how to do Central Park.

FRIDAY

1. A Walking Tour | 1 p.m.

A great way to introduce yourself to the beauties of Central Park is to eat a brickload of halal food and then immediately feel like you are going to poop everywhere. From there you can take a nice stroll up and down Central Park West for an hour while you stress-plan where you poop. Trump Plaza, perhaps? Eventually you may find yourself at New York's official bathroom, Starbucks, only to find the poop spell broken.

2. Nightcaps With Friends | 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Gather some close friends for some outdoor aperitifs (this reporter recommends vodka mixed with Minute Maid lemonade). Choose a nice rock near the Lake where a murder scene of "Law and Order: SVU" has been taped. There will be hordes of mosquitoes and someone will cry.

SATURDAY

3. Shakespeare in the Park | 4 a.m. to 12 p.m.

It is simply a sin to miss the Bard in the park, and you can save on a hotel room by sleeping on the ground to get tickets. Some say sleeping on cobblestones next to a man in a Sierra Club fleece may help you live longer. For breakfast, you can get good egg sandwiches at the deli on 81st and Columbus. Keep an eye out. That should take about fifteen minutes. You will sleep through the performance.

4. Brunch at Per Se | 1 p.m.

This reporter was once invited to go to brunch at Per Se on Thanksgiving Day, which is right around the corner from Central Park, but didn't want to let her family down so she went to fucking Philadelphia instead. The struggle she endured thinking about this predicament lasted 3-4 hours.

5. Night at the Museum | 6 p.m.

If you get lucky, you can try to score tickets to the American Museum of Natural History's next Adult Sleepover, which was a hoot. For reasons the reporter cannot ascertain, she has not been invited back.

SUNDAY

6. On the Run | 9 a.m. This reporter has never been to this park to exercise.

7. The Met | 12 p.m. The Met, a great spot. A ton of groovy art, has the added benefit of being inside and not part of the natural world. You could lose hours in this place, and even go on the roof and see the park but not have to touch it or be in it or get attacked by bees. Bring money, you're gonna want a Tiffany-lamp printed pashmina.

8. Dinner at Tavern on the Green | 5 p.m.

This restaurant got panned by the New York Times, pretty crazy because at Christmastime it looks like a Christmas tree on the inside. You can go there, or not. Remember—good egg sandwiches at 81st and Columbus.

Have fun in Central Park. Bring alcohol.

[Image via AP]