This time of year more than any other just feels like change. Not just any change but good change. The kind of change when everything can be fresh and good all over again. Where it really feels like this time around things can be different. We had a significant downpour last night that brought with it significant drop in temperature. The leaves seem like they’ve started popping off the trees overnight. Everything is dying I suppose, but it feels like brand new life. I want this weather year round.

Ultimately, my entire decision-making process, big or small comes down to one guiding principle. Simplicity. I’ve been thinking about this theory for the past two days or so, but it really hit me tonight. I was watching the dogs play in the sand volleyball pit at Jaycee Park. Just bounding around in the near dark, crounching, pouncing, running, summersaulting. Then I noticed the sand was cold and that’s what made the difference. In that instant I was happy. Because I was present in the moment, noticing details, feeling the cold, feeling the grains swish to the side as I stepped, watching uninhibited joy, feeding from that joy.

And I thought, you know, really that’s what I need. I need to be able to get caught up in more of these little moments, free from thoughts of work or bills or deadlines. I need to strip things down to the bare essentials. I want to buy a bike (with fat tires so I don’t have to worry about any more bent rims) and live close enough to work that I never have to worry about $3/gallon gas or an exhaust system that rusts up every two years. I like having clothes on hangers rather than in a dresser. I like having a mattress resting on the floor. I like shopping at Goodwill for used t-shirts. I miss my old job at Wedgwood with its lower expectations and would gladly return to it if the pay were better. I loved my old room at Ethel straight out of college with my apple crates for furniture and my cheesy nature posters on the walls. Full of stuff that you like enough, put wouldn’t be devasted if you one day instantly lost it all (say in a freak act of nature).

I guess this why I sometimes get frustrated when Mary buys $100 sets of sheets or crazy Pottery Barn knickknacks. Because, suddenly it’s more stuff that you have to care and worry about. Nobody cares if the dogs track mud all over the $15 set of blue Target sheets, but with Ralph Lauren eight million thread count sheets it becomes a mini freakout session. But, of course, this is all very subjective as I will happily drop $100 on another piece of technology. “But, we use it all the time,” I exclaim. Very subjective I suppose.

Really, I shouldn’t complain too much though. The entropy in my life definitely seems to be fading. Maybe it’s just that ever never be truly at peace or satisfied until I own my own cabana on the ocean with a couple of surf boards, a couple of dogs, and a high speed interenet connection in a back room somewhere. And a kayak. And some mountians in the other direction. But that’s it. Really.

And while we’re on the subject of dogs shredding things. Trammell and Taylor got ahold of my old high school wrestling head gear last night. Obliterated. Scattered across the basement floor in a flurry on teeth and growling, I’m sure. I had a 100 plus wins in that head gear. And a 100 plus memories to go with it. I wrestled in conference championships, district, regional, and state finals. I sweated my tail off through hundreds of high school practices and dozens of college practices. I had, what I still claim to this day to be, the greatest single moment of my life in that head gear. It hung proudly on my hip on game day and on my wall in off season as motivation. It was ugly and battered, but it fit like an extension of my body and never once snapped off my head in the heat of battle (like the fancy new one I briefly replaced it with senior year). But then how can a couple of one year old dogs ever know all this? Looked like a toy to me! I didn’t even yell at them. Just gathered up the pieces, swept a few memories through my head, and tossed the scraps into the trash. Glory days, right? Moving on…

Trammell shredded his poor little carpal pads this afternoon while chasing a lacrosse ball across the neighbor’s driveway. We didn’t notice until about five hours later tonight though when we took both dogs out to Jaycee and Trammell refused to put his paws out of the window like he usually does. Kind of hobbled around the rest of the night. The blurry picture below shows the flaps of skin hanging off both pads. Poor guy.

I know I’m supposed to fired up to Save New Orleans! but I have trouble with this when I’m being bombarded by “heartbreaking images” broadcast behind sappy music. I was riding a bike at MVP last night with my pick of about four different TVs to watch while I pedalled. On one of them to my left Entertainment Tonight was literally telling me, “Now we’re going to show you some heartbreaking images over a moving song by…” a Johnny Cash remake of Bridge Over Troubled Waters. The woman speaking seemed to be brimming with pride that her show had something catastrophic to talk about. I’m all for helping people, but don’t ram it down my throat. And don’t ever give me the impression that you’re happy to have this event to talk about so you can interview celebrities about their opinions on the subject.