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So I think I’ve almost fallen off the front page of Digg.com by now… whoa. Someone “dugg” an old (bossy, idealistic, didactic, but sincere… sigh) post of mine about how to deal with website “trolls”, and in the space of 24 hours, it went from a small item in Tech News to the “popular” section and BAM!

This is early in the process:

Current Digg count is now well over 600….

If you were trying to access my site earlier, the traffic crashed me for about 3 hours (give or take a few moments of up-ness.)

What’s funny is that the post was more than a year old, and hardly anyone noticed. Still.

A few things:

While I still think people need to be kinder to one another online, I have definitely learned that you can’t make anyone change unless changing was something they’d considered anyway. You can only be the person you want to be and leave it at that. Build the relationships that matter to you, and let the rest lie.

It’s very strange to have people decide about who you are and what your writing is worth based on a single old post on your blog. Seriously.

Irony is alive and well on the Internet, and you have to laugh or you’ll find it a little depressing.

Originality is slightly less alive and well.

I’m way less prone to sweat the stupid crap that goes on, and just walk away from it — or delete it. Either way.

I still really, really love people.

And that’s that.

So you might as well start it on the right note.

Well, good morning, people.

I have four new bruises on my shoulders and arms from walking into door frames and the sides of elevators today. That’s how I know I’m tired… my balance disappears into the ether like cupcakes in an office kitchen. Either that or I’m dehydrated.

Sleep and water. Sleep and water. Two things I definitely don’t get enough of in my life. Oh, and Donettes. Who can get enough of those? The powdered ones. With coffee and a big glass of milk. THAT’S PERFECTION.

Why do I keep thinking about sugar?

Or why do I keep thinking about you, Sugar?

You know why.

Because I can’t get enough of your love, Babe…

There. That’s plenty of sugar for you…

And now for this week’s love list, which has no theme or boundaries whatsoever. Just pure love.

Which, like pure sugar, can get you through at least a couple hours with a smile on your face.

THINGS I LOVE

Sleeping in
Eating lemons
Clapping my hands when I’m happy
Smelling beachy
A good stapler
Hope
COFFEE
Sunrises
Rice bowls
Wit that doesn’t rely on cruelty
Chocolate-covered marshmallow bubble cookies
Having choices where at least one choice doesn’t suck
Music that makes you move almost involuntarily (and not just to turn it off)
Good dreams where you wake up kind of smiling
Sweet peas
COFFEE
DID I MENTION COFFEE
How many different kinds of laughs there are
My nonna’s engagement ring
Road trips (seriously, seriously missing them right now)
Sun breaking through clouds
Louisiana Hot Sauce
Ocean views
Being right (I know, I know…)
Being wrong in ways that help me learn (there, there.)
The sound of my coffeemaker starting up
Sundresses
Greek takeout
Shouting CAKE OR DEATH?
Asking people ridiculous questions that unlock their brains
Fresh flowers
Jazz
Inventing recipes
Dancing around my house by myself
Cold sausage rolls
Harmony
Freckles
PBS cooking shows
Curves
Barefootness on grass
Holmes on Holmes
George Clooney
Political debates with anyone I am not related to
Red toenails
A perfect sentence
Smack the Pingu
Soy candles
Clean (and very open) windows
Singing drives with Catherine
Marc Broussard (have I made that clear yet? Yeah, I get stuck on things…)
Advil Liqui-Gels
Bright rooms during the day, soft lighting at night
My new knives (Thank you for my Christmas present, Cat!)

And you? Tell me what you love today…

Well, we’ve done food before, but I’m hungry. So let’s do it again!

SO… do you know the rules?

Choose. Just one of the options.

Both, neither? Nope!

(Click on other “Either Or” entries to your right to learn how it works… and read people getting really frustrated at me. Ha!)

CHOOSE YE!

Basil or oregano?

Peppermint or cinnamon?

Au gratin or not?

Salt or pepper?

Juice or soda?

Peach or pear?

Bran or corn muffin?

Rare or well done?

Ice cream or frozen yogurt?

Godiva or Hershey?

Pizza or Chinese takeout?

Soy milk or cow’s milk (we might consider a vote in for rice milk)?

Caramel or hot fudge?

Italian or Greek restaurant?

French fries or nachos?

Caesar or garden salad?

Steak or chicken breast?

Pineapple or mango?

Sausage or bacon?

