The last thing I want to do is curl up on the couch with my textbook and read three more chapters.

The sun is back, after an interminable week of slippery sidewalks, iced-over bridges, and gray swollen skies.

I can't believe I used to be a Seattle kid, not the way I react to the sun after just a few days of sleet and rain. I'm careening through the house, luring the dogs into a game of chase, skittering & sliding across the hardwood floor, wrestling and bouncing and making a huge racket. I'm taking "study breaks," running hard around the block before hurling myself onto the couch, slush and mud soaking my jeans. And then! Another break to make more coffee!

Pattywhack loped out of his room this morning to find me at the kitchen table, already poring over textbook. "MEGAN! SOUTHWEST! CLOUDS!" he yelled, pointing at the front door. We've been roommates for a year so further words were unnecessary. I bounced up and we stepped outside. Wide, vividly surreal blue sky underneath dissolving patterns of clouds painted in a thousand subtle colors.

I wish I could better communicate the thrill, the surge of relief and glee at the sunlight glinting bright off patches of melting snow. It starts as delicate fluttering anticipation, watching rivulets carve their way through blocks of ice in the shadows. The anticipation builds, gaining momentum as I remember the joy of mild breezes and wildflowers and warm sun on bare arms. The yearning just grows, maddeningly inarticulate and inescapable, until I'm shaking with the need for release, the need to whoop and scream and leap and run and flirt and kick and dance until I collapse on the ground, giddy and spent and sated. Until tomorrow.

Checking out the theories behind psychological and physiological symptoms associated with spring fever, which seem to be concerned primarily with changing circadian rhythms and the effects of increased light on serotonin and melanin production. Oh, neurotransmitters, why must you make me wacky and horny and restless and dumb? (even moreso than usual?)