I dreamed about you again last night. The night before you forgave me and last night you wouldn't. Maybe tonight I'll dream I've changed and made it right.

I am sitting in Cafe Envie on Decatur. It's decorated like an Italian cafe, tiled floor and red leather banquettes. Radiohead plays The Bends and there is a man playing guitar into his headphones in a corner, while a woman studies her nursing textbooks. When she gets up to walk across the room, the handcuffs chained to her belt gently clink. The passersby vary between old crazy French Quarter men and little baby punks in black leather and lace and tattoos and middle-aged tourist couples.

One of my five favorite things in the world is broken glass in the street at night. The crunch, the sparkle, the refractions and reflections.

I realise a tactical mistake I've made in telling you to wait until the weather is nice to visit me. New Orleans is most itself when it's unbearably hot. I should have insisted you come now when everything is slick with sweat; glasses of iced tea and windows and piano keys and the face of the man next to you, playing the trumpet.

The day before yesterday was the four-year anniversary of my arrival in New Orleans. Four years ago yesterday we were drinking at the Cafe Booze on Bourbon Street. Four years, one month and four days ago today.