Warning, there will be no posts permitted on my blog today in response to this column. My -mail – [email protected] – is up and running.

If you want to tell me that there are libraries in this country and that they loan books, or that I am meddling with the lives of my Amish friends by bringing them a muffin pan, I’d hold onto those thoughts.

It won’t go well.

When I set out a few weeks ago to end the spate of trolling and arguing that was poisoning my mind and my blog, I did not, of course, realize how complex this would be, how much more thinking and work it would take.

There is good stuff and bad stuff out there in the ether, but the well has been poisoned by the lazy, the troubled, the ignorant, and the rude. We will all have to figure out how to handle it and keep our equanimity and manners.

Not an easy task for me, the issue just keeps rearing its ugly head., for me and for so many others.

I am making progress for sure, and am not discouraged. My will is as strong as anybody else’s anger and hate.

I am determined to create an environment that protects my freedom and sanity and also protects others.

I want a blog online that gives thoughtful and civil people a chance to discuss the ideas here in peace and safety.

Last night, I wrote a post about muffin pans and the Amish. I was amazed to see that it drew so many hostile, patronizing and insulting messages that I took the post down, something I rarely do.

I needed to say this first.

I refuse to argue my writing with strangers online.

I will not accept comments on this post today, I simply won’t invite offense onto my own blog and spend even a fraction of my remaining years arguing with strangers on social media about whether libraries exist or I am meddling in the lives of my friends.

I just won’t do it.

My blog is a monologue, not a dialogue, debating society, or toilet bowl for the neurotic, angry and idle.

I hope I never am so adrift that I have the time to send hostile, silly, or downright dumb messages to strangers online. As is evident, there is something of them in me, otherwise, it would never have gone this far.

I have been stupid and hostile too many times in my life to count. I’m quitting that.

The news is that I’m not doing this anymore. I will always be happy to speak with people I can respect and who can respect me. I’ll shovel the others out of my life and off of my blog like manure out of a barn.

The tools that make it possible for them to come make it possible for me to keep them out.

However painful the surgery is, I will root it out, I promise.

There are now billions of people out there, eager to tell me what to do, how to do it, and what is wrong with me. They will always keep coming.

My mother has been digitally replicated billions of billions of times and is now able to reach me instantly and from anywhere in the world.

How she would have loved to scold me online.

This could be one of the greater challenges of my life, and I am determined to rise to it.

It is the eternal challenge of identity that new media presents: who gets to tell my story?

I get to tell my story, I get to say what I mean, who I am, and what I am doing, the whole world doesn’t get to do that.

I have not stopped fighting for my identity, all of my life, and will not stop. The people who wish to tell me what to do and how to live will simply have to feast elsewhere.

I’d say I’m halfway there,  getting trolls and simple shitheads off of the blog.  It can be done. But the idea needs more work, as I learned yesterday.

My campaign for a gentler and more uplifting blog was ambushed last night, I was reminded that there are no quick fixes and that it would be foolish to relax when it comes to people on the loose with send buttons in smartphones and on computers.

I am humbled and awed by just how many people out there that I’ve never met are comfortable telling me what to do. Honestly, I am not worth it, I am too small.

I wrote what seemed an innocuous post about my very simple proposal to Barbara that she might consider cooking and selling muffins along with her popular pies and donuts.

She was cautious, as always,  about the idea but said she’d like to try it.

So, with her blessing and approval, and participation, I ordered one muffin pan for $8 dollars, some paper muffin cups for $3, and chose to buy a muffin recipe book myself as a gift.

The pan and book just came today, the paper muffin cups next week. I’ll bring them to Barbara (Moise’s wife) and she will either say no thanks, and I’ll return them, or she may pore through the recipes with her daughters and friends and try making some.

If she doesn’t sell muffins to her satisfaction or is unhappy for any reason, I’ll return them (we have 30 days). This is a fair and honest summary of what I wrote.

To me, the piece was about the complexity of offering help to people who are very uncomfortable with change, not about muffins. I must have done a poor job writing it, no one seems to have got the point or wanted to talk about it.

They wanted to talk about me.

But how much difference a day or two can make. What was noble and kind and interesting last week suddenly was intrusive, meddling, and an ego trip.

Today I guess I am learning that on the Internet, praise and condemnation are both fickle.

