Fed up. Drained. Done in. Disheartened, dejected, dispirited. Burnt-out, bushed, bone-tired. It doesn’t take a pandemic to pigeonhole February, the bleakest, coldest and most difficult month of the year to pronounce (feh·byoo·uh·ree? feh·broo·rare·ree?), a stretch so miserable that superstitious Roman king Numa Pompilius made an executive decision to proclaim February the shortest month (feels like the longest) at 28 days, ensuring the sum of days over twelve months would be an odd number, lucky for some, as Numa considered even numbers unlucky. And please don’t #ValentinesDay us. May we remind you that those same intolerant ancient Romans beheaded two unlucky Christians for their beliefs, both named Valentine, on February 14 of different years during the third century AD? Celebrating the lives of these martyred mugs has somehow morphed into the biggest date night of the year for pie-eyed couples, replete with pricey roses, prosecco and proposals, at worst engendering scorn, jealousy and FOMO in those of us not currently heads-over-heels in shiny, happy, sexy love.

April 2021 seems a lifetime ago, back when psychologist Adam Grant wrote a piece for The New York Times that went viral: “There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing”. Grant articulates our shared experience of languishing as “the dulling of delight” and “the dwindling of drive”; he posits we’re grieving the loss of normalcy, alongside the loss of loved ones. Grant describes languishing as “the void between depression and flourishing”, noting how it “dulls your motivation, disrupts your ability to focus”. Wide awake at the end of yet another dull day, we plan trips we won’t take, city breaks in Seville or Paris or Rome, where we’d rock lip lacquer instead of N95’s; Grant deconstructs this wakefulness as “a search for bliss in a bleak day, connection in a lonely week, or purpose in a perpetual pandemic.”

Sure, we know we ought to be grateful, scribbling thanks in gratitude journals, because we’re still here, the pants bored off us. Suffering from survivor’s guilt, it feels profane to waste even a minute of our precious lives being, well, bored. Still, some of us can’t seem to shake the blahs and thrive, to emerge from hibernation, to channel our inner crocuses and crash through thawing ground towards the sun, sporting salon-fresh, purple-petal dye jobs. Some bulbs are hardy, some tender, some need to be forced to bloom.

So is there an antidote for languishing, a cure for boredom, a vaccine to inoculate us against loss and the grief that follows? Here is where I’d intended to tell you about Catherine Price’s new book The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again. Borrow it from the library and, while you’re at it, pick up something by the late Joan Didion, who said this at a commencement address in 1975: “I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment.” @susanzelouf

1. I’M ENTERTAINING the neighbours with Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Songs from the Kitchen Disco.

2. I’M DRESSING for adventure in crayon colours via Vogue’s fashion colouring book. Shop out-of-print editions at www.bookdepository.com.

3. I’M COLLECTING whimsical earthenware vessels by Kilkenny-based ceramicist @AndrewLudick.

4. I’M TRAINING my dog to jump through hoops, because nobody’s bored under the big top!

5. I’M POINTING North in Prada SS22 brushed leather slingbacks. www.prada.com.

6. I’M LIFTING spirits in tasseled technicolor. Watch the Royal Ballet of London bring Halpern’s SS22 fringe to life in Return to Movement; www.londonfashionweek.co.uk.

7. I’M REMEMBERING how much fun fun is, guided by Catherine Price’s The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again.

8. I’M LISTENING to the cultural conversation between Ghanaianborn artist Amoako Boafo and Dior Menswear man Kim Jones. Gift some lucky man a Boafo x Dior ribbed knit featuring a vivid Boafo portrait, then borrow it.

9. I’M PRETENDING to be bored in anything-but-boring gear by Rochas artistic director Charles de Vilmorin.

10. I’M BAGGING Prada’s mint green re-edition of their 2000 nylon mini-bag, if I can find one!

11. I’M TRANSITIONING back to heels in a pair of zingy Wandler Anne mules; www.wandler.com.