Suddenly, 1,000 square feet had to hold not only Carol but me, full-time, and our two cats, who proceeded to take over the condo as if it were their own kitty condo. There are two couches. Each cat claimed one, which means we find ourselves shooshing and angering felines every time we want to sit down. There is a cat box in one bathroom, a cat box in the bathtub of the other. Every time we open the refrigerator door they come meowing and begging. They have basically ruined high-rise living for us. I joked with our friend, who is the condo association president:

"I know it's a $500 fine to throw a cigarette butt off my balcony, but is it still only $500 for something significantly larger? ... Or does the size of the fine increase with the size of the object?"

"Like what?" he asked.

"Oh, I don't know ... like a ... like a cat, maybe?"

"Same fine," he said. "Cats and ciggies will cost the same."

Instead, we bought a house. It's a swell place in the Green Hills neighborhood, with a huge screened-in porch that overlooks a ravine of trees that are atwitter with birds. Though I certainly won't miss the aggressive homeless folk, I'm reluctant to leave downtown. We're surrounded by countless interesting people with jobs that take them all over the world. Lyricists for some of the biggest names in music, for example, live here. Last week the head singer of Lady Antebellum was eating meatloaf with friends on my floor. I also believe that our building, though I can't prove it, also is the center of Nashville's gay mafia, which means the Christmas decorations are faaaaaabulous and we know everything cool within 20 square miles. I have worn a pink cowboy hat while drinking Cosmos and joined friends shouting out at the TV as we watch Glee.

I'm afraid we're going to be bored with the folk in our new leafy neighborhood. Imagine this scenario:

"Oh, it's really nice to meet you," I'll say to Bill Blah. "What do you do?"

"I'm a stock analyst," he'll say.

"And ...?" I'll ask. "Is that all? Anything else?"

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you write music for anyone famous?" I'll ask. "Do you run an entertainment company of some kind?"

"Uhhh ... well ...."

"Do you perform as a drag queen somewhere on the weekends? That would be cool."

"Uhm ... no ... but I do collect stamps."

Just kidding. I'm sure I'm gonna love the folks on Wentworth Avenue. Each time we've driven down the new street someone has waved at us from a driveway. I'm sure that Green Hills, like downtown, is filled with interesting people -- because this is Nashville, one of America's top-ten-favorite cities in just about every travel magazine.

A promise to my new neighbors: If I venture out in my underwear to get the mail, I'll promise to run so as to minimize disgust.

Mixed media: Human, trees, rock and sky.

A friend who's married to a Chinese woman explained it to me one time: "You're what they call lo fan," he said. "It means white rice. Look at you; you look like a redneck. Rednecks don't like authentic, spicy foods. They're dumbing it down for you."

Today, very hungry, I stopped into a Chinese restaurant to order some Szechwan tofu with vegetables. It looked fresh and delicious but, once again, it was so benign that I would have fed it to a baby. I wondered: What can I do to convince these Chinese cooks that I like SPICY?

And then I had an idea: I'd just been grocery shopping, so I went out to the truck and pulled out a fresh serrano chili and took it inside and asked to speak to the cook. With him watching, I bit off the chili all the way to the stem, chewed it slowly and swallowed without flinching. His eyes widened.

"See?" I said. "I'm not lo fan. I want it hot. Please. I grew up with Mexicans -- I'm used to it."

He took my entree back to the kitchen and whipped me up another. When he set it down in front of me I could smell that he'd added fresh ginger and I could see red pepper flakes coating the shiny vegetables like confetti.

As I ate my wonderfully spicy food I could feel the cook and his cashier-wife watching me over my shoulder, as if I was some exotic animal that had wandered into their restaurant.

"You want something to drink?" she asked.

"No, thank you." I replied. "This is perfect."

Though the movers don't come to Coconut Drive until the first week of January, I'm getting ready for them. I'm all by myself, and it's easy getting weepy as I sort through a quarter-century's worth of belongings.

Today I cleaned out and repaired my daughter's dollhouse, which had been all but abandoned beneath the stairs for the past decade. It's a little girl's dream dollhouse, made for Haley's fourth birthday by her Grandma Wanda. Wooden floors, real cedar shingles, three stories high.

I took all the contents outside, to the patio, with a pan of Mr. Clean-and-water and one of those spray cans of compressed air. I cleaned it all, then sorted everything by room into Ziploc bags. Also fixed and glued lots of things that had broken over the years.

I figured I needed to get this done. The movers will build a crate from wood, then seal it shut, and I'm guessing it will sit in the attic of our new home in Nashville for years to come ... probably until Haley has a family of her own. And on her daughter's fourth birthday, Carol and I will load it up into my truck and drive to wherever the hell she's living ... and we'll open it ... and Wanda's gift will be enjoyed for another generation.

Oh ... wait ... What if she has boys and no little girl? I suppose the house could be used as a barracks for little plastic army men. But which soldier would have to sleep in the pink canopy bed?