On the Road and Customer Service Survey

Hi all,

For the next few days (until Tuesday), I will be out of town visiting with family and friends. There's pretty much no guarantee of consistent internet connectivity; and even if there is, I may decided to take a rest for a few days anyway. This will probably mean few to no posts. My guess is that I will mostly log in to check email and comments, but won't be writing much on the blog...but you never know. I might surprise you. You'll just have to check back and see.

In the meantime...

1) There are lots of fabulous people in the blogrolls on the right who I encourage you to check out.

2) I'd love to get your opinion on something. The lovely, talented, and always brainy Artful Dodger has generously offered to help me update my blog template if I want to. He's designed a number of blogs lately and does some amazing work.

I think it would be nice to get out of standard blogger template purgatory, but I'm not sure what direction I want to go, exactly. I often admire the fresh, clean look of blogs that are primarily white in background, but I also often think they don't quite "feel" like me. So I'd like some opinions. I tend to gravitate toward the color black. I kind of like the dark, telling secrets kind of mood it gives the blog. And I like the burst of color effect the photos have against the background. But sometimes I think the whole white-on-black thing is too hard on the eyes. What do you think? If I changed color scheme radically, would you feel you weren't "home" anymore? If not, any ideas what you think would make for a nice change? Given my content, what colors do you think I am? Would you like to see a fancy-schmancy banner? Any ideas for the banner? What image reflects a "sexeteria," anyway? How do you embody "food, sex, and spectacle" in a template?

Right now where I live there are loads of magnolias, cherry blossoms, and wisteria in bloom, and it keeps making me think I want a cherry tree on my blog. Pink and white against sky blue, like I see out my window every morning. But that's just SO not like me most of the time. Must have spring fever. And really, thematically, it has nothing to do with this blog. But do I care?

So anyway--ideas and suggestions for either the design or the blog in general? What about the current design do you like/not like?

And if you feel like it, in terms of what you're reading/seeing here every day, what could I be doing better?

In other words, fill in the blank(s):

When I look at your blog, I wish _________________.

or

This blog could use more ______________________.

or

Miss Syl, please, please, please give me _______________________.