Garlic or ginger?

Croissant or scone?

Broccoli or corn?

Lobster or crab?

Curry powder or chipotles for heat??

Creamy soups or brothy soups?

Potatoes or rice?

Cake or pie? (CAKE OR DEATH??)

Raw veggies or cooked?

Crepes or pancakes?

Coffee, tea, or me?

Esquire magazine has a regular feature called “Women We Love” — generally a lass from one of the major entertainment fields who combines shockingly good physical condition with a certain wit or intelligence or artistic talent of some sort.

Or not.

She might just have really nice… well… you know.

In fact, I think it’s really less a “love” thing than a “lust” thing, but “Women We Lust After” just sounds more Maxim, doesn’t it?

So there you go.

I’m not the kind of girl who will ever appear in “Women We Love”, mostly because I would not look so appealing sprawled across a studio in a white men’s shirt (barely buttoned, of course), or moderately obscured by gauzy blowing curtains backlit by the sun.

In fact, you might wish to tell me to “Button that up! Don’t you own a bra? And where are your pants?” or “Stop standing by the window, you’ll get a chill, especially since you are COMPLETELY NAKED.”

At least my father would…and since he reads Esquire faithfully, there’s little chance he’d miss the photo shoot where they sat me under a tree holding a baguette, wrapped in a checkered tablecloth, next to a picnic basket full of vaguely Freudian items.

But I digress.

Now, lists like these are not strictly the domain of Esquire or Maxim or GQ. No, you’ll find their counterparts in Cosmopolitan and Glamour: “Men With Their Shirts Off” or “Men Out of Uniform” (or something equally cringeworthy.)

I’ve glanced at a few, I admit it.

But despite the appeal of a somewhat idealized (Oh, who am I kidding? You could get a paper cut off those abs…) male form, I never really feel any sort of connection to the “mancake”.

No, the Men I Love are something a little different. A little… off the beaten path.

A little older than me, sometimes, but it’s not like I’m planning to MARRY them, I just love them from afar like a teenage girl with a Shaun Cassidy poster in her locker. Which was before my time, granted (I had Ralph Lauren models up, I was shameless then…) but who would miss the chance not to show up in Shaun Cassidy Google searches?

Certainly not me. Shaun Cassidy. Shaun Cassidy. Hello, if it’s you, Shaun… call me!

I’m digressing again, aren’t I? Back at it.

Here are a few of my choice beloveds:

Ira Glass: Yep. I love me some Ira. He’s the host of This American Life on Public Radio International, an author (I own at least one non-fiction collection he edited), and a generally bright guy. What do I love? I love that he tells stories that make him chuckle mid-sentence. I love his wit. I love his awareness of the world around him.

This is the guy I would have crushed madly on when I did debate team in high school. Mind you, back then, I wouldn’t have approached him because I wouldn’t have believed I had anything to offer. And I love that now I know I do.

One more thing… the glasses. Oy.

Paul Newman: Now, I have to say, young Paul Newman remains about the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. Really. But it’s Older Paul Newman that I love. I love the endurance of his marriage to Joanne Woodward in a fickle town — he once condemned adultery with the remark, “Why go out for a hamburger when you have steak at home?”

I love that his charity benefits a wide swath of deserving people, from breast cancer patients in Wales to seriously ill kids across the world. I love that his salad dressings are ALWAYS good. I love that he quit acting last year (at 82) and will still be directing a play this year (at 83.)

I love that he only got more sexy as he got older, which just goes to show that conviction and integrity age well.

Marc Broussard: Heard of him? You should have. But I won’t blame you if you haven’t. Instead of blathering on and on, though, I’ll let him do his thing for you:

Blue-eyed soul with a Louisiana flair. Heeeeello, could you BE more up my alley?. He’s only 26 this year, but the maturity of his sound is years past that.

Okay, one more with my favourite, Sara Bareilles:

Brian Williams: Major, major crush on his anchormanness. Seriously, now. This is a man who brings gravity where gravity is needed — he rode out Hurricane Katrina in the Superdome as the only network anchor on the scene — and can still hang with Jon Stewart and the kids at SNL. See?

He does look fabulous in a tie.

And that’s really what counts, isn’t it?

Calvin Trillin: One of my favourite authors by far, and a mainstay at the New Yorker, which is a magazine I grew up flipping through after my dad and mom were done reading the cartoons out loud to one another.

