[Terra Nola documents the long-distance love affair between a New Yorker and New Orleans.]

As you may or may not (and most likely it's the latter) have noticed I have been out of touch lately and posted little on our dear city. Unlike Chris Rose, whom we hunted down enthusiastically when he took a brief hiatus not so long ago, I am sure that my absence went under the radar screen.

I sort of feel like Nola in general is gliding under that radar screen with me lately. I remember when the Big K hit and how all the major newspapers and online sites like New York Times and Yahoo, to name a few, had gobs and gobs and GOBS of stories about the city. most of them were negative, of course, centering around the brutal, violent and deadly aftermath of the hurricane when the levees broke. Then I watched as the information, and sensationalizing, dwindled until there was nary a drop of info on Nola to be found anywhere, save the usual suspects like nola.com and the New Orleans section of Craigslist.

The lack of interest was noted on bloggingneworleans as well. We'd receive fewer and fewer hits and comments on our blogs and features until our numbers made me wonder why we were bothering to blog in the first place. When major annual events like Jazz Fest and Mardi Gras hit we of course received record visits to the site and innumerable comments. After those events, though, the visits would return to a trickle.

Despite these numbers, and a lack of interest (still!) from the government, local interest continues to abound. We continue to write to you about the goings on in the city, both good and bad, and attempt to interpret events and decisions that affect us. A lot of what we do is complaining, I guess, but I would hope that complaining represents the feelings of Nola citizens.

After all, if we're not writing about New Orleans and complaining about the mistreatment--or complete lack of treatment, if you ask me (I know you didn't but this is my feature!)--then who will? And if no one is writing about it, then where will folks who care go to get their info, biased though it may be by people who love the city and hate to see her at the center of so much peril?

Sure, you could continue to read the Times Picayune and check out nola.com. Those sites are forums for unbiased journalism that cover far more than the powers that be at bloggingneworleans could ever hope to. Yet we offer a little something extra, I think, a little lagniappe if you will--and I know you will otherwise you wouldn't be reading this feature or checking out our site.

We offer what I hope is more of a man/woman about town perspective, from deep within the trenches. I of course, living in New York, don't qualify for that kind of perspective, but you know what I mean. The major newspapers and online sites offer more of a bird's eye view, which has its place too.

When I want to hear the heartbeat of the city, though, I head to the blogs of my colleagues. I feel like despite their misgivings about local government, the state of crime and the future of the city's economy, their hearts of gold will cut a clear path through the mishmash to what's really going on, how people feel about it and what they're gonna do about it.

The commenters to these posts are another source of indisputable truth. They may be few and at times far between, but what they say always touches me or points out an angle I hadn't thought of.

Their comments also let me know they're actually out there, living, working, trying to get by, interested enough to reflect and offer observations about our blogs. They remind me that even if just one person reads my feature then that is all that matters. That person may or may not agree with me, but I appreciate that he or she took the time to bother, when so many others do not.

Just when I think no one is out there in the ether, no one is watching or paying attention, someone offers me words of praise or thanks or happiness that we are posting about the city. It's an odd connection in that I will most likely never meet any of these commenters, but the connection is all the same. It's not one I share with my cohorts here in New York.

In fact, I may never get to meet my colleagues at bloggingneworleans, but that is incidental. We are united in our interest in the city, in preserving what it was and hopefully in being a part of its future.

That's the good thing about New Orleans. I think about the 'future' of such cities like New York and LA, but their future seems much like their present. With New Orleans the picture is so very different. Having been washed back to next to nothingness in some places, the slate wiped clean, it is possible to rebuild with a new vision. The possibilities are endless.

Someone has to document this rebuilding, this new vision, this New New Orleans. I guess, for now, we'll be the ones to do that documenting. And those who read about it will be the ones who are interested in being a part of the process, or in at least being witness to it.

It's nice to be connected to people in such a way. It's nice to know there are other folks out there like me who have the future of the city at heart.