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Loca Negra decided in my runaround frenzy yesterday to chew the baseboards in the office – harumph. Today I tried to be Cesar the Dog Whisperer calm and her mood has reflected mine – she has been a perfect angel.

I think I’ve got to be the luckiest person in the world to live in my wonderful house, in this fabulous city, surrounded by people I know and love and am just meeting, with my old time companion Arlene the Bean (aka Black Dog), and now have this bundle of joy, Loca, come into my life. She is a snuggler big time – she just comes across the room and leaps on top of me when I’m lying down and nuzzles into my neck.

There are now 300,000 people living in New Orleans according to the postal delivery statistics.

Only 200,000 left to go. I know of two people moving here. So it’s 199,998.

This is a 100-word essay topic that my interviewer wrote and is sending me a copy. She also wrote a similar version about New York years ago in the Pleistocene era. She said, “New Orleans is the type of place where women ask men to dance.”

Now didn’t we just come to the grand conclusion that no matter how far we’ve evolved that some things remain the same – in other words, men ask, women answer?

I can’t keep any of these rules straight in my mind – they’re like the Food and Drug Administration – this causes cancer, no it’s good for you, but only if you are an obese male, no wait, further reports confirm that it causes cancer, but only in your feet, if you’re female and never had children.

I might become the Relationship Administration czar – a woman should never pursue a man, unless she’s an assertive woman and he’s a shy man, no wait that causes him to feel like he’s not a man, and then she feels like she’s not a woman, which causes him to feel awkward and act cowardly, then she feels rejected and grows cold, further reports confirm there are many people sitting in front of their televisions alone tonight because they don’t know how to act.

The photographer shooting that LaLa was just adorable and I said I had lived in San Francisco for 15 years. She said, “Why would you leave?” I said New Orleans is my home. Later in conversation, I said that I felt New Orleans could accommodate my outrageousness. In San Francisco, I always felt like I had to tone it down about 20 notches. She said, “I felt the same way.” She mentioned being up north and going to a party where the invite said to wear your most outrageous outfit and so she did, and she stuck out like a sore thumb.

She went on to bemoan the lack of available attractive men in this city and the abundance of pretty women. I guess New Orleans is a catch all for attractive, outrageous, and interesting women – there must be a market for that somewhere, I told her.

Anne Churchill from Karma Kitchen is cooking at Bacchanal next Friday through Sunday (August 3 through 5):

Smaller menu, less attitude, more vegetarian stuff, humanely raised meat.

The weather has been so enjoyable at night, it’s the perfect time to catch up with Chris and the whole gang, while enjoying some damn good food. Anne’s cooking is delicious.

She’s also cooking for the LaLa house warming.

New Orleans Magazine is coming to photograph the LaLa for its October issue – I am fighting a three month old puppy who has decided all toys must be out, and fur must fly 24/7. The housewarming party is Saturday night and I’m getting a little anxious about everything that has to be done between now and then. Work is its usual juggle of a list of 80 things to do that grows to 100 before days end.

In the midst of all of this, Loca bit my toe on the foot that had the most work during my surgery. The toe got infected and so now add to my to do list – see the doctor, get antibiotics.

Mom called – she said she wasn’t feeling well but I needed to go buy us both PowerBall tickets. Add that to the list.

Yesterday, after getting most things squared away, I went to take Loca for an evening walk to calm down – both her and me. We were on the other side of the bayou when I saw a woman walking dogs that had been identified by a source of mine who had told me he was visiting New Orleans and walked the bayou with these dogs. I hadn’t run into her until just then. We stood there talking for two hours. Amazing. How do New Orleanians have more to say to each other than anyone on this planet?

She told me her entire evacuation and love life story and I told her mine. It’s amazing how we have been in the same space and I haven’t met her and it was through a source of mine in New York that she was brought to my attention. She’s lovely and bright and works in my industry. I swear Emerson was right – you don’t have to leave your backyard in order to see the world.

