I'm listening to the rain.  I was just outside, under an enormous golf umbrella, juggling that and a glass of Spanish red wine in a crystal glass that a couple of goldfish could swim in comfortably, a cigarette, and a 1953 paperback copy of The Great Gatsby. 

(I'd forgotten how gorgeous some of the descriptions are - and how annoying some of the characters.)

Now I'm listening to Elvis Costello's "Alison", and being sort of amazed that it came out the year I was born; I can't remember ever hearing it as a child, so it seems like something that would've maybe happened in the 90s, when I was in high school. 

I'm thinking of the men I love, and where they are: one here and gone again (but he'll be home tonight), one close but not, one thousands of miles away and I'll never see him again.  

And I switch the music - from Neko Case singing a Tom Waits song to Spoon, the first song I ever heard by them, and my mood shifts just enough that the night doesn't seem utterly hopeless.