| One of my acquaintances, a real-life pal of Al, had invited us to a sleepover. She wouldn’t describe where it was, other than to give the address. So, intrigued, Mom and I drove over there and knocked on the door. She answered. “Oh, hi, come on in! We’ve been waiting for you!” We went in, threw our stuff in the closet, and continued into the living room…where we saw Al, Joan, and Frank. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Somehow, I managed to keep control of my brain, and during the following conversation, I made Al laugh about half a gazillion times. As we talked, I saw movement outside, in the shrubbery. Al noticed it too, and suggested that we go outside to investigate. We walked outside, but we didn’t see the movement again, so the rest of them headed inside. I was just about to follow when I heard “Psst!” I turned and looked back towards the bushes. Debby popped her head out from between branches and hissed “Hey! Can you get Al to keep this little trail back here? I heard he wanted to get rid of it, but it’s good for us to sit in and watch him!” “Um…I’ll see what I can do.” I walked back in the house, and before I could say a word to Al, he raised an eyebrow and said “Yes, I’m keeping the ditch.” I looked out the window to Debby, who had been watching, and gave her a thumbs-up. She grinned and faded back into the brush. Suddenly, I remembered that I had brought along a video camera so that I could show my pal some video we took from earlier that week, and now that I thought about it, I figured that Al would like it too. So I got up, grabbed the camera, and started searching through the tape by looking in the eyepiece and hitting fast forward. All I was seeing was my two cousins’ dance recital, so Mom came over to help me look. She started watching the little LCD window, which could show her a different part of the tape at the same time that I was watching an earlier bit. (It was weird.) The bit she was watching had Tony Goldmark being generally strange on it. At this point, I realized that I was already in my pajamas. (Somehow, my clothes had become pajamas.) These PJ’s rocked. They looked just like Al’s Stupid suit, but with a black stripe running horizontally across the calves. After I gave up looking for the video clip, Al invited Mom and me to do something with him at 3 the next day. I had class the next day, but I was more than willing to skip to be able to spend some quality time with Al. The rest of the folks got into their pajamas and we all slid into our sleeping bags. Al flipped on the TV with a remote, and showed us the video for the first single off his new album. It featured Will Smith doing a very bad attempt at rap in a lunchroom filled with kids who were ignoring him. My Take On It Next Dream |
| Silly Sleepover 08/18/02 |