Greetings From Nashvegas, Tennessee

The dust has settled, the sweat has run, and the electricity has been turned on: yep, that’s right, I’ve moved to Nashville. I’ve had the dumb luck of renting an amazing apartment, sight-unseen, simply because I ran out of options on the virtual eve of my move, and it has been the beginning of a streak of good luck that I’m assured is due to the fact that God has fallen asleep at the monitor bay of the universe (imagine a room, as in the movies, where they watch the security cameras for a large building…except with God), and is currently unaware of the imbalance of good fortune that has befallen me. In the weeks leading up to this, I’ve had misfortune left and right, ultimately peaking when my car crapped out the day before I was supposed to move; the head gasket went bad, and engine coolant began to leak, and my local mechanic assured me that my engine would seize up and die if I tried to drive it to the grocery store, let alone Tennessee. Even as I crossed the Tennessee border, heavy rain commenced to fall, leaving us to move in to the new place in the pouring rain.

But look at me now, Universe!

So, I think I really like this town. I love my neighborhood, which rests comfortably between the 12th Avenue South and Hillsboro Village centers, where cool shops and good eats abound, and is cradled by the academic and co-ed hotbeds of the universities Vanderbilt and Belmont. Just today, while perusing the cereal isle of my neighborhood grocery market, I bumped into none other than legendary Americana songwriter John Prine (I went for the old fashioned oats, as he appeared to be choosing between versions of Raisin Bran).

The house has been a lot of work to get into shape, and we are still lacking a severe amount of furnishings, but the canvas with which we have to work is astonishing. We have two “living” quarters that we’ve agreed will have decidedly different themes; the first room, also the entrance, has a wonderful working fireplace, and will be “The Parlor”, which will house the wetbar, the phonograph, the bearskin rug, and will be the gathering place to watch the fire, imbibe spirits, and discuss matters of political and sexual consequence; in the next room, to be dubbed “The Key West Lounge”, we have our wicker chairs, steamer trunks, and posters from the Pan American Airlines, in case we need to take a little vacation. Also worthy of noting, Harlan and I have dubbed our shared bathroom “The ManSpace”, complete with hula-girl Christmas lights, a Mexican-tile sink, and “The Man Pod”, a shower with a cylindrical casing, which resembles the kind of thing one might climb into in order to be teleported or perhaps cryogenically frozen; it will also be the Center for Research into Advance Shaving Technique and Etiquette and Other Sundry Retro-sexual Grooming Apparati.

Also, if anyone in Nashville has leads on a locating bearskin rug, please let me know.