IMO

Before his stand up routine, Aziz Ansari solicited $1500 bids to vote on whether the content of the show would be that of his smiley and goofy self, or a rough and angry alter-ego (not wholly unlike his Funny People character, Randy, which he has been known to bring out from time to time). I accidentally put too many zeros on my check, and he decided that $15,000 was enough for me to now have complete creative control of his routine for the evening. The resulting show was terrible. A wonderful lesson in the pitfalls of commissioning art.

Had a dream that Katie and I were gliding through the air trying to infiltrate an heavily guarded fortress. We came up short and fell in the moat where we were attacked by alligators. I did my best to fend them off but we quickly became overwhelmed. At that point I told Katie, “This is your dream. You need to control it and move us to safety. If you can’t get that done very quickly I am going to have to just wake us up.”

When I couldn’t wait any longer I did just that, forcefully squinted my eyes shut until I woke up, then I turned over to Katie and started pushing on her shoulder, hair, and cheek trying to wake her up so she would not be devoured by the alligators. Eventually I just reached up and pried her eyelids open. She abruptly woke up, very confused, and looked at me like I was out of my mind. And I was. It was only at that moment that I came to my senses and remembered that shared dreaming isn’t a real thing.

I didn’t say another word, just rolled over and went back to sleep. Katie has no memory of being woken up. Thank goodness.