Not the cruelest month. But close.

It's February all right. There's virtually no sunlight through the fog. There's mud and ice combined all over the place - double the chance of slipping and ruining the books in your arms. There's no color. No one looks at anyone else when they cross paths - but no one really does cross paths, because everyone's trying to stay inside.

A friend of mine commented at lunch that there was no pleasure in this particular meal; we were just trying to quell the possibility of hunger. So nothing had a particular taste. I put music on as I was walking, not because I felt in the mood for the songs I chose, but because the songs could prevent me from feeling some negative sort of mood.

We're all concentrating on our feet, trying not to slip. I forget how much focus that takes, and how much energy it drains from daily pleasures. There is a profound distinction between human behavior in pleasant weather and foul weather. This weather isn't particularly foul; we had freezing rain storms last night, but it's closer to thirty degrees than three. It's certainly less hateful than January. But it still feels like there's little worth looking forward to, at least for another 23 days.

Autopilot is the worst.