Should I pull all of my Coupland novels down off of my shelves looking for the line? The line about how if we took the time to look back at the incidental moments in our lives we would see patterns emerge-- an entirety of a life we had no idea we were living? I can't remember the context-- Cathy in Life After God? Claire in Generation X? But the idea-- stuck like glue.

A few weeks ago I finally got around to watching Before Sunset and within the first few moments I was swept up in Ethan Hawke quoting Thomas Wolfe: "But we are the sum of all the moments of our lives-all that is ours is in them: we cannot escape or conceal it." And I got to thinking about these moments--incidental, accidental-- that create our life's clay. And then about how my clay seems so very sparse... how lately my moments have been disintegrating before I find the energy to record them... and how I'm sure to have been missing the patterns. Every day is filled with a million tiny sparks that I want to hold on to and look back on and understand.

Whirlygirl is nearly six years old-- and although I often drop off of the face of the earth, I have recorded more of my life in these past six years than is contained within any of the clothbound journals of my late teens and early twenties. I often look back to try to see the patterns-- but I'm often simply overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the early years. These ever-so-slight redesigns are part of my constant effort to simplify the site to the point that my needs to create and share are not outweighed by the burden to post. Or as Todd suggests, it's an attempt to use an e-Roomba to clear all of the dust off whirlygirl, making room for the magic of those day-to-day nuts and bolts that hinge a life together.

I've recently begun begging B to help me (read: FORCE me) to dump the kitchen sinks from my code and move into the present with something blog-friendly like Moveable Type. But until then, let's take this version out for a spin.