SLEEPOVER

I love sleepovers.  I always have.  Sleepovers in kindergarten when you talked about boys being gross and used sleeping bags on your living room floor and staying up until you passed out (which, when you're 5 or 6 is just barely until the late night news starts) made you feel like a rebel.  Sleepovers in middle school when you talked about boys you crushed on and girls of whom you were jealous (but would never admit to either of those things).  Sleepovers in high school when you talked about boys you dated and formed deep friendships with a few particular gals and dreamed about what you'd be when you grew up.  Sleepovers in college when suddenly the sleepovers actually involved boys (and girls, and sometimes whole groups of people who just fell asleep wherever they could find a spot).  And sleepovers as an adult - when you stay up all night and don't sleep at all because you're discussing the many realizations of what it is to be a "grown up", or when the nightly sleepover you thought was everlasting starts unraveling hour by early morning hour right before your eyes, or when someone who cares about you trudges all the way to "Upstate Manhattan" and ends up crashing on your couch, or when you spontaneously enjoy a night in Brooklyn with a new friend who's married to an older friend whom you have always wanted to get to know better... and the figuring out of each other, the bonding - that is the root of all great sleepovers.