I found the muffin pan an interesting topic last night, and I find it interesting to share the experience. That’s what I do.

I’m going to write about how it goes, and what I am learning about people wary of change.

I am a friend and neighbor of the Millers, and I do make suggestions from time to time – brighter lights on the buggies, for example, wooden baskets for the veggies.

You can certainly call that meddling if  you’d like, but it is not meddling in any sense of the term to me,

No one has had a problem with that up to date, and Barbara has said no to my ideas a number of times, with no hard or strained feelings on either side.

The Amish are not needy, but because their transportation and access to information are limited, they seek and welcome help from outsiders who can bring them the information they want and need to know. Sometimes, we are asked to purchase things online that they cannot purchase.

I do this at least once or twice a week. There are many ways to help.

For example, the Amish always ask me if I know what the weather will be, as this affects their farms and crops, and plans. Barbara didn’t know about wooden baskets, and she didn’t know about muffin pans.

She had never seen one. She appreciates the help in understanding it.

Since they don’t have cellphones, TV’s or radios, the Amish have no way of gathering this information. When I come by, I read them the weather report from my Iphone and they thank me.

Sometimes there is news that affects them and their families and crops, and I will tell them about it.

We have a relationship in that way. I rarely see them or visit them, but when I do, the visits are very short.

I try to bring the information they might want. They thank me for this. On this very hot week, I bring them ice cubes so they can have cold drinks. They keep trying to give me money for this, but the ice cubes are very cheap and I don’t like taking money from friends and neighbors for ice cubes.

Barbara has absolutely no problem, for someone who is supposed to be cowed and brainwashed in patriarchy, with saying no to me. We have become good friends, and I don’t have a lot of shy friends.

She is always honest and direct with me, and I would never mislead her.

After the meddling lessons Monday night, there came the patronizing.

At least 30 people wrote messages alerting me to the fact that there are libraries in America and you can take books out for free. They seemed to see my book purchase of muffin recipes as a reckless and wanton waste from an unknowing man.

I started to write this: “What business is it of any of yours while the book I buy a friend.” I held my fingers off the keyboard.

They also pointed out that you can get recipes “zillions of them” online for free, and there is no reason for me to buy a book (which, I pointed out, is more expensive than the muffin pan.)

I am so very sorry to appear to be so stupid – I’ve written 36 books and spoken at libraries maybe a hundred times) as to make people think I don’t know about libraries and Google, the latter of which I use a dozen times a day.

I’m just smart enough to know I don’t have to buy a book for Barbara, the radical idea I have is that it’s nice to buy books for people, especially if they can use them for many years and help them do something new and interesting.

Call me strange, I don’t have to do that, I want to do that. I give books to everyone I know.

I get very tired of explaining that Barbara is not invalid or ignorant. But I should be patient. Most people just don’t know.

She has been cooking things and acquiring recipes (many mailed to her by other Amish women) for many years, 40 or more. She knows there are libraries in America, and even uses them.

She tracks down recipes all the time.

She would not have accepted the many offers to mail her recipes if she wanted or needed them (the answer is no and no.) or been comfortable with so many people presuming she was helpless.

Nor do I wish to print thousands of muffin recipes off online, as was suggested,  and bring them to her. Neither one of us would like that.

There is a difference between being helpful and being patronizing, between showing concern and invading someone’s space. These lines are sorely blurred on social media.

People like me share their problems, but we are not giving them away to other people. They belong to us.

I am responsible for solving my problems, not strangers online. Barbara is very responsible for her challenges and responsibilities, she is not asking me or anyone else for help getting recipes.

I have watched uneasily as the Internet, and especially social media developed a completely different ethos: your problems are my problems, and if you don’t want to listen to my solutions, there is something wrong with you.

That jas never struck me as healthy, on or offline.

My rule has worked for me:

I never offer to help people unless they ask for it. I never give advice unless I know it is wanted. If people share their problems with me, I never take over the problems and assume they are being handed to me or are mine to solve.

One of the sad consequences of the Internet is that it has blurred or obliterated the whole idea of boundaries, those etiquette column writers would have been horrified to see how social media has created armies of crisis lovers and problem thieves.

If you resist this charity, you are cold and cruel.

