I'm trying to decide what to do today.

I'd call a friend, but I've got the Winona-Ryder's-character-in-Heathers problem: I don't really like my friends. (The character is Veronica Sawyer, by the way. I know my Winona.) You see, the real issue is this: my friends are all teenage girls. Teenage girls are annoying. I am a teenage girl. Consequently, we all annoy each other so much that we can't stand to associate for more than three hours.

I'd go outside and take a walk in the sunshine, but it's zero degrees Fahrenheit. I am not a penguin.

I'd drive somewhere, but gas costs money. Money is better spent on things that are not gasoline.

I ought to clean my room, but what's the point of a vacation if you just spend it doing things you loathe?

I have such terrible cabin fever. I want to be outside, and I want it to be 72 degrees and sunny. I want the grass to be green and the pavement to be warm to the touch.

Specifically, I want to run through my yard barefoot and write my name in the sand by the curb. I want to ride a green bicycle through the streets and buy a Cherry Coke from the pop machines by the highway. I'd like to sit in the sun in the city park, drink the Coke, and swing on the swingset. I want to wave at the basketball boys playing tennis, and I want to go over and talk to them through the chain-link fence. I want to pick up a garter snake and listen to my best friend scream when I set it down by her feet. Then I want to get back onto my bicycle and ride home. I want to spread my arms out like a tightrope artist and fly --well, roll-- down the hill in front of my house. I want to swing the bike up through the driveway, jump off, and leave it lying on the grass. After that, I'll tiptoe barefoot into the backyard and sit in the sunshine with "Michelle" from Rubber Soul playing on the boombox on the elm stump.

Mirth. That's what I want. Mirth and summer. The next three months are going to kill me.