Stars, hide your fires!

dreamy Joaquin

Last night I dreamed that I was hanging out in my current apartment with my mom, Joaquin Phoenix, and someone else, I'm not sure who. The other dude was short, pudgy, and bald. I think he was a friend of my mom's.

It was the middle of the night, and no lights were on, just the moonlight coming in the open window. I got up out of bed needing to pee and came upon the others still hanging out in my living room. My mom was napping on the couch, and Joaquin sat at my computer trying to help the pudgy guy remember who he is. He listed a bunch of movies, then recommended that the guy watch Clay Pigeons and Velvelt Goldmine because those are his best films. I agreed that Velvet Goldmine is fantastic. I made no comment about Clay Pigeons and wondered why he didn't mention Quills instead. Or even Gladiator for fuck's sake! I told the pudgy dude that Velvet Goldmine stars Christian Bale, Ewan McGregor, and Joaquin Phoenix, but it in fact does not. It's Jonathan Rhys Meyers, not Joaquin. DUH, Sleeping Christi.

So I decided to stay up and hang out. It was Friday, so why not, I says. I took one of my mom's Virginia Slims to smoke on the patio and asked Joaquin if he cared to join me, and he said he'd be out in a minute. He and that other guy were busy trying to find the Velvet Goldmine on Netflix on demand. They only found something called Velvet Goldmine 2 which looked like some awful, straight to DVD kind of crap.

I went outside, lit up, and looked at the sky. I saw through the trees the biggest brightest and most stars I've ever seen. I crouched to get a better view through the branches and saw the most detailed version of Orion ever. Like thousands of stars traced his whole self and even detailed his clothing and his bow and arrows and facial features. The moon was the buckle of his belt. All the stars looked like balls of orange fire.

Joaquin stuck his head out the sliding glass door and laughed asked me what on earth was I doing crouching like that. What do you see? He said.

I said, I see Orion and....EEEEK the apartments are on fire!!!

And surely they were. My roof was in flames!

We all ran downstairs and as far as we could get from the building. In my dream there was a giant field around the apartments, and a highway nearby. The apartments burned up pretty quickly and I thought of my cats with a pang that I had to repress at the moment. I couldn't go back for them.

I said out loud they were the only thing I'd miss out of all my possessions. Joaquin said, what about all your pictures? I said I have them stored online. I'll just download them someplace else. Nothing's material anymore. Then I threw myself into his arms in the guise of needing comforting because I was scared, when really I was just taking advantage of the situation to cop a feel. He laughed and said awwww and let me nuzzle his cheek.

AND THEN I WOKE UP.