People who don’t know me at all have no problem telling me what to do or what is wrong with me.  I consider that rude and presumptuous, I would never do it to anyone else.

In my word, it was considered bad manners to intrude into the personal lives of people you don’t know. On social media today, it is considered a sacred right, people are outraged when I turn it away.

My muffin proposal is not a crisis for Barbara, or me, or anyone else. Nor is it, as several people accused me of last night, “meddling.”

This proposal to Barbara is only “meddling” if it is forced or unwanted- like much of the advice and questions I get online.

Barbara and Moise are grateful for the small amounts of help I’ve given them. I have never pressured them in any way to accept my ideas, if I did, that would be the instant end of our friendship.

The Amish have not survived for 500 years by letting outsiders tell them what to do or how to live.

Somehow, there is the perception that people who ride in buggies and don’t buy fancy clothes are emotionally disabled and need to be protected.

If you know any Amish people,  you know how absurd, even ridiculous, an idea this is. They are solvent,  strong, independent about what they do, what they want, and what to accept.

They do not need the patrolling mommas and poppas and alarm sounders of the Internet to guard them against meddling menaces like me.

For the second or third time in my blog life, I took a post down. I didn’t like it, it made me furious.

These comments were upsetting to me, and I was angry at myself for taking even five minutes to try to answer them.

That is, I gather, my disease, the need to respond. That is my wound that never healed. I took the comments down and then took the post down, and went to bed.

Even then, I had trouble sleeping. I see I simply have to protect myself from the billions of critics and idle people who have nothing better to do than second-guess me and anyone else they can find.

And no, I am under no moral or legal obligation to post their messages or criticisms or to respond to their many questions and concerns.

As should be obvious to anyone, I love to argue about ideas, the only line I draw is that I will not be insulted on my own blog in my own space.

The blog and my social media pages are my home online, and I will not allow any behavior online that would not be acceptable in my home, or that irritates or insult me. Remember, there are billions of you and one of me.

People who are cruel or insulting will simply not be allowed to participate in my interactive pages. Those people get bored quickly when there is no one to hate them back.

I will continue to look for and publish the important comments of people who can be thoughtful, civil, and yes, critical if they can avoid insulting me or other people. And yes, I get to decide.

It’s my blog, my Facebook Page, I work hard at it and pay for it. I do what I want here.  This is where I  share my thoughts, not everyone else’s. People with better ideas should start their own blogs and work as hard as I do and Maria does.

I’m continuing my work to make the blog a place of ideas and open dialogue, I’m not going to enable neuroses, bullshit, or drama thieves. Please don’t ever tell me again that there are libraries in America and that one can loan books from them.

Today, I expect my muffin pan and yes, my book, will be delivered!

I will bring them to Barbara along with my daily ice cubes and leave them there. In a day or so, she will say yes, she wants more, or not, she doesn’t want to bake muffins.

Either answer is perfectly fine with me, I own no stock in muffin companies.

If you have any comments or thoughts about this blog, they will not be published today.

Normal posting will continue elsewhere and resume tomorrow.

If you need to say something to me, you can always e-mail me at [email protected]. I’d caution you not to meddle with the nature of my blog.

PostScript. I brought my trial muffin pane and my book, The Complete Muffin Cookbook by Gloria Ambrosia along. (I’ve ordered another book through my bookstore, and yes, I am aware I could find some book somewhere in some library if I looked.

She also talked to me about order pie boxes, she just ran out. I ordered six hundred online, and I also ordered, at her request, 150 aluminum tins for the popular zucchini bread she bakes.

She also told me that she wanted to go ahead and make some muffins in the next week or two and see if they sold.

As usual, we talked about measurements and prices, and discounts. I am pleased she and Moise trust me with this responsibility, it means everything to their food sales and packaging.

I told her about the people suggesting I was meddling in her life. The Amish don’t criticize people or argue with them. She just shook her head and thanked me for helping out.

I told her to prepare for two or three more days of heat.

She asked if I could bring three bags of ice cubes today, as it is so hot. I could not have been more comfortable and went home and ordered the zucchini tins, and three boxes of pie boxes.

In the next week or two, I expect to be looking for a good price for pie pans, and no, she is not looking for people to purchase them or send theirs.

She says she has all the muffin recipes she wants or needs.