On rain in Vegas

The land's so unaccustomed to rain that the jagged hills which hem in Vegas itself and its infinite suburbs are washed clean of months of dust. When a shower passes, the mountains hold forth with profound brick reds and deep purples everyone had forgotten were there. The smell of galoshes and puddles, which tended to be fleeting in my younger days (as though the darker the weather was back then, the more it tends to glow today), is everywhere: there's nowhere for the water to drain off to, and because the earth is always warm the rain, once it touches down, spreads that damp metallic scent all over the valley.

Yesterday: Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, a cinnamon candle, and missing someone (you know who you are) all afternoon. The plan for today: the wonderful same.