He has a firm grasp of both wit and (non-maudlin emotion) in his work — a balance few strike without shafting one side or the other — and a love for his family that is transparent in each word he commits to the page about their lives.

I’ll let him tell you about himself.

And about his wife:

I love it.

So tell me about men or women you love… and why?

I admit it.

I can’t make up my mind.

About a LOT of things.

Not just a couple things, because that would be easy… or at least it wouldn’t matter so much.

Because a couple indecisions? No problem. Unless, say, it involves nuclear war or skinny jeans: yes or no?

Those are not decisions you just don’t MAKE. There are clear moral directives at play.

Unlike with my hair.

Oh, my hair. SHUT UP ABOUT THE HAIR, MEG. Yet do I? No, I don’t. Because something in me still believes there’s something that can be done to render it… well, less like it is.

My latest thought is that perhaps… well, I will go blonde. Not REAL blonde, mind you, but some caramel and butterscotch highlights over a nice chocolate base.

Did you know my hair was a dessert?

Now you do. Check it out:

Yes, that’s right: I’m thinking hair colour will turn me into Jessica Alba.

(Imagine!)

No, no… I’m not. I’m just thinking of doing something sassy, bright, fun and DIFFERENT. Different from my die-hard, anti-highlight-because-why-do-they-cost-so-much-and-also-that-one-bad-experience brunette stickler ways. Something fun to fit a new era in my life, and an experiment that I can always dye out or grow out or sell to a young boy in exchange for his goat.

What?

But I can’t decide. Who thinks that much about hair colour (who isn’t being paid by a studio to make them shiny moving pictures)?

That’s right. Waffle Girl.

The same girl that can’t choose shoes.

I hate shopping for shoes. I loathe it. I mean, shoes themselves are nice, if not sore-making at their heights and puddle-soaked at their depths.

But who can possibly pick from the millions of possibilities… and who wants to pay approximately ONE MILLION BILLION DOLLARS for one decent pair?

Do I want boots? Uggs? Real or fake? Ballet flats? Real or fake?

(What the hell would a fake ballet flat entail? A copy of the Center Stage DVD?)

And I won’t even get started on my moronic indecision about the right running shoe. JUST BUY SOME AND GET MOVING, MISSY.

But I don’t. I fuss about pronation and supination and arch support and endurance soles and neat $300 shoes that make you feel like you’re running in the sand.

Because my first thought when I put on shoes is generally: do they feel like sand?

You too?

My final area of painful indecision is clothing.

(Yes, basically the appearance trifecta. Stop staring.)

I know what I like, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that choosing the right pieces — lasting, classic, elegant, prone to stretch over my ass in a flattering way and not like a Christos installation — is tough on a reasonable budget. Or an unreasonable one. Which mine might be to someone who spends more, but a veritable fortune if you spend less.

I’m a jeans/cute shirt/good shoe/nice handbag girl like, OH, EVERYONE ELSE, but there are so many variables at play.

So, instead of choosing, I just keep putting it off until I fritter all my money away on random $7 sale item t-shirts that fall apart in two washings. Sometimes when I’m wearing them!

If you asked me what looked good on you, I could tell you.

I’ve shopped for many of my friends, with great success.

When I’m standing back three feet, it just seems clear to me exactly what the right look should be, and exactly what it will take to get there.

I just can’t do it for me. And I know it’s bigger than money and too much selection and a moral objection to handing over my right leg for a cute pair of red heels (now that would be ironic, Alanis!)

It’s an essential discomfort with ME. With how I look. With how I move. With how people have seen me over the years and how that has made me feel.

Because I can’t solve those things quickly, I flop between this hairstyle or that and this jean or that and this peeptoe or that in the hope that I’ll magically became okay with myself along the way. That there’s a formula to crack. A balance to achieve with the externals that puts the internal at ease.

I know nothing in life actually happens that way, but it’s easy to distract yourself from reality with waffles.

And we all know what THEY do for the fit of your pants.

Sigh.

Pass the syrup.

But I am a tired girl. So how about some pictures instead of words?

The view from my deck this morning:

… and tonight:

And the flowers I bought today:

The pashmina addiction wall at our home:

How are you guys?

Anything you’d like me to blog on?

Tired girl likes suggestions…

And a lot more giggling…

Meg and Buzz enjoy a little Afternoon De… hate?