New York City, May 21, 2014

★★ An overcast sky dimpled with blue straightened out into plain flat gray. The air was listless and humid, the day neither inviting nor forbidding. In the afternoon, the sun did not so much burn through as it negotiated an arrangement to cast a few shadows without dispelling the clouds. The jacket that had protected against the office air conditioning wasn’t necessary for the commute home, but to take it off would have been to grant the clammy atmosphere too much credit. The heavy twilight air sent rainbow sprinkles plopping from the soft-serve ice cream cone in clots, faster than the two-year-old could sprint on his way to take possession of it.