This morning, I dreamed that I was taking a nap on a huge bed in the middle of a mall-like space. It was a really big bed, clearly intended for public use. There were a few people way at the foot of the bed, several yards away, who had curled up for a snooze as well.

As I was trying to fall asleep, Woody Allen came by and asked me whether I’d heard that Paul Newman was dead.

I opened my eyes, saw that it was Woody Allen, and decided I didn’t need to sit up. “The news makes me kind of sad,” I replied. “Which is kind of silly, since he’s a celebrity that I didn’t know personally. But when I was a little girl, I wanted to marry Paul Newman. I thought he was the handsomest man on earth. I had the hots for him well into his old age; when The Color of Money came out, I would have jumped Newman’s bones before Tom Cruise’s. And on top of it all, he was a damn fine actor and always came off as a decent sort of guy.”

Woody Allen shrugged and said, “Hey, you’re preaching to the choir here.” With a sad, wistful look, he climbed into the bed next to me, lay on his back, pulled a sheet up to his chin, and sighed deeply. “I wish I could sleep,” he said to me, “but I’ve never been good at naps.”

“You know,” I said to him, “you might want to ease back on that whole neurotic thing, if you can. It doesn’t play so well now.”

Woody Allen closed his eyes and pretended to try to take a nap.

I wanted to yell at him about the whole Soon-Yi thing, but I felt kind of bad for him. At that point, some friends came by and asked whether I felt weird having Woody Allen in the same bed.

“Oh, leave him alone,” I replied. “He’s not being creepy about it.”

This is what happens, I think, when NPR is the station on your radio alarm.

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