In the meantime, I came home late, tucked myself in, and was grateful that I am so blessed.

My friend who was discussing dating with me the other day said he read my blog entry and that he agrees with me about living the life you love and finding your love there. Only problem he says, is that he loves to sit at his kitchen table and listen to music, read, and drink a martini. So obviously Ms. Right would have to beat down his door to get to him.

But I know of one woman who drove a great distance to knock on his door – so this doesn’t exactly sound out of the realm of possibility.

The whiner: The other day I was talking to someone about a bunch of stuff I had to do in this coming week, which was why I couldn’t see her for dinner, and she said to quit whining. Well, now. I can get on a whining tear if you give me room to run with it. Whining sucks – but I have difficulty setting boundaries and just saying no, so inevitably I find myself offering up all the reasons why instead of just saying no – which in effect does indeed sound like whining – or is this whining?

The anxious one: This morning, a friend called me up and said she has been having a lot of anxiety lately and was going to get her blood checked because she thinks it is hormonal – and I said whoa, tell me about it. Look at all the reasons you would feel anxious I told her – business stress, relationship stress, world stress. Who wouldn’t be stressed?

The game face: Another friend sent me an email saying she is trying to cope with everything that is happening in her life – which is a lot – but she, I already know this about her, won’t whine or complain, instead she always puts a good face forward and she does heroic deeds every day. She needs a break.

The doubter: A friend called me and said he was feeling a little awkward around a woman he was hoping to ask out. He said he felt like he was groveling in just trying to communicate he wanted to go out with her after a going out mix up. I said all I know is women of all stripes like confident men – doesn’t matter what type of man – as long as they are confident. A deal breaker is the man who is too shy to ask you out, too scared he might be bothering you, too unsure of himself to pursue you. I gave him my confidence builder trick that I use – “hey, I’ve been rejected by better ones than you.”

The worrier: My mother called and said she is worried about not working. Let’s recall she worried when she was working. She just worries. She worries about things that might never happen, about things that happened thirty years ago, and she worries about worrying. All of that worry to me feels like a bunch of worms in your stomach vying to get out. Yuck, in other words.

An email was sent to the FSJN by a couple who got married three years ago at the Maison Dupuy and are moving here from Atlanta. They arrive this Sunday. They’ll miss my party, but I sent them an email welcoming them to the best place in the world. We’ve got 250,000 vacant seats we are trying to fill here in NOLA. The summer nights have been gorgeous – right now a nice breeze is blowing making porch sitting dreamlike and appropo for summer thinking.

Flower wrote that it seems like a dream – being here in New Orleans at the LaLa with my circle of friends and neighbors.

How many people are here now? 275K or 250K? It’s hard to gage – who wouldn’t want to come live here? This is real living – 24/7 – we are connecting, living, porch hanging while we are still grieving and hoping and waiting.

In Broadcast News, Holly Hunter’s go-getter cracker jack character would unplug the phone and have a mini cry session. This was how she dealt with stress. A few weeks ago I broke down in tears from the stress of my job and I even told my boss about it. Perhaps this isn’t the best path to success – full disclosure of your breaking points, but at that juncture I felt I had no choice but to say it.

The question is do you lose points in the world of work if you act like a girl? Or should the world of work incorporate more of the feminine to get it off the linear, freight train head-on collision, break neck track?

As a woman I always hope that the feminine brings something more to the table – so I hired a female contractor who basically screwed me out of $75,000.00. I’m wondering about a female president – will Hillary take us to a new level in leadership or let us down as so many men before her have? Can you imagine a world without the female? I can’t. But why does the female and male aspect continue to remain silo’d between the domestic and public spheres? A stay at home dad is still an oddity; a female CEO still calls attention to herself (read: Carly Fiorina for one).

Ying Yang – Bing Bang Boom.

But I digress. Big girls do cry. Take it from me, I’m one.