San Franciscans were very, very happy with the presidential outcome, and I can't imagine anyone who supported McCain was saying much about it last night. Cheering could be heard from apartment windows right after the results were called, and hipsters packed into bars to revel the night away.

But local propositions were a different story. Up to now, it looks as if gay marriage will be banned by a proposition defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Many gay couples were married in the days running up to the election anticipating this change, and sadness was in the air today from that camp. Proposition H, another big one for SF, would have had the city run by renewable energy by 2040, but the majority opposed it. So it felt a little contradictory that our country, usually known as center-right, elected a democrat and its first African-American president, while the state of California, known for its groundbreaking lefty moves, seemed to shift right.

I am going to be like everyone else here and admit that I am in love with this robot, a genius creation of animators who know just how to translate the little tiny movements of human body language that communicate to others so much of how we feel. It's funny that they can take those movements, apply them to creatures that don't even look too much like us, except for having vague versions of arms, shoulders, heads and eyes, and create what is really quite a romantic love story. I have to agree with the WSJ reviewer on the first 15-20 minutes, which are without words, being the best of the movie. It gets dicey when humans come in, not just because they are boneless and yucky, but because it takes you out of the entrancing world of Eve and WALL-E. Funny, they sound kind of like rappers.

Anyway, go see this movie with your BF or your BFF and learn how a real man should behave. And I don't mean the part about compacting and cleaning up all humanity's trash, although there is nothing wrong with that -- I mean the part about hooking himself onto the side of a spaceship and traveling to other worlds just to bring his main squeeze back to Earth. Now that's love.

Check out this cute trailer...

I am sorry to say that I go caught up with my work in the Big Easy and then with more work at home, and I let the initial shock of what I saw saw sort of drain away. I regret that - I wish I'd caught my first impressions. Because the day I spent in the Ninth Ward was a time that changed me, like as if a connection was made in my mind, linking lots of things that were already there.

I think it was the stoops without the houses that got me. Have you ever seen a stoop without a house? It looks a lot like a gravestone. It looks lonely there, like a statue, a monument, a lost dog. It doesn't look right at all. I think there are a lot of ghosts in New Orleans.

No, this is not Manhattan on LSD -- it's New Orleans!

I had a magical afternoon just after arriving in the Big Easy. All in a day's work, I saw the classic streetcars, Spanish-style homes and crazy Bars of the French Quarter before filling up on shrimp etouffe, jambalaya and red beans and rice. Through the details of my crazy life I was offered a book of free food and activities, and I tried to eat as much as possible on the first day (which I promise I will duly work off in my hotel's awesome gym). So after all that classic NOLA fare at Mother's Restaurant, a down-to-earth diner where people line up at a cafeteria-style serving counter as they drool over what they wish their moms had known how to cook, I went searching for more goodies.

The other day I was chatting with someone special who hit me with the ultimate question.

You know, the kind of question you’d hear in a movie when a supercomputer has taken over the world and the hero saves the day by asking one question that melts the computer's brain into a little brick of cheese.

It’s the question that goes like this: “What’s the secret to happiness?” (AKA: "What is the meaning of life")

I considered the fundamental nature of the universe. I considered the human soul. I considered the power of love. I rifled through all of my memories, grasping for any enduring, solid handhold to break the fall down the elevator shaft of logic.

In that moment my questioner was upon me like a street-sweeper on a distracted pigeon.

Being more vigorous than the average pigeon, I fluttered about seeking something solid to hinder my pursuer.

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So, what is Eco Dandy-ism [ED]? How common is it? Could it be treated? Could it be you?

Eco Dandies are simply the next evolutionary step for this organism:

You know, the types of people who are so amazingly fashionable that grooming goes right past the wardrobe and into the soul as well. The ones who will casually admit that their nonverbal presence has, on some particularly good days, caused blindfolded observers to mistake them for the Dalai Lama.

Being back for more than a week or two is different. You feel a part of things again. And the main thing for me has been being here in an election year. It's exhilarating to be here at a time of such change - when it looks like my country might go back to being something I could be proud of when I am abroad. I lived in France for a year 13 years ago, and there was of course anti-American sentiment - there was talk of the GATT and a "pays sans paysans" (country without countrymen/farmers). I got a lot of questions about Michael Jackson - did I think he was guilty? OJ ran off with the white SUV and we saw that on TV. The WTC got bombed. People didn't like us, but I was not embarrassed to say where I was from. Things have changed a lot.

For a case in point, go to Graham Greene's 1951 classic, The end of the Affair. You'll understand why Julianne Moore and Ralph Fiennes were psyched to play this lurid drama on the big screen, and you might even identify with parts of it if you have ever been through a terrible breakup.

Maurice Bendrix is obsessed with Sara Miles, who is the wife of Henry Miles, a civil servant. Maurice and Sarah have a history together - they enjoyed a long affair, including having sex in the married couple's house when Henry was there and actually walked right by the door. So they got pretty obvious at times and of course the loser husband ended up finding out.

But when I heard that Jamie is pessimistic, I realized I am too about a lot of things. But should I be. The fact that being "green" is in vogue has only added to my anxiety about the future and the world and whether civilization as we know it will remain for the coming generations. The fact that environmental preservations has been honed so perfectly to the individual makes me feel increasingly helpless about actually working for a cleaner world. To think that one person's actions make any difference is just absurd. Governments, corporations, these entities hold the key to reversal in climate change or clean water for everyone or clean oceans. I think the message of individual action - using more energy efficient light bulbs or recycling everything - comes at the expense of aggressively demanding government to fund research programs into alternative energy or ratify Kyoto, or better yet write the next pact on global climate change. If we all switched to Priuses tomorrow and only shopped at Whole Foods it wouldn't make much difference because the rest of the world wants to consume like we Americans have for the past 50 years.